[GSoC] Idea : RESTful interface for Zope

[Martijn Faassen]

Hi there,

Thanks for your idea!

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Thomas Cordival <tuxella at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that Zope could be a great framework to develop WebServices in
> python and then it could be interesting to implement a generic kind of view
> for WebServices that could be the base for SOAP or REST interfaces.
>
> From a more practical point of view, the idea would be to create a base
> from which it would be easy to implement interfaces for REST, SOAP, XML-RPC
> or other web services oriented protocols.
>
> If this would be accepted as an idea for the GSoC, I would be volunteer to
> address it.

I'm a bit surprised: how do you see this working? SOAP and REST are
extremely different ways of approaching web services. Very much in
brief: SOAP exposes an API to the web, and REST a protocol. Web
services on top of SOAP take a very different shape than web services
that use RESTful patterns. I have trouble envisioning a generic view
that is useful as a base to both. Could you sketch out your ideas in
more detail?

In addition, Zope 3 already has a REST support package, and Grok also
contains (different) REST support. Both Zope 3 and Grok share their
XML-RPC support as well. There is also a 'soap' package that adds SOAP
support to Zope 3, though I'm not sure whether it's being actively
used or maintained (which might show there is little demand for SOAP
support in Zope, but perhaps not).

Anyway, my response would be to get a lot more specific. "Web services
of any kind in Zope" is rather broad. In addition, I suspect you
should do more research: your message doesn't seem to show awareness
that we already have support for much of what you'd like to create.

Regards,

Martijn