[Zope] A typical Zope problem

[John R. Daily]

At (time_t)985668190 Greg Haley wrote:
> 	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.

One of the many frustrations I have with Zope and its documentation is
that the search results provide zero context. You see a long (and
typically truncated) title that may or may not have much bearing, and
no weighting, no summary, no snippets with the text you're searching
for.

Were it not for Google, I would be even more miserable than I am now.

> 	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.

Er, not necessarily. Certainly, the mailing list is far superior to
the IRC channel; I've never seen a question answered there. But I've
asked what I thought were reasonably intelligent questions and never
seen a response. If Dieter Maurer weren't so good at answering
questions, the ratio of questions to answers would be even worse.

As an example, I asked about the superfluous space added to the end of
certain paths in Zope 2.3.0. No answer.

Zope is in an unusual position. It is pretty good for rapid
development of web applications, but only after weeks or months of
trial and error can one learn enough to be productive. Organized
documentation would help. A cleaner API would help.

-John