[ZWeb] Learning Zope [was: Quickstart needs updating!]

Donald Braman donald.braman@yale.edu
Thu, 1 Mar 2001 16:18:15 -0500


I guess I was saying something off-thread. What I was trying to say was that
when a newbie goes to the Zope site, and clicks on the "Learn Zope" section,
it seems to me, they ought to find instructions on how to learn Zope. So, on
the Learn Zope page, it might say:

To learn Zope you should do the following:

*********************
#1: Take the Quickstart Tutorial that ships with Zope. (click here to see
how)
#2: Read the Zope Book and do the exercises in it. (click here to do this)
#3: Read How-Tos that relate to you particular area of interest (ZSQL, etc.)

and, when it's at or near version 1.0...
#4: Read Building Dynamic WebSites with Zope. (click here to do this)

There are also many other places to learn about Zope. You can...[mail lists,
news groups, etc.].
**********************

It may seem like you are beating a newbie over the head with this sort of
thing, but I think that's okay. When someone is new to Zope, they want all
the direction they can get. I know I did/do. I like doing exercises and
learning by following instructions. I wish I'd read the book first. Instead,
I took the quickstart tutorial and dove in. Help us dummies out!

Don

-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Pelletier [mailto:michel@digicool.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 4:42 PM
To: Donald Braman
Cc: zope@zope.org; luke@seeto.com
Subject: Re: [Zope] Quickstart needs updating!



There is a new "Zope Quick Start" menu selection in Zope 2.3.  I'm not
sure why the old quickstart is still around, it should be axed in favor of
this new screen.

The Zope Quick Start menu selection is, I think, exactly what you're
looking for.  Log into Zope.org into your member area and check it out,
you can find it in the very top frame as a pulldown menu selection.

-Michel

On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Donald Braman wrote:

> It's true that there is not a clear message as to where a newbie should
> start to learn Zope. The Zope home page has a "Learn Zope" section. When
you
> click on More..., though, you don't find a tutorial, but a kind of "about
> page". If you are really smart (or lucky), you'll then click on the Zope
> Book link and read it cover to cover, doing all the exercises. However, it
> would be good to have this be explicitly stated as generically the best
way
> to learn about Zope for those who are starting fresh.
>
> I propose a tweak to the layout for the zope.org home page, breaking out
> "about Zope" and "Learning Zope". Learning Zope would contain, of course,
> links to various introductory documents and how-tos. However, it would
state
> up front what a newbie who wants to learn Zope should do. It might also
have
> separate sections for non-programmers, people with programming experience,
> real wizards, etc. Obviously people can learn however they want, but being
> told "If in doubt, do/read this, then do/read this, etc." is helpful to
> newbies who are generally "in doubt" about what to do.
>
> BTW, I think Zope Newbies could do the same. A "Learn Zope" link or area
on
> the top page there be very nice.
>
> -Don
>
>
>
> [Zope] Quickstart needs updating!
> Michel Pelletier michel@digicool.com
> Thu, 1 Mar 2001 11:31:47 -0800 (PST)
>
> On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Joel Burton wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Jeff Sasmor wrote:
> >
> >
> > > >>>In The Almighty Lever
> > >   "An exiting new development being worked on for Zope is The Lever...
"
> > >
> > >   (I have been working with Zope for well over a year and
> > >    still don't know what THIS is....)
> >
> > Yeeps. Never heard of it.
>
> "The Lever" is the same thing as a ZClass factory.  In fact, the last
> chapter of the Zope book explains how you can use factories to create
> pre-fab templates from regular Zope objects as well as from
> ZClasses.  That's the lever.
>
> http://www.zope.org/Members/michel/ZB/CustomZopeObjects.dtml
>
> > > >>> In "Programming Data with Tabula"
>
> Tabula became ZTables, which is the genetic predecessor of ZCatalog.
>
> > > Summary: Quickstart Really Needs to Get Updated
>
> Quickstart Really Needs to Get Axed.
>
> -Michel
>
>
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