[Zope] Zope Development as a beginner

[Dylan Reinhardt]

On Sun, 2003-09-21 at 01:36, William Yeung wrote:
> Dear all,
> Recently I am seeking new opportunity for developing low cost web
> based solution on linux (I was classified as MS Man :P)

Ah... welcome to the other side, then. :-)

>  in order to do lower end market. I was playing quite a bit different
> web development platform (ASP, ASP.NET + C#, and now Zope) and I found
> the following conclusion: Zope seems has a good concept but difficult
> to manage in terms of granularity of the project.

I'll see if I can help out with that conclusion.


>  I found myself get very much feeling on Zope is actually still very
> script based- which is quite similar to what ASP and PHP did!

That's an understandable conclusion.  DTML looks and smells like ASP and
PHP but it is a big mistake to use it that way.  

DTML and TAL work better if you use them for as little as possible and
hand off any real logic to Python.  Developing this way delivers the
best of both worlds: logic is done in a powerful, flexible programming
language and layout is managed in a tag-based templating language.


>  I can see some of the different advantages (e.g. the acquisition of
> objects) on the web publishing side- but when I am thinking about
> implementing an high cohesion based system such way of maintaining
> objects and methods seems give me very much hassle on trying to
> coordinate things together.

Perhaps that's because the Zen of Acquisition has not settled in.  Care
to share an example of something that seems more cumbersome in Zope than
in ASP or PHP?


>  I think I am comparing this with ASP.NET, which seems give a very
> good way to separate UI and logic layer, while still has very good
> cohesion on each function of a webpage as a frontend to use. Think
> about I have 20+ different controls on a same screen which requires
> pretty much back and forth database activities and session control in
> order to finish a transaction... seems Zope is not very good at this
> kind of development.

It's hard to comment on that without knowing more.  Maybe you could
suggest a trivial example and give us a chance to take a whack at it?



>  However, even after the first sight I have to say I love python quite
> much- the language is convenient and clean, gives very good
> readability in terms of coding... so I really dream about if someone
> could come up with something more similar to ASP.NET instead of ZPT
> and DTML style

It may be heretical to suggest this on a Zope list, but you may be more
interested in Webware: http://webware.sourceforge.net/

Webware uses Python Server Pages, an environment that is Python-focused
but far more like ASP than Zope is.


> ... also to allow a more easy to develop platform (I really dont like
> to keep going back and forth on the ZMI to build up my projects, I
> want to do all things offline and then test things at once) ... is
> there something out already, or my thoughts is just so different with
> you guys that no one think its a good way to do web development?

You might be interested in Python Products.  This is how you add new
objects to Zope, but if you want to you can create whole applications
this way.  The development cycle for these is (can be) much more
offline, though you'll obviously need to test them in a Zope install to
validate the UI.

Zope can be thought of as a RAD tool.  Building up apps through the ZMI
*can* be a hassle, but if it's really *that* much of a pain, it's quite
possible you're missing how much Zope is willing to do for you.  Again,
maybe a trivial example of *what* you're trying to do would give us
enough material to show how Zope might improve on the process.

HTH,

Dylan