[Zope] FYI: Portal Toolkit Slides and Demo available

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

Amos Latteier writes:
>Just to reiterate, the Portal Toolkit is not yet available, it should be
>out in beta this month.

Waiting on tenterhooks...  Yesterday I read Philip Greenspun's book on
Web publishing (http://www.photo.net/wtr/thebook/), and much of what
he suggests seems like a natural fit to the Portal Toolkit.  I'd
recommend everyone check it out; the complete book is on-line, though
it's well worth buying just for entertainment value.

I've never pushed strongly for using Zope on our Web site
(www.mems-exchange.org) for a few reasons:

     1) Another programmer had already done some work with Java
servlets, so we have some servlets to do various things.  However,
I've found that Java is really awful and cumbersome for Web
programming.  (But without automatic reloading of ExternalMethods,
Zope isn't much *less* cumbersome for tasks that can't be handled in
DTML.)

     2) A fair amount of source code reading is still required, and
Zope is so full of cutting-edge Python technique that it's not easy
even for a long-time Python like me; for a new Python user, it would
be deadly.

     3) I still haven't really figured out what the idioms are for
implementing complicated forms.  DTML is sufficient for simple forms
with 2 or 3 fields, but if you have a 22-field form with complicated
interactions between fields, DTML won't cut it.  At DC, do you write
ExternalMethods for such purposes, or full-blown products?  How do you
debug them without going insane from manually reloading
ExternalMethods all the time?
     
However, the Portal Toolkit may well prove to be the wedge for getting
Zope on the site.  I've already done a few simple Java servlets for
registering users and presenting customized pages for a user, the
intention being to turn www.mems-exchange.org into a specialized
portal aimed at MEMS researchers and users of our virtual fab.  People
would have a single page which listed all of their ongoing jobs,
recent status changes ("Your etch step #4 has completed; click here
for metrology data"), MEMS news of interest to them, and similar info.
If the Portal Toolkit could be used for this, it would save a
*tremendous* amount of effort and wheel-reinventing. if you need
someone to try out an alpha, let me know...

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
Three hundred years of tears have soured the very stones of this house. Drink
deep, gentle reader: you have come too far to turn back now.
    -- Bethlehem Hospital, or Bedlam, in SEBASTIAN O #1