[Zope] FYI: Recap of Perl For Zope thread

[Paul Everitt]

This has been a wonderful and useful discussion.  I'd like to summarize
some of the points made, and on the next post, give some more
information about what we're trying to accomplish.

First, I'm surprised nobody flamed me for the stupid linewrapping.  All
I can say: Outlook. :^)  On to the summary...

-----

My main man J. Atwood led things off with, "Why not Java?"

Denis Frere floated the worry that Perl would take over Zope.

Heiko brought up an oft-repeated statement: I intentionally left Perl,
why is it following me around?

Andrew Kenneth Milton pointed out this could increase the gravity of
Zope, plus be a good re-education center for Perl folks. :^)

Ragnar pointed out: "I don't mind if it is _possible_ to use external
perl functions as long as I don't 
_have_to_."

John Chandler helped put this in perspective: "whether or not people
like the language, it does have a lot of existing support and developers
who might find this a useful way to get involved in exploring the
wonderful world of Zope."

J. Atwood summed up the sentiments of a lot of people: "if you introduce
Perl into Zope it would be like throwing a pair of red socks in your
white wash, we all go pink." 

Rik brought up the looming issue: "Agreed, but the need for a Zope best
practices guidelines (when to use what, and when _not_ to use it) is
growing with every new language/method ;-)".  I say "looming" becuase it
highlights what Patrick said (see below).

Martijn Faassen, head zope-xml guy, chipped in: "[as long as] I can't
*see* the Perl if I don't want to see it".

Chris McDonough said: "Honestly I'm sort of surprised that there is such
a strong reaction to this."

Brian Lloyd wrote: "You certainly wouldn't have to worry about Perl
unless you choose to."  Unlike what _I_ usually say, when Brian talks
it's accurate. :^)

Oleg Broytmann wrote: "A year ago I resigned from a web development
company because they forced me to write Perl."

Steve Alexander said, regarding the thought of stumbling across Perl in
Zope: "When people can write their site half in Perl, I could well be
stuck."  Very good point.

John Chandler wrote: "I'm personally looking forward to being able to
use Perl with Zope, so long as the Perl support is implemented in a
Zope-consistent fashion."

Kevin Dangoor wrote: "I was a little puzzled when I first read the
announcement, but after reading the FAQ I think it sounds like a great
idea!"

Chris Withers replied: "Further from this, I think diversifying the
language base to Python/Perl/XSLT/etc is bad. It means that for someone
to be 'proficient in Zope' form a marketing or job hunting point of
view, they also have to know Perl, XSLT, etc rather than just Python and
DTML.  It defocuses Zope from what it is."

Oleg Broytmann said: "   Very soon we'll be forced, 'cause most Products
will be in Perl (yse, I've read the FAQ and saw "no Perl Products"; it's
temporary, mark you)."

J. Atwood said everything I could hope to say, so I'll quote it all:
"""
The head of my company here has a theory that all "techies" have a
religion
when it comes to tools/languages/application environments. To a certain
degree he is right. I believe in Python. I use it, love it and live by
it. I
have faith that if I write something in Python I can come back to it in
a
day or a year and understand it in minutes. I am also a believer in
Zope,
first for its power but second because it uses Python.

Zope will benefit from the Perl community just as it has with XML. I
agree
with some of the comments that I don't want to see Perl code floating
around
in my management screen but it would also be very powerful to have
modules/products written in Perl and dealt with in DTML.

There are tens of thousands of Perl programmers out there, just think of
all
the cool things they write (especially if they found a better tool).
"""

(See, triple quotes, you guys thought I was giving up on Python. :^)

John Chandler wrote: "Even as a Perl fan, I agree and don't see the
sense in placing Perl-style expressions in DTML."  (Let's get rid of
_all_ expr, that's my vote.)

Chris Withers wrote: "Suddenly Zope is a total mess of perl and python
and the whole community shifts onto something cleaner leaving DC high
and dry and spoiling a perfect solution..."

Brad Clements wrote:"The undisputed leader in programmer's narcotics on
the east coast was the DC Gang, whose leader, master Zope, developed a
bold plan for stealing clients from the Perl gang by secretly pushing
Python through free code and a framework to hang it on."

Andrew Kenneth Milton wrote: "I don't think I've ever seen paranoia and
religious fervour mixed in quite the same way before. Anyone would think
that people think that python is inadequate as a language."

Chris McD wrote: "There are *lots* of smart Perl people, and personally
I look forward to seeing some of them join the community."

