[ZDP] Zbook: New ZCL update proposal

[Kamon Ayeva]

Hi all,

I agree (and I think others do) with the need Shalabh has put in light.
The goals/assumptions information of each part of the book should be
included in the Abstract field (which already exists).
Actually the goal information was already mentioned in the ZCL page for each
part. It just was incomplete and limited to Parts. Should we also have this
abstract for chapters ?
Anyway, I think it should not be difficult to improve the Zbook outline.
At the same time, we should agree on what should be removed. I agree all the
hype should be, because Zope is becoming a complex environment, and ZBook
would need to focus on providing value added and updated information
instead.

Regards,
Kamon

----- Original Message -----
From: Shalabh Chaturvedi <shalabh@pspl.co.in>
To: Kamon Ayeva <kamon@ecubateur.com>; ZDP <zdp@zope.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 7:14 AM
Subject: Re: [ZDP] Zbook: New ZCL update proposal


> Hi all:
>
> I read more of the ZBook yesterday - some general comments:
>
> 1. There doesn't seem to be a good flow in the ZBook as a whole. Ideas and
>     concepts that haven't been introduced are referred to in chapters. And
>     some concepts already explained are repeated.
>
> 2. The first two parts seem to focus more on 'selling' zope and justifying
some
>     zope philosophies. I don't think that is required. The focus should be
on
>     introducing the concepts one by one (building up on previous ones or
>     external knowledge). After each chapter the reader should feel he
>     has 'learned' something useful. All the hype should be removed.
>
> I propose an addition to the way the ZBook contents outline is written.
The
> goals for each chapter and each part should be very well defined. For each
> chapter, the following should be clearly written down:
> 1. "This chapter is meant to be read by TA"
> 2. "We assume the TA
>         a. has some idea about A, B, C
>         b. has good knowledge about X, Y, Z
>         c. may have knowledge about K, L, M"
> 3. "The goals of this chapter are to
>        a.Introduce D, E, F
>        b.Explain in detail G, H, I
>      to the TA."
>
> TA: Could be 'anyone starting off with zope' for the initial chapters and
> 'website developer', 'aspiring product developer', etc or any combination
of
> these for the later chapters.
>
> A,B,C...X,Y,Z: Are concepts that would range from 'how the web works' to
> 'acquisition' and 'ZODB' etc.
>
> Once this is done, veryfying that the book as a whole is fine is a two
step
> process:
> 1. Looking at the outline goals/assumptions for each chapter and verifying
that
>     the flow is fine.
> 2. For each chapter verifying that the contents match with the respective
>     assumptions and goals.
>
> Frankly, the ZBook didn't look like I would have expected it to. It is
quite
> possible I have a different idea of the goals of ZBook and the intended
target
> audience than what they really are. Again a reason to write down goals and
> assumptions about the audience.
>
> Thanks,
> Shalabh
>
>