[Zope] comparision between zope and other technologies

[Jimmie Houchin]

ACS is reasonably well publicized. They have some well trafficked sites
which talk and teach ACS. Philip Greenspun has a book, Philip and Alex's
Guide to Web Publishing, about building websites which talks heavily
about ACS.

http://www.photo.net/wtr/thebook/

The Java version is Java running inside of Oracle's webserver.
http://www.arsdigita.com/pages/toolkit/

The version which uses PostgreSQL is called OpenACS and is available at:
http://www.openacs.org

Philip has a lot of great ideas and recommendations. Most of his ideas
are reasonably applicable outside of ACS. He seems to have a fair
opinion about Zope but prefers his own toolset. Not an unreasonable
thing. His opinion is not necessarily accurate from our viewpoint.

Zope offers a lot more options in many areas. It is much easier to
integrate legacy systems into Zope. Zope allows you to choose which
database you store your data. Zope uses Python which many of us prefer
over Tcl. ACS requires knowing Tcl and SQL, especially Oracle's version.
You can do a lot in Zope without knowing Python. Of course knowing
Python increases what you can do. With Zope the person building the web
app and the person building the database do not have to be the same
person. A person can be a proficient user of Zope without knowing SQL.
If the site will use SQL then that can be delegated if necessary. With
ACS you really need to be proficient in both Tcl and SQL as the model
requires both.

Both Zope and ACS are high quality toolsets. Each have strengths and
weaknesses. Both model the worldview of their prospective creators. It
helps to understand the perspective and philosophy of the creator to
understand how they approach similar problems. Some will like ACSes way,
some Zopes. As this is on the Zope list you will find us proponents of
Zope's way.

Also, while AOL is listed on ArsDigita's website as a customer, that
does not mean that AOL uses ArsDigita's ACS toolkit. ArsDigita also
provides commercial support for AOLserver.

Read Philip's book, it's a good read. You'll learn his philosophy and
way of thinking. Some you may agree with and some not. Many here have
read his book and have chosen Zope. Read the Zope list, get some Zope
doc's and you'll learn Zope's philosophy. Jim Fulton, the mind behind
Zope, just isn't as in the public as Philip is. But if you watch you'll
catch glimpses of him. :)

Enough for now.

Jimmie Houchin



brian smith wrote:
> 
> A very compelling solution, although not as well publicized, that we are considering is the ArsDigita Community System, which is an open source product build in tcl that sits on a foundation of AOLServer and Oracle. They (arsdigita.com) have recently released a version for Apache, and they are working on a pure Java version that will only require a Unix os and Oracle.  Also, I think there is a version for PostgreSQL (sp?).  This company has grown from a couple of folks to many in offices around the world, and this is their toolkit they use for quire a few high-profile customers, including AOL themselves.
> 
> Just one more to consider.
> Brian
> 
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