[Zope-dev] Designing ZPatterns/Python-product-based, reusable applications - take 2

Itai Tavor itai@optusnet.com.au
Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:37:12 +1100


Phillip J. Eby wrote:

>At 10:24 AM 3/11/01 +1100, Itai Tavor wrote:
>>
>>Then I need Specialists to manage collections of PD classes. I think
>>that these would also benefit from being product-based, so I subclass
>>Specialist to create a manager for each role in the application. Now,
>>since an existing application might be expanded, the Specialists all
>>need factory methods and will all show up in Zope's Add New Object
>>menu.
>
>Or you may want to just create one factory method that creates an entire
>family of related Specialists.  Specialists do support TTW overriding of
>their methods, if you set up the methods properly in your Python code.  (I
>forget how this works, though, you'll probably need to check the source code.)

The reason I think I need factory methods for all Specialists is that 
it would enable adding features to an existing site - so it would 
support multiphase development.

About TTW overriding of Specialist methods - didn't even think to 
look for such an option. I'll check the code. It could be very useful.

>  >-  Many of the classes will also have web user UI, and since this has
>>to be designed to fit the design of the web site in which the
>>application is used, the UI methods will have to be located where
>>designers can modify them - in the ZODB. For the Specialists, I can
>>install a default set of UI methods when an instance of the
>>Specialist is installed. But where do I store PD class UI methods?
>>EMarket's solution is to store them in the Specialist, but this not
>>only breaks O-O rules, it can also be very ugly. Say I have a
>>Specialist managing 3 PD classes. Instead of an index_html method for
>>each class, I'll need class1index_html, class2index_html,
>>class3index_html in the Specialist. And each class would have to
>>define:
>>
>>      def index_html(self, REQUEST, RESPONSE, **kw):
>>          return self.class1index_html(REQUEST, RESPONSE, kw)
>>
>>This is unacceptably ugly. But the only other thing I can think of
>>doing is creating a ZClass for each PD class and store the UI methods
>>there. But that's also pretty unacceptable. Is there a better
>>solution?
>
>Yes.  Use "class_default_for_X" methods.  (e.g. "def
>class_default_for_index_html").  This will make them capable of being
>overridden with a Class Extender in the Rack or Specialist.

Class Extenders! Wow! I mean, Wow! I mean, this is great! Let me 
catch my breath... I got to learn to look under my nose more often. I 
just assumed that everything in the DataPlugins Add menu (other than 
Link to Parent Plugin) was made redundant by the use of SkinScripts.

Just got to figure out the best way to use them... with 
class_default_for_X there won't be any ZODB-accessible default code 
to develop on, so for UI methods, creating the Class Extender along 
with the Rack, and filling it with default DTML methods might be a 
better idea.


>  >Next, I need object connections - these are created using
>>SkinScripts. And as far as I can tell, I can't manage SkinScript in
>>the product - they have to be in the ZODB. Which is ok in O-O land as
>>they're not strictly part of the PD classes, but this means that PD
>>classes don't actually work at all until someone comes and fills in
>>the SkinScripts - so the class actually misses a lot of the code it
>>requires to function. Also, it means SkinScript code can't be reused
>
>>with the rest of the application's components (except by cutting and
>>pasting code pieces from an existing application).
>
>Your factory code can set this up, although I admit it's ugly.

But when I run the factory code the SkinScripts don't exist yet... I 
create my DataSkins and install my Specialists and Racks first, then 
develop the SkinScript required by them... so the Python product 
never contains all the application code... unless I copy the 
SkinScripts back into the product. The problem here is that I don't 
write a general-purpose app that will later be customized into a 
working project - I write a custom app for a specific project, which 
I will later want to reuse. So when I finish development of the first 
app, parts of it are in the ZODB. At this point, copying them back 
into the product makes sense for the purpose of instantiating new 
copies of the product, but not for that app itself, because 
maintenance/bug fixes will still be done on the ZODB copies.


>  >Finally, I need to wrap the whole thing up as an application. So I
>  >create a Folderish class which installs instances of all Specialists,
>  >and add application-wide utility methods. Or do I simply place all
>  >Specialists in a Folder?
>
>Placing them in a folder would be fine.  Actually, it would suffice simply
>to install a meta type which creates all the Specialists in the selected
>folder.  Note that Zope does not require that a meta type correspond to
>some physical class, or that an add operation result in a single object
>being added to a container; you can add as many objects as you want in the
>same operation.

Never thought about doing things that way... interesting.


>  >Now, about reuse. O-O reuse, as far as I understand it, takes place
>>at the class level. So how do I start a new application? Do I
>>subclass its main container class and and my own init method that
>>adds any added or subclassed Specialists I use? Or do I create my own
>>application class and import PD classes from the old application? Do
>>I copy the old classes into my new product, or do I import them from
>>the old product, which then would require that the old product is
>>kept on the server, even if the application that product defines
>>isn't used on this server?
>
>If I understand you correctly, then you'd just instantiate another instance
>of the application metatype, and then customize whatever needed to be
>customized.

I want every application I build to be based on its own object model. 
I can't stick to that if I instantiate an existing application, 
because that would bring in the entire object model of that 
application. I need to put together a collection of classes according 
to the object model, and some (often most) of these classes can come 
from the existing application. So my main problem here is how to get 
at these classes. Keeping a copy of the existing app to import 
classes from doesn't seem like a good idea... maybe I should get 
individual classes out of the CVS of the original application into 
the new product? But then what's to stop a programmer from going into 
these classes and changing them directly instead of subclassing them?


>  >And, as mentioned above, how do I reuse SkinScripts, Rack methods and
>>SQL methods? Copy and paste? It seems funny that if I create a new
>>instance of the product, I don't get a new copy of a working
>>application...
>
>If your factory methods set this stuff up, then you're okay.

So after you finished developing the ZODB-based parts of an 
application, you copy them into the product so it can install them 
the next time it's instantiated?

>  >On the other hand, considering that ZPatterns is now being superceded
>>before it even had a chance to mature, maybe nobody cares to hear
>>about it anymore :-( But more on that in a separate post.
>
>IMHO, ZPatterns is actually pretty mature - in terms of its code.  By that
>I mean, it has gone about as far in capabilities as its internal
>architecture will allow.  There are many minor improvements that could be
>made, but they would be costly compared to their benefit.  I would rather
>invest the effort in something that will produce a greater gain for me and
>the rest of the community.  TransWarp will be much better for
>filesystem-based, Python products than ZPatterns, which is almost 100%
>through-the-web focused.

Would you say then that it would be a better idea to keep ZPatterns 
development in the ZODB? Or is it worth the extra trouble to use 
Python products, even if ZPatterns is not designed to make that 
particularly easy?

>he key phrase, though, is "will be".  Right now, ZPatterns is the premier
>system for doing "virtual objects" in Zope, and will continue to be for
>some time.  If Ty or I had to start on a new app today that needed the
>things ZPatterns does, we would definitely use it.  But we would also
>probably take the time to prepare a good UML model for the app, so that we
>could more easily port to TransWarp when it gets closer to being finished.

This brings up another thing that bothers me: When I started learning 
object models and ZPatterns everyone advocated using Coad notation. 
Now Peter Coad himself is using UML and you're building TransWarp 
around UML. Is this a conspiracy to confuse me?

Itai
-- 
--
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"      --