[Zope-dev] Racks and Specialists Simplified

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 02:33 PM 6/11/00 -0600, Shane Hathaway wrote:
>
>I believe I have come to understand the basics of ZPatterns and would
>like to be sure I understand correctly, as well as help others
>understand also.
>
> [a lot of good stuff snipped]
>
>The other concepts in ZPatterns expand upon this model.  I am still
>working on grasping them.

Bravo!  An exquisite introduction to the purpose of ZPatterns.  May I post
an edited version of your message to the ZPatterns Wiki, and make it or
subsequently edited versions a part of the ZPatterns documentation?  (With
attribution, of course.)


>ZPatterns also provides the "Plugins" architecture.  Racks and
>specialists are derived from the plugins classes.  I see plugins as
>being a concept that could be used by product authors who don't have a

>use for racks and specialists.  I wonder whether plugins ought to be
>made a part of standard Zope.

It certainly might be reasonable for them to be a package of their own, or
to be a part of "standard" Zope, since PlugIns.py and its associated DTML
files do not make use of any other part of ZPatterns.  It is mostly a
question of whether DC has an interest in making it a part of the library.
I think it should probably wait, however, until it is a bit better
documented and the few API bits that are still fluctuating settle down
completely.  I would also be interested in figuring out a way to register
ZClasses as PlugIns; right now they have to be registered from Python.