[Zope] Zope evaluation questions

[Michael Bernstein]

Jeff Rankin wrote:
> 
> 1. Can you share experiences about using Zope with IIS?

Using IIS is possible, but generally unnecessary. Zope will install as a 
service on windows servers.

> 2. Is it still absolutely necessary to use Zope behind another web server?
> Most of the info on the web I've found about not using Zope's web server is
> a few years old.

Depends on what you need to do. Generally it's only necessary if you 
want to run multiple Zope instances on the same box (all on pot 80). 
Apache name-based virtual hosting (in combination with some rewrite 
rules and Zope's Virtual Host Monster) will serve you well. If you just 
need to run one Zope instance, another web-server is unnecessary.

Caveat: if you need to serve large static files from the filesystem, 
than using another web server in front of Zope can be a very good idea.

> 3. In terms of templating systems, do you find yourselves using DTML or ZPT?

depends on what I'm using it for. If I'm serving dynamic HTML or XML 
documents, ZPT is the way to go for me. Other formats such as Comma and 
tab separated values or text email, are easier to produce using DTML.

> 4. If the initial Zope-based projects work out well, we're going to consider
> using Zope on a much bigger project. At peak times, this project has about
> 200 concurrent users. It'a a very database intensive application. Will Zope
> scale well to something of this size? The current version of this
> application is a load-balanced Cold Fusion setup.

You're not providing enough information. What we need to know is, are 
the users mostly reading or writing from the database, and can reads be 
safely cached.

HTH,

- Michael Bernstein
Author, Zope Bible
michaelbernstein.com