[Zope-PTK] What is the PTK?

Chris Withers chrisw@nipltd.com
Tue, 05 Sep 2000 16:23:31 +0100


Paul Everitt wrote:
> The PTK also needs a new name.  I've spent a lot of time over the last
> two weeks thinking about it.  If someone comes up with a name, lemme
> know.

What happened to that funky dictionary you had in Paris? ;-)

> 1) A _product_.  Zope is a platform that isn't necessarily
> out-of-the-box useful.  The thing that we're interested in needs to be
> on the order of Squishdot -- immediately grok-able and useful.

Now this sounds like what is currently PTK Demo...

> 2) Consulting-ware.  I'll go ahead and contradict one immediately as
> evidence of the tension.  We want PTKNG to be flexible for consulting
> projects.

...and this sounds like PTK Base.

How's this for a possible future:
The tools in PTK Base work their way into the Zope core over a period of
time and either ship as standard or come in a couple of very-standard
add on modules:
- Zope Content Management Tools
- Zope Community Management Tools

Then, on top of this, there would be 'standard products' which, again,
may or may not ship with Zope:
- PTK (with its funky new name ;-)
- Squishdot

The idea for these would be to not include any tools that might be
useful for another product. If that's the case, they should be factored
out into on of the two ZCMTs sets. That said, these products might
contain tools for a while, while they're 'growing', as seems to be
happening with the PTK right now...
(it strikes me the dependency checking mentioned in the Installation
System proposal on dev.zope.org would be very helpful in this looks at
the future...)

> 3) Targeted at the CMS market.  The next phase of Digital Creations is
> to focus on the content management systems market, where products like
> Vignette, Broadvision, Interwoven, and Spectra reside.  These are all
> generally balances between (1) and (2), combined with very high end
> professional services.

Surely if (1) was underpinned by a very good and flexble (2), it'd be a
win-win situation?

What does everyone else think?

Chris

PS: In Step 2 of 3 in the Add Portal Wizard there's a 'Design' dropdown.
Is that an appropriate place for Swishdot to appear, or would that not
really be flexible enough?