[Zope] Can Zope Do....?

[Jerry Westrick]

On Thursday 02 December 2004 01:01, Alan Snyder wrote:
> Hi everyone. This is my first post and I'm deeply curious about Zope.
> We're planning on some major product overhauls in our company and I
> was wondering if Zope (at some level - even programmatically in python
> if necessary) can do the following...
>
> 1) Authenticate against a SAML service or other XML based
> authentication scheme. How about a kerberos service?

Well there is a programmable interface for zope authecation.
It has a no nonsense interface, allowing you to authenticate to your little 
hearts desire.  (It would help if you had python code for kerberos though 8-)

I don't know if anyone has already done kerberos.

> 2) If I have a table of, say, 100,000 records in PostgreSQL, can I
> configure Zope somehow to list a particular set of columns from that
> table in a list, and also provide edit/add pages to modify and insert
> records against the table? How hard/easy is it to do something like
> this? Are there any frameworks or classes to aide with this kind of
> stuff?

Yes, this quite straight forward, and very simple.

> 3) I know Zope has workflow, but can it be configured to work with
> external workflow services like JBPM running on a Jboss server?

Zope it self doesn't have a workflow.  there are several you can add on but 
personally I use zope as a web front end to postgress relational database.
I've never used the workflow nor the CMF stuff.  For me zope is used as an 
application server.

> 4) Would you say Zope is suitable for 'enterprise' development - i.e.
> building things like Human Resource apps or an inventory module? I
> love the python end of Zope and the GUI and interface but I'm curious
> about the functional 'behind the scenes' features. I'm looking to use
> Zope to develop a set of applications that have nice functionalities
> and a nice look and feel as well, and I'm wondering overall, how much
> Zope can be 'bent' into something that is not really content
> management, but more like database records management, with workflow
> and security, etc., via web services. I know this is a general
> question, but any input is greatly needed and appreciated.

Zope is an application server.  The content management is just one of the 
applications it can server.  (It's the most popular/successfull application).  


> 5) How friendly, overall, is zope with XML and web services like SOAP?
> If this is just a function of Python, then that's good enough.

I don't know.

> 6) Finally, how is zope different / better than plone? They're both
> CMS systems that seem to have a large following and a great API. I'm
> very new to both but am leaning towards Zope because it 'feels' like
> it can do more - however true that may be, at least that's what I
> perceive.
>

Plone is the most successfull application run on Zope 8-).  plone has alot 
more CMF/workflow stuff built on top of zope.

> Thanks in advance for your help, and I apologize for the newbie
> questions as dumb as they may sound.
>

A few tips from my expirience with a huge database (small code) application:

- I found zope to be fantastic web application server.  It provides me with 
user authentication and storage, session support/storage, Transaction 
support/storage.  In short what we used to call a transaction monitor.

- I ended up avoiding data storage in zope objects.  Used the tried and true 
age old code vs data split.  All data in postgres, including my users as they 
are created dynamically (via web).

The ZODB is some kind of object database, but as databases go, I still find 
the advantages of relational DB's to far outweigh the advantages of Objective 
DB's...  on the other hand, it does wonders for the code 8-)...

- Avoid the versions, they simply do not work, and by using them you run a 
high risk of corrupting your code database, 8-(


Jerry


> Alan
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