[Zope] Can Zope Do....?

Wed Dec 1 20:27:23 EST 2004

Ok - I apologize for that plone vs. zope question. I totally forgot
that plone was built on top of zope. My experience with app servers is
only with J2EE and JBoss -- a wonderful application, but a lot of
overkill at times. However, when you need heavy duty stuff -
transactions, object persistence, etc., it's a blessing.

My real questions about zope were supposed to be from an application
server point of view, but I was under the impression that it was a CMS
system and it could be used as an app server - my fault.

I'm going to research more into this, but from what I've read here,
Zope is an application server and framework. Now, with that said, just
installing Zope, in and of itself, doesn't give you anything that you
could tinker with say in apache (like Plone). Zope is nothing until
something else is built on top of it. So, I'm kinda at square 1 when
it comes to designing an interface and CSS, etc. My hope is that I can
start with what Plone offers and start to mold both Plone and Zope to
suit my needs. I do need CMS functions in the apps I'll be developing
(file upload/download, Wiki, etc.), so if I could get a consistent
look and feel from Plone and still have the power and functionality of
Zope, that would be good. Is this likely / possible, or, am I totally
off here?

Thanks again - and thanks for the super quick response!
Alan

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 01:49:17 +0100, Jerry Westrick <jerry at westrick.com> wrote:
> 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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