[Zope] [Ann] Another Zope Book

[Kapil Thangavelu]

Dieter Maurer wrote:
> 
> Dear Zopistas,
> 
> I plan to write another book about Zope: "Building Dynamic WebSites
> with Zope".
> 
> The book idea:
> 
>   Realize a demanding dynamic WebSite with Zope.
>   Describe everything that is necessary for this purpose.
> 
> This will contain:
>   Concepts: HTTP, HTML, Zope, Databases, JavaScript, ...
>   Components: catalogs, sessions, topics, news, discussions,
>               stores, mails, LoginManager, customizers, workflows, ...
>   Programming: building your own components (ZClasses and
>                Product API)
> 
> There will be some overlap with the official Zope book.
> However, my book has a different focus:
> 
>   I will not be complete about Zope. I will just
>   describe the 40 per cent of features that are used
>   for 85 per cent of the applications.
> 
>   I will cover aspects of dynamic Web publishing not
>   directly related to Zope such as e.g. the basics of
>   HTTP requests and HTML form processing.
> 
>   I will mainly stay near the concrete example dynamic
>   WebSite.
> 
> What do you think about my plan?
> Do you feel, it is worth persuing or redantant in view of the
> official Zope book?

great plan.
redundant no... desparetely needed? yes:)

my thoughts...

i've often felt thought that dc and zope cater a bit too much to the
newbie crowd in the sense that the documentation is built around on
touching upon a working knowledge of acquisition and the majority
focuses on dtml. i often felt the need (and perhaps i'll scratch the
itch) for a zope book for python developers. python is easy to learn,
there is no reason zope can't be if it were approached as a collection
of python frameworks. zodb (acqusition, persistence, zcatalog),
medusa(asyncore+orb), document template, security.

many of the components of zope are very suitable for reuse outside of
zope to a python programmer if the pieces were understood as separate
entities and explained how they worked in synergy to make zope work, i
think there would be many more developers and products for zope.

as is, you learn piecemeal unless you have the stomach and the time to
go through all the source code. i've learned a bit (still learning)
mainly from the source, but i think most developers are forced to learn
through trial and error because the docs don't do the components justice
since they tend to focus on working understanding of zope's framework
from dtml. and in the end they are forced to turn to the source which
can be confusing without knowing the parts of the framework from a
fundamental not a working perspective.

comments?

Kapil