[ZDP] ZDP weekly news

[Tom Deprez]

* Alexandre Ratti released a new how-to draft on the ZDP list. You can find
more on his site. http://www.zope.org/Members/AlexR/SelectionLists

* The new zdpsite : http://zdp.zope.org:8080 is experiencing some small
problems, that's why the site is regulary down.

* Ute made a nice new front page, but it isn't uploaded yet to the new site

* Tom made a small ZClass for storing the weekly news. From now on, you can
surf to http://zdp.zope.org:8080/zdpNews and read the weekly news pages

* Michel is going to write a Zope-book for beginners (O'Reilly). You can
find the proposed outline at http://www.digicool.com/michel/ZopeBook/

* Nevertheless, Michel is writing a book for beginners, ZDP sticks with
it's plan. That is, we keep writing stuff like proposed on the ZCL, aimed
to beginners. Later on we will see what to do for more advanced users.

* Michel has promised to help review our material (ZBook) on ZDP

* Tom contacted Jim Sumser of IDG. They expect this from a book : I'm
inclined to prefer practical books that will help administrators or
technicians work with a product. I don't like big, boring books that ramble
on and on about nothing. If somebody wants the respons I got, just give a
note and I'll send it to you (I don't send it to the list, because I don't
know I'm allowed).

* Ute received response of NR for proposing a name for the book.

* The publishers make life certainly not easier at ZDP. It wasn't our
intention in the first place to publish ZBook, although lot's hoped (in
their mind) this would happen one day. I think this interest comes a little
early. However, we decided to do the things like we were doing... ie. with
Anarchy as Order

* Ute is looking into all the books she can find and will abstract the
perfect style guide... then she will reformat ZBook Chapter I in these
rules. She already posted some style rules... more to come!
 
* Anthony Baxter proposed a new 'thing' for ZDP. It are Zope snippets :
little snippets of code that are just a little big for a tip, but a lot
smaller than a how-to. He's busy working on a tool for easy mastering our
'ZSnippets'

* Kamon, Stephan and David are working on something to publish the
directory structure of Zope (zope installation tree reference) and
explanation of it.

* All people tell that Tom must be the contactperson. Although he likes the
idea, there is some small glitch... Calling to America from Europe isn't
that cheap and language problems can give confusion. Therefor Tom proposes
that somebody in America helps Tom out or becomes the contactperson. I
propose Ute, because she is doing this stuff!! Ute can/will you help?

* Tom posted his drafts of his old site on the web. Waiting to see if some
stuff can be used and what has to be improved, moved .... 
http://zdp.zope.org/ZBookStatus/chapter_Unknown
http://zdp.zope.org/ZBookStatus/chapter_Unknown2

* Tom will write a mail to both publishers in which we tell our situation.

Did I forgot something?
See you next week!