Ethan Freemen wrote: "Zope's problem domain is simply too wide to be
addressed by anything but an all-inclusive approach."

John Sutherland said: "If they want to open it to Perl/Java/ etc, more
power to them, more products for us to use.."

Roman Milner said: "...were I to want to find a different job now coding
Zope - perl will be expected to be in my skill set."

Bill Anderson said: "Even if it isn't done by DC, a large perl user base
*will* come up with perl products. At which point DC will either be
pressured into accepting them into thecore, or watching the branch
become the dominant Zope."

Michel Pelletier wrote: "We don't want these folks coming in here with
their years of experience and thousands of lines of code and snub them."

Kevin Dangoor mentioned: "It's a fact of web programming that there are
lots of tools written in different languages."

Tom Neff said: "My primary worry (if you're listening, Digicool) is that
integrating the Python and Perl runtime environments on various
platforms will lead to unexpected conflicts and performance problems."

Eric Sink said: "Maybe it's about "scripting languages vs. Java"...I
don't see this announcement as a major shift toward Perl on the part of
the Zope developers."

In fact, Eric also gets a triple quoted section:
"""
Let's suppose for a moment that Zope's ambitions are much bigger than
we think, and that its commitment to purity is slightly lower than we
think.  In other words, let's just suppose that Zope really wants to
be 'The Scripting-Language Application Server'.

If so, then why should it not invite the [enormous] Perl crowd into
its community?
"""

Roman Milner said: "Perhaps this is a disadvantage to the DC
company-owned open-source project model.  They will make bad decisions
based on potential profit."

Hannu Krosing said:"See for example PostgreSQL - it has C, SQL, PL/SQL,
TCL, Perl, Ruby and soon python as its server-side programming
languages, with no real argument about weather to include yet another
language."

Dieter Maurer wrote: "There are many Internet Sites using lots of Perl.
If you allow them to use Zope and retain lots of their Perl
infrastructure, you have a much better chance to convert them to
Zope...This, e.g., is the case with the company, I work for."

Ken Manheimer wrote: "I also think these objections are contrary to one
of the principle reasons that python itself is so attractive - it's a
glue language, after all."

Daryl Tester says two things that bear mention: "I think there is a
significant proportion of Python programmers who are Perl refugees
(funny, you don't hear much about the flip-side of that equation), so
this announcement was bound to rub a few raw nerves the wrong way (if
you pardon the metaphor mix)...But I figure DC are pretty smart
guys...so let's give them the benefit of the doubt."

Roman Milner gets another mention: "I think that anyone who wants to
claim Zope expertise will need to know and be willing to code in perl."

Michael Oas wrote: "Actually, I'd like to see Zope interface with "more"
languages (Java, C++ etc.)...The fact that we can leverage Perl
resources now and port them over time (if it even makes sense to do so)
is beneficial."

Anthony Baxter wrote: "After thinking about it some more, I'm still a
bit concerned, but I also think that this will be a nice bit of bait to
use when hooking in new developers. If it including building Products in
Perl, I'd be a bit more concerned..."

Patrick Phalen said: "Had the documentation been brought up to par some
time ago (say around the time of the 2.0 release), then I doubt that the
Zope community would now feel any need or desire to embrace the Perl (or
any other) user community in order to gain support for Zope."

Kevin Dangoor wrote: "Zope is a very powerful framework that is already
fairly language agnostic."

Ethan Freemen wrote: "If someone has a substantial investment in Perl,
and they want to keep that as an External Method in order transition to
Zope, then they should be able to.  It has been a barrier to the
adoption of Zope more than once, I would imagine."

Sin Hang Kin wrote: "Zope needed to clean up before it goes too  bad.
Zope is powerful, but is already too difficult for beginner to learn."
(Very, very good point!)

Bill Anderson brought up: "I believe that at least a good portion of the
reason for the negative reaction is not just perl, but also due to this
'community' we hypothetically acquire."

Tom Neff replied: "The fallacy here is simply that Zope is adding a
language, not a newsgroup."

Karl Anderson wrote: "It's also an even more excellent time to be a
sklled Zopista looking for a job.  Find a good place looking to start a
Zope project, build them a site, & you'll be deciding whether to use
Perl products or not."

Graham Chiu brought up: "What I would like to see first is support for
Rebol."

...and I'm caught up!  That only took 3 hours! :^)

--Paul

Paul Everitt       Digital Creations
paul@digicool.com  540.371.6909
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