[Zope-dev] How should an ideal Zope IDE look like?

[Jean-Francois.Doyon at CCRS.NRCan.gc.ca]

Well, I suspect the interest in this type of tool might be big enough
to allow for the open Source model to apply in an efficient manner ?

Depends on the skills required to bring it to life.

I've started using Eclipse lately, and I just love it, I've combined
PyDT/PyDEV + Subclipse + XMLBuddy and I have a decent tool for working
on my products and skins.

At home, I have a similar setup for working with Python/C, and it's
fantastic,
I'm far more productive with it.

Some people might take offense to using a Java tool to do the job, but it
seems
to me like a potentially excellent foundation.  Apparently Jython can be
integrated into it ...

I've been meaning to learn Java, maybe this would motivate me ? :P

As for Zope IDE vs. CMS IDE ... The line (to me anyways) is blurry.  Also,
given current projects, I'd focus on Zope 3, which with it's component
architecture makes things infinitely flexible, and therefore the line
between Zope and "CMS" is not easily distinguishable.

Ideally a full featured IDE would be component architecure aware and be able
to discover and leverage it (Which interfaces do you have ? Which components
?
How do I display this to the user ? Use that for code completion, Zope aware
debugger somehow, etc ...)

Maybe the ZMI functionality should be abstracted into a web service or
something
similar so that the ZMI is no longer purely restricted to a web interface?
(Maybe
it already isn't, admitedly, I don't know ...)

Anyways, admitedly all this is above my skill level at this time, but I
think the
idea has value ... If this were a reasonably priced commercial tool, I
probably would
buy it mind you.  Spending say a few hundred dollars to save hours and hours
of work
is common sense.  though a tool like that would be years away even someone
started now!

J.F.


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Withers [mailto:chris at simplistix.co.uk]
Sent: May 6, 2004 3:51 AM
To: Jean-Francois.Doyon at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
Cc: a.meyer at hccnet.nl; a at totic.org; kretschmar at infoman.de;
zope-dev at zope.org
Subject: Re: [Zope-dev] How should an ideal Zope IDE look like?


Jean-Francois.Doyon at CCRS.NRCan.gc.ca wrote:

> More important is the second point:  Having such a tool would bring a
> HUGE amount of value added to Zope. Mega, super huge.

Sounds like the opportunity for a commercial tool.

It's not NEEDED, but it makes life a LOT easier, and so would give any
company 
with it competitive advantage without detracting at all from people who
don't 
use it...

> My main concern would be it's adaptibility to custom content types. If I
> have my own Geospatial-ish content type, how would the IDE handle it ?
> How would I go about making it handle it ? etc ...

That's the tough one ;-) BTW, I thought we were talking about a Zope IDE,
not an 
  IDE for a CMS built on top of Zope...

> Basically, yo me this should be a core feature of Zope, not an add-on.

Indeed. But having it as a core feature forces it to be open source, and
hence 
run on open source budgets and timescales.

cheers,

Chris

-- 
Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
            - http://www.simplistix.co.uk