[ZWeb] "Token 'ATOM' required, 'EOF' found" error in zopeorg

[Jens Vagelpohl]

On Jan 21, 2005, at 15:47, Andrew Sawyers wrote:

> Chris Withers wrote:
>> Andrew Sawyers wrote:
>>> In the cases where I've had to catch the query prior to passing it 
>>> to the catalog, one has the opportunity to inform the user.
>> Well, if we could get zope.org onto 2.7.4 or some such, you can just 
>> catch the requisite exceptions in the python script that calls 
>> ZCatalog.
> Well, I was talking to Jens day before yesterday, I'm sure there's 
> several capable people who'd be more interested in helping with 
> zope.org if it was just a simple CMF site with skin to make it pretty. 
>  Maybe it's time for us to reexamine things?  None of us have the 
> desire or time to sludge through what's there now.  At one point, Jens 
> and I had a completely migrated zope.org (the old one) onto a straight 
> CMF based site.  Now who knows what's there; it's not even on a CMS 
> anyone at ZC uses on a daily basis (i.e. it's based on Plone which 
> adds several layers of unecessary indirection) and we don't have 
> people who are familiar with it chomping at the bit to help us out.  
> This is a huge roadblock IMNSHO.

Amen to that.

It's not just the fact that there is other software that adds 
unnecessary layers and that no one at ZC uses, unfortunately those 
layers are also badly done and badly broken in way too many places.

The current maintenance strategy is based on the hope that a lot of 
fixing will some day make the software do better, but IMNSHO I cannot 
see that succeeding. There are too many problems and too many 
fundamental flaws in the design and implementation.

While speaking with Andrew I have volunteered to help create a saner 
basis for zope.org. It is unlikely that ZC is willing to spearhead such 
an effort (no time, no willingness to throw good money after bad, etc), 
which I understand. The biggest problem that creates is a leadership 
vacuum and any efforts would soon peter out in a flood of discussions 
from a whole lot of more or less well-meaning people. It cannot work 
without a tightly organized *small* group of developers that can work 
without interference from the community at large. That's how things get 
done.

jens