[Zope-dev] State of ZPatterns

[Itai Tavor]

Phillip J. Eby wrote:

>At 10:16 AM 3/11/01 +1100, Itai Tavor wrote:
>>
>>I'm wondering where TransWarp leaves ZPatterns users. Until a couple
>>of weeks ago ZPatterns was the best thing to happen in the Zope world
>>since, well, Zope. Now it's described as a 'hack',
>
>Those things aren't mutually exclusive, you know.  :)

I realize that... I just got the impression that your own view of the 
value of ZPatterns suddenly took a nose dive. Guess I was wrong, and 
I'm happy to know that.

>  >demoted into
>>'maintenance only' mode, and superceded by something that is
>>described as being as much better than ZPatterns as ZPatterns was
>>better than standard Zope development.
>
>It hasn't been superceded.  TransWarp has several layers of functionality
>planned; only one of those layers has been released to date.  (By the way,
>I also don't recall ever saying even that TransWarp was "better" than
>ZPatterns, let alone that it was some giant leap forward.  I did say that
>it expanded further on the model which was the basis for ZPatterns, however.)

Sorry for putting words in your mouth. My understanding was, though, 
that TransWarp will replace ZPatterns as the best tool for object 
model based development, which means that the idea of developing 
ZPatterns code with a view for long term future reuse suddenly isn't 
that attractive.

>
>As for "maintenance only", ZPatterns hasn't had any changes in months,
>except for patches provided by its users.  That's largely because it hasn't
>needed any.  There's not much you can *add* to ZPatterns, without a major
>upheaval.  I figure, let the major upheaval be directed at making something
>completely different, rather than have major reworking to make something
>only marginally better.

I fully agree. I just didn't expect something with a 0.4.3b2 version 
number to remain unchanged. Also, I remember you mentioning that 
you're working on an SQL DataSkin. If that was really a possibility 
in the past, and it won't happen, then it's a major loss. 
Documentation/examples is another area that still needs to be 
improved (although the community can be considered to be responsible 
for that as much as yourself).

>  >So what do we do now? Wrap up current ZPatterns work, writing it off
>>as a loss for future reuse? Or can we count on 'maintenance only'
>>being sufficient to support continued reused of ZPatterns efforts
>>long enough to justify the original development effort?
>
>Someone asked a similar question of me at the conference.  I told them that
>if I needed to develop a web-based application today, I would use ZPatterns
>with Zope.  It works, it's stable, it gets the job done.

If you use it for production sites, that's good enough for me :-)

>
>Also, recall that the RIPP model concept was introduced to the Zope
>community last January, and it was many months before ZPatterns' first
>release, then many more before it was stable enough to be ready for
>production use.  Expect the same to be true of TransWarp.  The tools
>released so far are rock solid, but there isn't anywhere near enough there
>to compete with ZPatterns yet.

This is ok as long as you're choosing a tool per project. But I'm 
hate repeating work, and I expect the ZPatterns-based e-commerce app 
I'm building today to make the e-commerce app I build in 12 months a 
lot easier to build. So any changes in the basic tools I use bother 
me.

Anyway, you did well calming my concerns. Thanks for that, and for 
releasing ZPatterns in the first place.
-- 
--
Itai Tavor                      -- "Je sautille, donc je suis."    --
itai@optusnet.com.au            --               - Kermit the Frog --
--                                                                 --
-- "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything"      --