[Zope] Allaire Spectra

[Ben Leslie]

Hi Michel!

On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Michel Pelletier wrote:

> chas wrote:
> > 
> > >That said, are there other particular lessons that you think we
> > >should learn from CF/Spectra?
> > 
> > Let me go off on a tangent for a moment :
> > 
> > I got up to speed on CF instantaneously because I knew what it was
> > supposed to do (and what I intended to do) before installing the
> > software.
> > 
> > So, perhaps that's part of the reason people have so much trouble.
> > Zope is a new 'product category' for many.  Here's part of an email
> > somebody sent me privately after I mentioned zope on another
> 
> Recently I've been meditating on a comment from Jon Udell:
> 
> "It is completely feasible for a novice to download Zope, install it,
> and build a simple site -- even one that leverages the object hierarchy
> to factor out repetitive pieces -- without writing any code. And the
> result is 100% Web-manageable."
> 
> This could be a start.
> 
> -Michel



I've been using Zope for almost a month now and I have just thought I might
let you know how I have learnt how to use Zope over the time.

1) Firstly I did exactly as above - simply used it as a web interface for
'hand hacked' html files.

2) It then got to the point where I wanted to change the look and feel of the
site and realised - hang on, if I shove all this stuff in 
standard_html_header and standard_html_foter I won't have to change each
file, fantastic. I think even if this is all you use Zope for it is already
a huge timesaver. (By the way the time to go from stage 1 to stage 2 was about
5 minutes, but that I still think they are two distinct learning stages)

3) After the site grew somewhat I wanted to add a better navigation tools
for the site. Once again I started to learn more DTML, <dtml-in>, <dtml-with>
etc..

4) Realised that a lot of my pages shouldn't really be DTML docs, since they
all basically have the same information 'structure' it would be much better
if I made a class for it, then I could change the look of all these pages
in 5 seconds. This is when I discovered and used ZClasses

5) Not here yet, I know of external methods, but haven't come across a need
for them yet, though I'm sure I will in the near future :)


Now to the point of my story. I don't think you need to go out and learn 
everything about zope to start of, as you face new problems you learn a 
new set of skills which save you a lot of time in the future, working
smarter not harder.

Now it could maybe be possible to break down a tutorial into stages or
steps of funtionality along the way so that new users aren't overwhelmed
by all the information in the beginning.

Cheers,

Ben Leslie

(PS: When I finish my current project at work I might actually act on
some of the ideas i put forward here :)