[Zope] Zope design: the liberal use of subclassing?

[Michel Pelletier]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darran Edmundson [mailto:dee124@rsphy1.anu.edu.au]
> 
> One component of our budding academic site is a 
> searchable database of publications authored by 
> department members.  Publications come in various
> flavours: journal articles, conference proceedings,
> books, book chapters, etc.  All of these share
> certain properties while others are unique.

Sounds like inheritance.
 
> Question:  In terms of ZClasses, is it best to create 
> an abstract Publication ZClass with common data
> and methods and then subclass the various flavours?

It's a philosophical issue, but I would say that soulds like a good
plan.
 
> In addition to publication details, I also want
> the option of encapsulating the data files, be it in
> PDF, MSWord, ASCII, TeX format, etc.

You want Zope to *interpret* their content somehow?  Or just have nifty
labeled File objects?
 
> Question: Rather than create a slew of File-like 
> products in the root Product folder, should I again 
> create an abstract class and subclass for each
> Mime type a la the PDF example used in:
>    http://www.zope.org/Members/lstaffor/zProperties

Zope's file object allready has mime-typeablity and storage, if you
don't want to parse/interpret the contents of a special file I don't see
why you can't just use the stock file object.
> 
> The same applies for People, variants of which 
> include staff, students, alumni, visitors, etc.,
> with the difference that people can migrate from one
> class to another (student to alumni).

Do you want these people objects to also participate in
authentication/authorization?  In this case you should go with standard
Zope user objects and Roles.

-Michel