[Zope] What causes the community to stall so often?

[Lennart Regebro]

From: "Ron Arts" <raarts@netland.nl>
> Most people want to install a binary package these days (in practice
> this means RPM).

Is this really true?
When I install things on unix, I usually download and unzip a tgz file, run
./configure, write "make" and "make install", and I'm done.
This is a couple of more steps than installing a binary package, it's true,
but I have in several cases ended up removing the binary package and
compiling from scratch, because the package by some reason doens't work,
while the default configure and make of the source does. I don't know why
this is, it just is.

Maybe I'm unique in this, but don't find it very complicated to install
software this way. And Zope's installation is even fewer steps. Granted,
it's not ./configure and make, it's python w(o)_pcgi.py, but it still less
steps... :-)

> Another thing: how to install? PCGI? ZServer? There is no recommended
> way. Documentation is sparse on this matter.

Eh, no, becuase it depends on if you are using PCGI or not. If you are, run
w_pcgi.py, if you aren't run wo_pcgi.py. Thats it...

> The windows install is good, but you're missing most of the opensource
> community if the unix/linux people don't install zope. And many
> people *only* install rpm (if only for easy removal).

I think deleting a directory is easier.

Your other points are completely valid, however.

> When I started browsing www.zope.org and all the dopcumentation,
> I came about three confusing differences: DTML, ZAL, and Zope3.
> It all was unclear to me, and if I will build a site in Zope I
> don't want to be on a dead trail. It is unclear to me which route
> I should take.

Zope 3 is not a "route". You can't take it. Until version 3 exists, you
shouldn't try use it. If this is unclear, it's very bad. You shouldn't even
know about Zope 3 unless you go to dev.zope.org. How did you get the
impression that Zope 3 is a route to take when using Zope today?

When it comes to DTML vs ZPT I think the Zope book is rather clear on what
the differences are.