[Zope] Zope vs. Microsoft Dev Days 99 - mini-report

[Jeffrey Shell]

> However, the idea of seperating "business logic" from "presentation" 
> sounds good. Presumably Python methods represent "business logic" 
> and dtml methods are the presentation layer. Making it easier to use 
> "external procedures" might be a big win (no flames on PythonMethods 
> vs. External Methods, ok).

ASP's and COM components aren't editable through the web in the same way
that DTML Methods and Friends are, and therefor aren't exposed to the
same security risks.  (And we all know that Microsoft is the queen of
good security. *Coff!* :-).  But granted Microsoft also has fairly
decent development tools and enough kludgy server-side extensions
(frontpage extensions, their hack of WebDAV) that may ease this
somewhat.  Having DTML Methods as the main way of scripting being open
through the web interface, it can become a little too easy to expect to
do everything in this situation.

In essence, Zope Products are to Zope what COM components are to MS.
Products are full Python classes that support an interface to be
published through the web and also accessed through DTML Scripting, as
well as behaving to the Zope security model.  Granted writing a Product
is not as easy as writing some DTML Methods, or even External Methods;
but writing a COM object isn't a cakewalk either.  But again, MS has the
development tools and dancing paperclips and wizards to supposedly help
the developer.

ZClasses, when used with External Methods or subclassing from disk based
Products, are another good way of seperating business logic.  Business
Logic, being as important as it is, is not something I would want to
write in DTML, and probably not even in PythonMethods due to security
restrictions.

Basically if you're looking for similarity between Zope and ASP/COM in
this aspect, ASP Pages are basically scripting COM objects.  DTML
Scripting is basically scripting Zope objects, which are in the form of
the basic Products (DTML Methods, Documents, Folders (ie <dtml-call
"SomeFolder.manage_changeProperties(foo='bar')">)), ZClass Instances,
etc.

But also remember that ASP/COM doesn't have Acquisition, web-object
traversal, ZODB, Zope Security, the through-the-web
near-total-management-without-requiring-ActiveX-or-Java, or other things
that Zopers take for granted.  These features give Zope a lot of power,
but also present some interesting challenges in that they're quite a bit
different way of thinking than most models that we may be used to.

And...we don't have an IDE that wraps up the development and deployment
of Products and External Methods. My suspicion is that Microsoft makes
this sort of deployment (through the use of all those darn Wizards) a
bit easier.  Submissions in this area are welcomed.