[Zope] pythonmethods rock ! this should be part of zope.

[Michel Pelletier]

chas wrote:
> 
> 
> I've just installed pythonmethods and have to take my hat
> off to Evan Simpson and anyone else involved in the develop-
> -ment of pythonmethods !

Yep, thanks Evan.

> The past 2 weeks, since looking at
> Zope again, I've been saddened to find that I've stopped
> thinking about the "problem space" and more about just trying
> to grok code and make simple stuff work ... the lack of
> accurate/complete documentation aside, I think the main
> reason for this is that DTML just looks so damned unreadable
> compared to python. (I've seen some posts on this list that gave
> me Perl flashbacks - which wasn't a pretty sight <g>).

It's hard to compare the readability of Python vs. DTML, they are quite
different langauges.  DTML looks quite like many other SGMLish
languages.  Comparing it's 'readability' is probably only valid compared
to other langauge of the same type (which are all inherintly 'readable'
by a fairly standard parser model).

Python is way out there in terms of readability.  It is in a league of
it's own.

> My productivity has really dropped the past fortnight as a result.
> So, I'm hoping Python methods can get me back to writing Python !

Which is allways a pleasure.

> In fact, this sort of functionality was what I expected and hoped
> for when I first looked at zope (external methods don't quite cut
> it because they live on the filesystem and can get 'lost' or
> separated).. totally essential, especially with the recently posted
> code to import any python classes. wicked. coding is fun again.

I actually find DTML for many codeing tasks to be quite fun, but only in
relation to laying out content and manipulating basic objects. 
Sometimes a problem can be expressed in python so clearly, it hurts to
try and do it in DTML.

> On this note though, writing python means that 'tabs' are now
> important and so using a web-browser to write code is not possible...
> since the tab sends the focus to the next field.
> So, I'm using FTP (with Ultraedit on win32) which works great with
> dtml methods and dtml documents stored in folders but I can't open
> the following :
> a) pythonmethods, no matter where they are stored. why is this so ?

FTP traversability support must be engineered on a per-object basis.  

> b) zclass methods. the zclass is shown in the product listing
>    but it's not possible to drill down to the methods.

Same reason.  Although DTML Methods are FTP enabled, ZClasses are not
yet traversable.

In terms of PyhtonMethod's inclusion of Zope, this is up to the product
managers.  But I actually prefer it in a seperate product at this
point.  Evan hasn't published any information on it's security features
or pitfalls, nor a technical description or simple model for us to
study.  Without these, it is expensive for us to do it ourselves so that
we know what is going into Zope.

Since the inclusion of a third party product is trivial and seamless,
there are great reasions for it to remain that way.  Needless to say, we
are looking at the 'through-the-web' python thing, just not so activly. 
It is great that Evan is leading the pack, because without customer
requirements, we can't waste time on developing them ourselves.  As
PythonMethods evolve and people start to get them into beta or
production shape, they may eventually evolve into a core component, or
at least a 'must have' addon.

-Michel