[Zope] Why Not Zope? 'Cos I like to bitch! ;-)

[Andy McKay]

I have to say though reading his site a few interesting quotations popped up
(http://www.amk.ca/quotations/python-quotes.html)

I picture a lump of inanimate flesh (a result from a relational database
query) being infused with the spark of life (object behavior, aka class).
-    Jim Fulton on the term "pluggable brains", 5 Jul 1999

(On the statement print "42 monkeys"+"1 snake") BTW, both perl and Python
get this wrong. Perl gives 43 and Python gives "42 monkeys1 snake", when the
answer is clearly "41 monkeys and 1 fat snake".
-    Jim Fulton, 10 Aug 1999

When Jim [Fulton] says "tricky" it means your brain could explode.
-    Michel Pelletier, 15 Dec 1999

:)

For those, thanks...

--
  Andy McKay, Developer.
  ActiveState.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy McKay" <andym@ActiveState.com>
To: "Chris Withers" <chrisw@nipltd.com>; <zope@zope.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Zope] Why Not Zope? 'Cos I like to bitch! ;-)


> > > Hi guys,
> > > I found this article written by someone from Quixote concerning Zope,
> > > describing its weaknesses and possible future development
> > > http://www.amk.ca/python/writing/why-not-zope.html
> >
> > This guy is quite far up his own arse :-)
>
> I agree and Im just agreeing with what Chris said but putting it in a
> different way.
>
> His main arguement here seem to be that building complicated stuff in DTML
> sucks. He's right it does, but you shouldn't be building big complicated
> stuff in DTML (as Chris says).
>
> We almost exclusively write our code in python which means:
> -    you can grep it
> -    you can use CVS
> -    you can write any test suite you like
>
> For most small applications DTML can suffice, but when it gets large you
> should separate your code the way its intended, DTML is for simple logic
and
> presentation ONLY. Whilst PythonMethods are cool, I would naturally stray
> away from them for the above reasons for anything longer than about 5
lines.
>
> The heavy lifting, logic and anything more should be in python. I won't
> pretend its particularly easy Zope hurt quite a lot some times, but we got
> there..
>
> > It's probably more useful to work around the problems he describes
> > rather than bitching about them and telling people not to use Zope:
> >
> > The 'no grep' is probably the most serious of his points. You can easily
> > get around it though, by using a ZCatalog. Admittedly, a decent search
> > and replace interface (which I'm plugging for on zope-dev ;-) would be
> > really nice (Zope 3? ;-)
>
> We actually tried cataloging the dtml... and it didnt work. This can be a
> pain I agree.
>
> [..]
> > The test suite stuff is true for any web application, as has been
> > discussed on the XP lists (so I'm told ;-) That said, there's ZUnit and
> > PyUnit now, so I'm not sure that his opinion on this is valid at all.
>
> You can write a your own test suite and for most web applications thats
what
> people do.
>
> > His comments about DTML are all valid, but it's a choice he'd made to
> > write logic in DTML and he's a fool for doing so. IMNSHO, all 'logic'
> > should be kept in python and you should never need to use the "" in a
> > DTML tag.
> [..]
>
> Hear, hear. As above, the "" is useful though...
>
> [..]
> > Yes, it can be confusing, but maybe you should just write
> > code which doesn't make assumptions about variables, or handles the
> > cases when they're not there. The same is true of acquisition and the
> > namespaces concepts, maybe with better documentation, people like him
> > wouldn't have such problems.
>
> To me you should "never" make the assumptions you suggest regardless of
the
> environment...
>
> > Zope's built in FTP server is one of it's huge stengths, IMO. He hasn't
> > realised this and so bitches about it. You can always turn it off you
> > know! Likewise the HTTP server, run Zope as a CGI if you must! :P
>
> "Apache already exists and is highly flexible and configurable" of course
it
> is, use it if you want, grrr..... TMTOWTODI.
>
> More comments I would like to argue with:
>
> "it's not apparent that DC is quickly responding to fixes."
>
> I think DC and this group are great at responding to fixes, especially
> anything serious or security related. Ok there are still a few bugs out
> there that havent quite gone yet, but everybody has been great. The good
> community spirit for me is one of Zope's strengths.
>
> "Object traversal is complicated since objects can affect how they're
> traversed"
>
> And again this is bad for what reason. More power to us I say.
>
> Thats it.
> --
>    Andy McKay, Developer.
>
>
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