[Zope] Zope Versus Enhydra Comparison article

[Michael Bernstein]

Ron Bickers wrote:
> 
> > Using Zope we knew that we would reach situations which may be
> > unresolvable in the short term, and could not make significant business
> > decisions with so many unknown factors and lack of any way to circumvent
> > problems.
> 
> What in the world does that mean?!?  Maybe it should read "We don't know how
> to use Zope or code in Python."

I can give you a personal example. When I was trying to get
LoginManager to display it's stored users in the local roles
security form, I couldn't fix it using what I knew, which
was DTML and ZClasses. I had asked for help on the lists,
and got some pointers in the general direction, but that was
all.

After a week of crawling around in Zope's source (and a lot
of whining), I found the parts I needed to duplicate for
PersistentUserSource.py, and I added them. It should not
have taken me a week, except that I don't really consider
myself a coder. The only thing that made it possible at all
was my extensive experience *using* zope, and my familiarity
with Tracebacks and a basic understanding of most of Zope's
underlying mechanisms. If I had been a real Zope/Python
coder, I probably would have figured it out in a day.

However, for a programmer who had to come into the Zope
environment 'cold', the problem would likely have seemed
intractable. They wouldn't have even known where to look,
and the fact that LoginManager is not an 'official' core
Zope product could have been a show-stopper.

(Why did I have to use LoginManager, you ask? Membership
requires it, and I needed to store user data in the ZODB
about NT authenticated users on a Solaris box. Gah).

So the problem, as I see it, is multiple dependencies that
may not be obvious. While over the long term, factoring
common functionality into separate products that other
products depend on makes more sense, and creates a *much*
more powerful framework, in the interim (waiting for things
to jell) it can frustrating as all get-out, and pretty easy
to get stuck.

Conversely, that things about Zope that are relatively
mature are a dream to use and leverage, so this is an
acceptable trade-off for me.

Cheers,

Michael Bernstein.