[Zope] Zope 2 Development Best Practices

[Paul Winkler]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 03:30:06PM -0600, Edward Pollard wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> A few years back our institution adopted Zope to support some CMS- 
> like development on a zero-dollar budget. We achieved our primary  
> goals in no time at all, and we very happy.
> 
> Since that time we have used Zope to deliver a number of solutions to  
> our organization.
> 
> However, as the complexity of our operation increases, it becomes  
> more and more apparent that our coding standards for Zope are very  
> low. We've leaned on the existing Zope community - adopting code,  
> borrowing ideas, trying to learn - but have never seen anything that  
> helps us better understand the philosophy and structure that would  
> underly a strong understanding of Zopishness.
> 
> For instance, here are a few gems from our playbook. Please note  
> first that everything works to our needs and we are trying to find a  
> way out of the darkness. We're smart folks, but I fear we have  
> strayed far from the path of wisdom and light.
> 
> - We have never developed a python based product, although we have  
> hung a gigantic amount of external methods off of a half dozen pages  
> to make it go. And yes, we use ZClasses (shock)
> 
> - We have solved problems by modifying the ZServer source code
>
> - We have developed entire database driven products inside external  
> methods.
> 
> - Every Z SQL Method we have has a python script associated with it  
> to massage input and output (and manually enforces security).
> 
> Of course, a google of Zope Best Practices just brings me a bunch of  
> Plone development stuff. That is of no use.
> 
> So where is the knowledge I seek to be found? Understanding that open  
> source products are prone to such abuses, I've not been able to find  
> anything as a starting ground to reform our ways.

You might start here:

http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/DiskBasedProduct
http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/Testing
http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/BestPractices

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com