[Zope] Competitors

[Paul Everitt]

Tom Deprez wrote:
> 
> I think Zope is getting some pretty competitors....
> 
> Gist, works object oriented, and can connect to different databases...

Hmm, have you used Gist yet?  I know it claims to be object-oriented
(doesn't everything), but look at this URL to one of the Postscript
docs:

 
http://gist.jrc.it/default/show.gx?_app.page=show-OBJ.html&Object.object_id=GISTSITE00000000000001C0

The silly thing won't fit on one line!  My bet is that it doesn't have
something that compares even to BoboPOS, much less ZODB3.  It's probably
better thought of as a super-PHP.  In fact, its diagrams specifically
show SQL and templates on disk.
 
> Only, at the moment, Zope is the only one who can run with several http
> servers.... altough Zope prefers Medusa or ZopeHTTPServer, because running
> Zope with Apache (or others) isn't that easy to accomplish. And probably has
> some more features I don't know or think at the moment

I don't think connecting Apache to Zope is harder than connecting Apache
to anything else.  I still say officially that the putting Apache in
front of Zope is the right thing.  Go to www.zope.org and look at the
Server header returned.

The fact that you can get into Zope with FTP and WebDAV is pretty
important for collaboration.  How well do Gist work at supporting
collaboration?  I don't see anyway for Gist users to actually load a
document via the web, but maybe I'm missing something.
 
> I want to stress out, one important point. If you want that customers use
> your product, then you've to give them a lot of examples of what the product
> is capable. Examples, examples, examples.... don't forget this! This is the
> most important thing! (examples and documentation).

I agree.  I know a lot of people are doing good things with Zope -- I'd
love to see more case studies.
 
> If you've a great product, with lots of features, but don't let people see
> how they can use these features, people will turn to another product. Even
> if your product is better then the competitor. It's always been like this
> and it will always be that way.
> 
> So, when launching Zope 2.0, dress up the Zope website with lots of
> screenshots and an unbelievable amount of clear examples. Ranching from the
> simplistic to the advanced...

Couldn't agree more.

--Paul