[Zope] Why would YOU use Zope? ( or any other tool besides the 'industry standard')

[Heimo Laukkanen]

This email is partly quest for finding arguments how to sell Zope and to=20
understand how people - and especially people working in corporations IT=20
departments - make any decisions and how could Zope fit into that picture.

First a couple of words on my background, to understand my views.

I've doing web development with different tools from 1996. Done little C=20
and Perl, instantly adopted php when I saw it, got bored with Java when=20
tried it years ago and everything was still a mess -- meaning you had to=20
do everything yourself, fell in love with Zope. I have never built big=20
corporate IT-systems or even managed one, my IT experience comes from=20
applications that are either used through the web or talk with other=20
applications with TCP/IP. I'm not a programmer - I'm just interested in=20
solving problems.

And now to the beef.

Lately I've been reading some J2EE documents and tutorials and wondered=20
about the promises that they give. Somehow it seems that there are=20
answers or promises to almost anything, whatever you would like to do -=20
there is answer of somekind available. Application services and=20
frameworks are available on OpenSource flavour - or from IBM, Sun,=20
Orcale and others. And people have really eaten the J2EE candy.=20
Bookstores are filled with J2EE books and persons doing J2EE design work=20
are paid pretty well by tech. companies like Accenture. Java and XML can=20
be stated to be 'industry standard' - even in popular magazines.

Microsoft architechtures seems also quite popular. My impression is that=20
to many doing development on MS platform is a must because of the easy=20
connection to office systems that also run on MS-tools. I once saw a=20
nice web content management software that had a really nice tools into=20
Word and also to desktop. Managing web content was as easy as writing=20
stuff in Word.

In this way I can easily understand those who have made 'safe' decisions=20
on Java or MS way, either on choosing their platform or by buying=20
products on that platform. Then again neither J2EE, Java webservices or=20
  ms-way of work haven't really felt good to me.

Zope did touch some nerves and after a time it started to make sense.=20
And after laerning a bit of Python Zope made more sense. It is not=20
answer to everything, but doing rapid web development is really fun and=20
fast with Zope. With Zope and Python I now know that I can do almost any=20
webservice that our client can imagine, but on the other hand I also=20
know that the same service could be done with any other development tool=20
too.

For a customer the Java platform seems secure. They have read about Java=20
  and know it as a term. They have an idea that if they buy Java, they=20
can later on also find someone else who can continue the work done now=20
and that way they would make a secured investment. They might have also=20
something else allready running on Java-platform or are going to have,=20
and don't want something to mix -- either because of it might cause more=20
  maintenance costs and / or they don't want to learn too many different=20
things to handle. Same goes to MS platform, except that the products and=20
solutions that they buy will be most likely a closed boxes that they=20
need to trust (of course Java solutions can be that too).

If we forget the price discussions, what are the arguments for choosing=20
something else than 'industry standard'? How to make sure to a client,=20
that their investment is secured and they have made a good selection for=20
their web services.

--=20
Heimo Laukkanen
Oy Fountain Park Ltd
H=E4meentie 153 B, 00560 Helsinki, Finland
tel. +358 9 777 68 161, gsm +358 40 759 1110, fax +358 9 777 68 100
http://www.fountainpark.org