[Zope-dev] Transparent folders?

[Tom Deprez]

Hi Martijn,

Great idea!!!

Tom.

At 15:10 27/04/2000 +0200, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>Recently I've had an idea.
>
>Problem description:
>
>I'm sure lots of people will recognize this.
>
>The root folder fills up with lots and lots and lots of methods; both
>factored HTML layout components and methods that should apply to all
>subfolders.
>
>Ideally you'd want to put this stuff in subfolders. But you run into the
>following problem: acquisition works no more. That is, acquisition works,
>but to override any specific layout component that's in a subfolder,
>you need to override the entire subfolder and copy over *all* layout
>elements. That's not what we want. I haven't seen an easy solution to
>this problem yet, unless I'm missing something.
>
>Analysis:
>
>So, why do you want to use folders at all? To compartementalize the
>system so we can easily find stuff. To avoid long lists of methods in
>the root folder. But proper folders hurt acquisition, so..
>
>Solution:
>
>We need a new type of folder, the 'transparent' or 'virtual' folder. 
>If we have a folder 'folder', and a subfolder 'sub', and sub is
>a transparent folder, anything we place in 'sub' is actually in 'folder'
>as well. It'll be acquired. It can be overridden (either in a subfolder
>of the same name, or in the folder that's doing that acquiring directly).
>
>This way, we get to compartementalize things while keeping the benefits
>of acquisition.
>
>Actually, this idea could have deep consequences, as it's getting very
>close to (multiple) inheritance. That is, if you put a transparent folder
>in your folder, it's like saying the current folder inherits from that
>transparent folder.
>
>Perhaps transparent folders could then also be generalized for
>a new type of ZClass inheritance that may or may not be easier to manage than
>the current system. Imagine being able to drop a transparent folder in
>your ZClass to make it inherit the methods in that transparent folder. ZClass
>inheritance needs an extra bit, though; the ability to make a 'reference'
>transparent folder that does not have actual methods inside itself, but
>just refers to some other ZClass (or Python base class, or whatever).
>
>Let's just stick to my original transparent folder idea for now, keeping
>all this inheritance zen in mind for later. My questions are:
>
>  * is this a good idea at all? Any disastrous complications or consequences?
>
>  * is this technically feasible?
>
>Regards,
>
>Martijn
>
>
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