[Zope2-migration] For whom and what is Zope 2/3?

[Jon Whitener]

Thanks to Seb for his clarifying response.  Now, I ask for a refinement of Seb's scheme of things regarding a group whom I will call the "intermediate Zope users".

Intermediate Zope users are graduating from Through-The-Web development and ZClasses to building their first file-system-based Python Products.  They know enough about Python and the guts of Zope to create (simple) Python products in the ZOPE/Products directory, but they will not soon change anything inside ZOPE/lib/python.

(An aside: they are also disregarding the current, clearly-unsettled documentation about how to create components.  Base?  No base?  All your base are belong to us?)

For example, I am building fairly simple Python products to model my business objects, but I will likely never create the next Plone.  Do intermediate users like me fall into Seb's definition of "'back-end,' source-hacking developers"?  Will the changes in Zope 3 be important to the intermediate Zope user?

Jon Whitener
Detroit Michigan USA


At 2/3/03 06:10 PM, Seb Bacon wrote:
>Jon Whitener wrote:
>
>>- For whom is Zope 3? 
>
>
>Zope 3 will replace Zope 2.  Its ultimate audience is exactly the same at that for Zope 2.  This audience includes:
>
> - business decision makers who need to solve common web problems
>   quickly
> - web content managers
> - mainly 'front-end' developers who want to add rich functionality
>   (e.g. site searches, discussions) to their templates
> - 'back-end' developers who want a RAD environment for solving
>   complex problems, usually with a strong web aspect
> - application itegrators (thanks to python as a 'glue' language)
>
>It does not (currently) include:
>
> - decision makers who need certain specific technologies, e.g. .NET,
>   Java
> - certain highly-distributed enterprise-scale asynchronous
>   security-critical applications
>
>> - For what is Zope 3?
>
>Zope 2 has been hitting against certain (obscure to many) ceilings for some time now (q.v. ZPatterns).  Those to whom these problems are not obscure are the 'back-end,' source-hacking developers mentioned above. Zope 3 is currently aimed at them.
>
>Zope 3 is an attempt to clean up Zope 2.  Its current focus is on fundamentally sound technical design following best-practice learned from developing in Zope 2.  It provides a set of programming metaphors which encourage code re-use.
>
>The real benefits of Zope 3 to the majority of users will only become apparent over time, as the new approach bears fruit.  Primarily, the long-term maintainability of code written using Zope 3 will improve significantly, with knock-on effects for the extensibility and stability of this code.
>
>It also makes possible radically improved ways of developing through the web, among other things.
>
>Most of the obvious benefits to non-Zope-hackers are only just stopping being science fiction.  Personally, I expect to see the biggest benefits as emergent phenomena somewhere along the development cycle, perhaps not until 2004.  Currently, and correctly IMO, Zope 3 is just concentrating on sound technical footings.
>
>In short, I believe that the obvious, no-brainer benefits of Zope 3 to decision makers will not become apparent for some time, and will most likely appear in a piecemeal fashion.  The most likely pattern is that someone will develop a "killer app", like a squishdot or a plone, which will drive uptake.  The core technical benefits of the *framework* will not be of relevance to the majority of Zope2 users for a long time, IMO.
>
>> As a complement, how do the answers differ when we switch all the '2's
>> and '3's above?
>
>I'll let someone else tackle that...
>
>seb