[Zope] Re: [Jython-users] Jython and Zope

[Terry Hancock]

Chris Withers wrote:
> Urm, I think you may be misunderstanding Jython. Jython is an implementation of
> the Python language in Java rather than C, as used by normal python.

No, I'm not misunderstanding Jython -- I just think about
it differently. You're right of course, that you *could*
run Jython on the server. However, I can't (so far) think
of *any* compelling reason to do so (which is not to say
that other people can't, of course).
 
> So, as such, Jython is only as client-side as python is.

The point is that Python *isn't* very client side at all,
but Jython can be.
 
> However, you can't run Zope on Jython because Zope requires several C-Extensions
> to Python which wouldn't work under Jython.

Sure, but, again, why would I want to anyway? It'd
be slower, and I cannot think of a platform where
it wouldn't be easier to just run Zope on Python.
(Anyway who cares? I'm only going to run it on Linux
or Unix, anyway, why use anything else -- I get
to pick my server -- it's the client platform I can't
control).

Frankly, I see applets as the main value in Jython. The
ability to run it in JVM applications seems to have
little use to me. Why not just use Python?  The only
reason I can imagine is if I had a whole lot of
stuff already in Java that I wanted to use, or if
I wanted to run on a (hypothetical?) platform which
can't compile Python, but does have a JVM. But I
don't, and I don't know Java. I know C and Python,
so I'd feel much more comfortable using those, if
I have to write from scratch.

So for me, Jython *is* of interest strictly as a
client-side tool -- just as I said.  But this is
not a bad thing...

The point is, that to a Python programmer who's
already using Zope, the place Jython makes sense
is on the client side (any server-side application
will almost certainly be better served by using
Python).  However, the case for using Jython on
the client is very compelling -- there are a lot
of exciting possibilities for that if you can just
get started on it.

For me, the tricky part is understanding enough
to build and deploy the applet correctly.  This
is mostly a *Java* problem, not Jython as such.

Thus, the concept of creating a Zope product to
launch Jython applets seems very useful. It would
take care of all those nasty Java details, and
allow us to just think about the Python part.

IMHO, of course,

Terry

-- 
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Terry Hancock
hancock@anansispaceworks.com       
Anansi Spaceworks                 
http://www.anansispaceworks.com 
P.O. Box 60583                     
Pasadena, CA 91116-6583
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