[Zope3-dev] Re: Post-Sprint Doc-Team report (fwd)

[R. David Murray]

On Sun, 22 Dec 2002, Jim Fulton wrote:
> Martijn Faassen wrote:
> > R. David Murray wrote:
>
> Why not have separate program guides? If they are independent of the app server,
> they are independent of each other, by definition. It makes sense to have a
> "Zope Schema Developer's Guide", a "Zope Security Developer's Guide" and so on.

+1

> >>Or we could substitute 'non-Zope3' for 'reusable'.
>
> That would not make sense.

Not given what you say later, no.

> >>That makes me wish we had settled on a name other than "Zope" for that
> >>top level namespace package.  I still think 'ZC' was a decent choice <grin>.
> >
> > Currently the 'Zope' name confuses many people into thinking everything under
> > 'Zope' is Zope specific.
>
> Are you sure? Do you have evidence to support this?

Well, I don't know about confused, but it just feels weird to me
<grin>.   Rather than the problem Martijn cites, I have the problem
that I'm used to thinking of Zope as the application server.  If I
say "Zope", unadorned, I think most people are going to understand
it as being the Application Server (which just happens to drag the
rest of the Zope-namespace software along with it when you install
it).

I can try to change that perception in my own mind, though.

> Yes, but what is 'Zope'?  I hope that Zope is not soley an application server.

That appears to be the key question.  If Zope is not just an
application server, then what is it?

Hmm.  I suppose I can grok this if I remember that Zope stands for
Z Object Publishing Environment, and notice that indeed all of the
packages at the Zope namespace level can be viewed as being about
enabling various aspects of Object Publishing (just not exclusively
through the Zope Application Server).

So I just have to bring my habits of thought in line with reality.

> I wish we didn't have to deal with this again. But the number of positive responses
> shows that we do. Dang.

Sorry I brought it up.  I forgot how polarized the previous discussion was.
Maybe this one will bring more clarity.

> OK, first of all, I hereby veto "zc". The obvious interpretation is "Zope Corporation"
> and that would be absolutely the wrong message to send.

Funny, I'm a community member and I'm perfectly comfortable with
'zc' standing for both Zope Corporation and Zope Community.  But I
recognize that this is definately *NOT* true of everyone.  So, as
far as *I* am concerned, we can table this namespace renaming thing
again.

> So, having said all that, I'm open to suggestions subject to the notion that
> the name "zope" should apply to more than just the app server.  I'm not going to make
> a suggestion myself, because, given the understanding that zope is more than the
> app server, "Zope.App" as representing the application framework makes perfect sense to
> me. :)

OK, given my understanding of what "Zope" is outlined above, maybe
what I should do is start refering to the application server piece
of the Zope software suite as the "Zope Application Server Package",
or "ZApp" for short <grin>.

--RDM