[Zope] Considerations using Zope

[Satheesh Babu]

> 1. Object Orientation

Zope is Object publishing environment. As far as I know, nothing takes 
object publishing as far as Zope does. The language to code in is 
Python, which is *nearly 100%* (or for all practical purposes) OO.

> 2. Server and client objects.
ZPT! The best there is.

> 3. Framework
This is where Zope really shines, IMO. It is a framework where you can 
change implementation of bits and pieces. Can't be better than this for 
making software that needs to last long.

> 4. Support
 > 5. 3th party support
Compared to Java, ASP or PHP, this is less.

> 6. Cost
$0

> 7. Userfriendly
> How good is the development platform.
> Are all tools needed available.
> Is the platform intuitive to use.
Here, Zope lacks IMO. Majority of "web developers" I've seen have little 
experience with software engineering. For such folks, Zope is a paradigm
shift when compared to ASP/PHP/CF. If you've people with OO or RDBMS 
fundamentals. they'll love Zope. Pure HTML/CSS/Javascript crowd will 
probably hate Zope.

Zope's object database is a really good technology, but as long as I 
can't gracefully store my code in CVS, I'm hesitant :-) Problem with web 
is that it is never possible to separate code from content 100%. There 
are some inititiatives to enable this, but the day when Zope stores its 
objects in pure FileSystem will be when I see heaven on earth :-)

> 10. Developer value
> What is the value of a developer having good knowledge of the platform 
> on the jobmarket.
Probably little now.

May be some day economy will be down enough so that companies don't want 
to invest thousands of dollars making unmaintainable and voluminous 
Java/ASP/PHP code - then, managers might be looking for skills that can 
provide solutions; not to just code using some syntax. But that day is 
not here yet and people still look for *hot* technologies like Java or 
.Net.

What Zope excels is in providing an extensible framework (and more) that 
does 90% of all you need to do for web application development. If you 
can read the documents, mailing list and manuals (don't laugh, there is 
a sizable developer population out there that cribs about lack of 
documentation unless you print out the appropriate page, underline the 
things they need to see and put it on their lap), you can easily 
make/customize the remaining 10% with little time.


S Babu
http://vsbabu.org/