[Zope] Storing Data inside Zope

[Tom P. Allred]

Just how bad an idea is it to use Zope object Properties to store
numeric/text application data?

My first Linux (or otherwise) Zope app will be a gratis case tracking system
for a friend's small (himself plus 3 staff) law office.  Other than setting
up new clients and cases (maybe a few a day) the most frequent data changes
will be adding new activity detail records which are small.  Only a couple
of reports are run each day. Overall transactions will be few and small.

My initial idea was to use MySQL or PostgreSQL for data storage.  While
developing the framework of the app I want to be able to store/retrieve a
few records for testing.  Since every bit of Zope (HTML, DTML, Python, etc.)
is new to me, every time I start to do something I have to learn something
else first.  I'm not complaining - that's how I expected it to be - but if I
could sort of skip over learning ZSQL and defining/using MySQL tables right
now and stay focused on my input forms and reports, then come back to data
storage later, that would really nice.  My plan is to use scripts for all
I/O which would allow me to change I/O methods later without changing
whatever code is calling the scripts.  I considered using text files or XML
data files within Zope for testing but in each case I'd have to write the
parsing and update-data code myself which would take time and be thrown out
later by the final ZSQL code.

Then I thought about defining some object that takes Properties, adding
Property names/types for (example) the client master record and saving that
as a data template (not ZPT).  Then each time there was a new entry I'd make
a copy of the template and update the Properties using Zope's built-in APIs
without ever giving the data objects any content.  I think I could also use
Zope catalog features for data searches.

Without knowing more about Zope the only downside I see is the data being
encapsulated in the app tree, therefore requiring any data to be purged
before copying/exporting the app somewhere.  It will also make the Zope
object grow but adding data is going to make any database grow no matter
which is used.  I can also imagine there might be a philosophical point
about keeping the data outside the Zope object.  But is it a bad idea for
some practical reason?  That's a question with two branches.  The first is,
is it completely bad and I shouldn't do it even temporarily for testing?
The second is, is it bad for production but okay for development/testing?
If there isn't a good reason for not doing it then it would certainly be
nice to be able to stay in Zope for everything so that only Zope would have
to be installed to move the package to new machines and so I can stay on
track without having to branch off into data storage issues.  I was thinking
about using the File object as my data object since it supports Properties.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Tom P. Allred, MCSE, RHCE, CCNA
Allred Data Consulting, Inc.
704-633-0311 x826
www.AllredData.com
Tom@AllredData.com