[Zope] A typical Zope problem

[ghaley@mail.venaca.com]

	Hi Chris, (and Tim).

	First, I'll have to echo Chris's frustration, as I'm sure all of
us have.  I was particularly fortunate in that I went to work at a company
as a database administrator and worked for a really top flight programmer.  
Yet!, even so, we have suffered through a really stiff learning curve.  
If you read WebTechniques magazine, a reviewer gave Zope very high marks.  
His only negative was that it features a very steep learning curve.

	A couple of thoughts.  The zope.org site seems to be a combination
of volunteer and digicool efforts.  Since so much of the documentation is
provided by us users, it can be widely scattered around, and the search
engine does not always uncover what is actually there.  The mail-list
archives contain a gazillion links to very obscure howtos and hints.  So,
read those.  There are real diamonds in them that you will not find with a
standard search engine.  (if you've done statistical programming, you know
how hard it is to find the right tool for the job in the index of a SAS or
SPSS manual, it's the question that drives us -- and the answer to the
question you ask is not always the answer that will actually address your
question).

	2.  When you run into a problem with something like, what do you
do with a .tgz file, don't hesitate to post it to the list; you may get a
dozen responses, but you will get an answer.  for that by the way, if you
are running a unix environment, you can unpack a .tgz file with:

	$ tar xzvf Filename-1.333.9.413.src.tgz 

(or whatever absurd numbering system is at work at the time).  and you
will get your files. N.B., a lot of times, zope files will extract into a
lib/python/Products/ so i've gotten in the habit of moving my tgz file
into a temp directory and untarring it there (then if it has the python
path already in the tar file, i can move them into the
/opt/zope/lib/python/Products/ directory.

	3.  look at the source code.  it is sometimes scary, but you do
learn how python classes are calling each other and how they are feeding
data to each other.

	4.  don't lose faith.  there is a powerful payback in the time you
invest in the process.  i am highly sceptical of all the testimonials that
say someone was able to install and get a full zope install up and running
in an afternoon.  either they were in an sst flying west, or they have
very advanced computer science and object oriented programming skills.

	keep posting your questions.

	ciao!
	greg.

	Gregory Haley
	DBA/Web Programmer
	Venaca, LLC.

> Chris Cioffi wrote:
> > 
> > I know this is a common complaint, but I just found a particularly nasty
> > example:
>