[Zope] Zope Weekly News

[Mike Pelletier]

G'day,

    Zope Weekly News is a digest of some of the useful and interesting
    events which have occurred on the various Zope mailing lists and the
    Zope.org site.  It is published each Wednesday evening.

    Any opinions contained in the Zope Weekly News are those of the
    chronicler exclusively.

Announcements

  * Digital Creations announced that the next generation of its Zope
    application server will leverage browser technology from the
    Mozilla project.

    http://www.digicool.com/News/mozilla

  * Python.Org announced the Redesign Python.Org Contest.  The
    talented winner shall receive great fame and... erm... that's it,
    really.  Have a try and have some fun.

    http://www.python.org/Redesign.html


New Products

  * "slef" has released an intriguing product called ZInstaller.  The
    objective is to enable Zope users to download and install new Zope
    packages from the comfort of their web browser.

    http://www.zope.org/Members/slef/ZInstaller


Updates

  * Zope 2.1.1 has been released. This is a bug-fix release that
    includes fixes for better handling of multiple-write conflicts,
    undo-related problems and problems that prevented certain
    third-party Zope products such as Squishdot from working. For more
    information, see the file CHANGES.txt in the doc directory of the
    distribution.

    http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.1.1/

  * "4am" released an update to his Python Methods product.  The
    present version is 0.1.7.  Python Methods are, as the name
    implies, methods written in Python, but which live in the object
    database rather than on the filesystem.

    http://www.zope.org/Members/4am/PythonMethod

  * "Bill" reports that KnowledgeKit 1.6.7 has been released:

        "This is a minor feature upgrade. Per request, there is now a
        simple How-To object integrated into the KnowledgeBase
        portfolio. While not yet as cool as cool as Zope.org's, it is
        usable."

    http://www.zope.org/Members/Bill/Products/KnowledgeKit

  * Another alpha release of XML Document is out. This release fixes a
    number of bugs thanks to patches form diligent Zope users and
    added a few minor features.

    http://www.zope.org/Products/XMLDocument

  * "anthony" has submitted "yet another minor release of SQLSession".

    http://www.zope.org/Members/anthony/software/SQLSession/

  * Jim Washington <jwashin@vt.edu> updated his ZRTChat product.
    ZRTChat provides real-time chat with an entirely HTML interface.
    (No java, javascript, etc.)  The present version is 0.2.0.

    http://www.zope.org/Members/jwashin/ZRTChat

  * Pavlos Christoforou <pavlos@gaaros.msrc.sunysb.edu> has released
    version 0.2.0 of FSSession.  FSSession manages session data (that
    is, per-browser data) and stores it on the filesystem.  (Compare
    with SQLSession.)

    http://www.zope.org/Members/gaaros/FSSession


Zope.org items

  * "Duncan" submitted a How-to entitled "Session data stored in URL":

        "This how-to describes how to use Anthony Baxter's SQLSession
        product in conjunction with 4am's SiteAccess product to store
        a session id in the URL without the need to set any cookies."

    http://www.zope.org/Members/Duncan/SessionURLs

  * "Bill" posted a new How-To: "How to delete a catlogAware object
    that is no longer catalogued".

    http://www.zope.org/Members/Bill/Documentation/CatalogBadness


Notable Discussions

  * There is a very informative thread with the subject "Zope
    stability".  Michel explains how to use Zope's debugger and a
    number of techniques for developing in safe sandboxes and synching
    with a production server are discussed.

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015181.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015209.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015214.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015240.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015245.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015267.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015296.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015301.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015351.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015389.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015427.html

  * Michael A. Alderete <alderete@be.com> kicked off a thread called
    "Zope Performance Methodology?".  He outlines in good detail what
    would be needed to produce a document about optimising Zope's
    performance.  He goes into everything from the underlying platform
    to Zope tuning parameters to optimal coding practices.  Numerous
    people write in to fill in his blanks.

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015254.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015270.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015270.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015278.html

  * Brian Lloyd discusses the future of Zope in "Zope direction and
    2.2 roadmap".

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015297.html

  * The ZODB and Zope objects are explored in "Philosophical question
    - Zope Objects vs Entities in a RDBMS".  Questions raised (and
    answered): How well does the ZODB scale?  How does the ZODB
    compare to traditional RDBMS for efficiency?  Can I tread ZClass
    objects like normal Python objects?  What limitations does Linux's
    filesystem impose, and how can I get around them?  How can I make
    SQL results act like 'real' objects?

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015299.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015300.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015359.html

  * Timothy Wilson <wilson@visi.com> asks if anyone has written an
    application such as a technical support department might use to
    track issues.  A couple leads are given.

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015317.html

  * "reality check" -- Occasionally becoming a religious debate,
    Jonothan Farr <jfarr@speakeasy.org> sparked off a mailstrom with
    forwarded comments on Zope's lack of documentation.  Opposing
    lines are quickly drawn: Zope has the worst documentation known to
    mankind vs. Zope's documentation is pretty good, really.  Zope is
    too hard vs. Zope is pretty easy, application servers are just
    complex.  Zope needs to appeal to a wider audience vs. That's what
    FrontPage is for.

    Amongst the lively expressions of opinions, some attempt to advance the
    documentation cause.  Members of the ZDP remind everyone that they
    are busily working away, and would you like to lend a hand?
    Also, the next generation of Zope documentation is briefly described.

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015393.html
    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015445.html
    

  * Bruce Perens's Zope server was on the receiving end of a multiple
    slashdotting.  He reports that it came through with flying
    colours.

    http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope/1999-December/015506.html

--
Mike Pelletier.