[Zope] RE: URGENT: Can't start up zope

[Tres Seaver]

Paul Everitt <paul@digicool.com> wrote:

> Martijn Pieters wrote:
> > If the Zope data stored in a RDMS can be accessed by other apps, this would
> > be benificial to promoting Zope to people that think in RDMS's as an end to
> > all Web Applications, even though I personally don't see a direct use for
> > such access.
> 
> On a technical level, since the data in the RDBMS record is a pickled
> Python instance, it would be basically unusable to other applications. 
> You'd gain a "standard" for record management, but not one for data
> management.
> 
> On an abstract level, the statement "if Zope data can be accessed by
> other applications" seems to be a pretty clear violation of
> encapsulation, but that's just the object zealot party line. :^)

Allowing the IT guys to write ad-hoc reports against the data in the ZODB may be
a showstopping requirement in some projects;  integration with existing
reporting tools would necessitate access via SQL.

We could view such requirements as a clarion call for another layer of
(refactored) design:  perhaps providing hooks to allow the Zope developer to
tackle the OO<-->RDBMS mapping problem head on would be useful?  I see these
hooks as similar to SQL adapters, but in the service of persistence, rather than
method invocation.  Breaking the dependency on pickling, using instead, say, XML
stored as a blob, might be helpful in some circumstances, as well.

-- 
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Tres Seaver         tseaver@palladion.com    713-523-6582
Palladion Software  http://www.palladion.com