[Zope-dev] Newbie Question

[Peter Sabaini]

Aaron Paxson wrote:
> I hope I'm posting to the right mailing list.  There were so many to decide
> from.

This should've probably been directed to the main Zope list; zope-dev is 
for development *of* Zope.

> I've just been introduced to Zope, and am curious on how it will fit into my
> company's plans.
> 
> I'm currently learning Java, and was starting to learn the RedHat Web
> Application Framework.  I've found Zope in an article on the web, and
> started to look into it.  It looks to be just as scalable, but I'm curious
> on how extensible it is, as well as, it's power in a corporate environment.
> 
> For example, how extensible is it, to modify the security module and have it
> authenticate against LDAP?  (I don't want all my users to remember yet
> another password) Also, how powerful is Python as compared to Java?  Since
> it uses a native compiler, it stands to reason that it would be faster than
> Java, but what of it's objects and packages?  (i.e. Does it have an image
> manipulation package, or networking packages?)

There are Add-ons that do User authentification against LDAP servers, 
and its also not very hard to roll your own.

Zope is, generally speaking, *very* extensible -- see for example the 
long list of 3rd pary add-on products at http://www.zope.org/Products

I think Python is one of the greatest strengths of Zope. Its not only a 
modern full-fledged OOP language, comes with great libraries (see 
http://python.org/doc/current/modindex.html, and has even more to 
download separately) but is simply a joy to program in. Bruce Eckel put 
it very nicely IMHO: http://mindview.net/FAQ/FAQ-012 )

Also see:

http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/co/2000/10/rx023abs.htm
http://www.cis.udel.edu/~silber/470STUFF/article.pdf

http://www.twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph/rant/python-vs-java.html

There are good networking modules in the standard Python distribution; 
image manipulation can be done with eg. PIL 
(http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/) or PythonMagick 
(http://www.procoders.net/moinmoin/PythonMagick)

> I must say, seeing the documentation and books alone, tells me the product
> is good, and something I can learn.  I see alot of "Hope for Zope" <grin,
> couldn't resist>, but I don't want to get into it, just to see if it doesn't
> fit into my plans.
> 
> For those who want a couple of examples, I have 3 projects for our
> intranet/extranet/internet applications:
> 
> 1).  Images and cataloging (where, our development team can upload their
> images, and the intranet application will take that image and export it to a
> JPG to update the web catalog, and move the original file to our FTP site
> for our photographers.
> 
> 2).  Document Management (Uploading of files, and inputting data to index on
> those files for searching)
> 
> 3).  Obviously the usual (Content Management and Portals) which I'm sure
> Zope does a good job at.

Those are certainly suited for Zope....

  - peter.

> Thanks in advance!!  Again, my apologies if there is a better list for this
> post.
> 
> Aaron Paxson
> Network Operations Manager
> Decorative Concepts, Inc
> http://www.decorativeconcepts.com
> 
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