[ZPT] Web Design with ZPT

[Shane Hathaway]

Joseph Griffin wrote:
> Joel, thanks for your response. Let me phrase my question differently. Deep
> inside the bowels of Zope dot com there are a group of developers that
> decided what features Zope should have based on how they wanted to use the
> software in their consulting services (which pays their bills). I suspect in
> order to keep their labor costs down, they have adopted a strict regime for
> designing, contructing, and maintaining websites for their customers. I have
> read (and in some cases studied) a lot of the Zope book's contents. The book
> explains what the features are and how to use them in simple examples, but I
> have yet to find text that explains how to build a dynamic *and* low
> maintance web site. It may not be in Zope dot com's best interest because it
> could cut into the need for consulting services. What do you think? Joseph

Actually, our consulting projects are run very close to the way our 
public projects are run, but on a smaller scale.  I'll refer you to the 
fishbowl process:

http://dev.zope.org/Fishbowl/

Your original question about how to acquire ZPT zen has a surprising 
answer.  I sit directly across from the man who did most of the work 
integrating page templates into Zope, and who still maintains it, Evan 
Simpson.  When I was learning page templates, I could have just asked 
him to give me a tutorial, but since the documentation is so clean, I 
just read the docs instead.  In fact, I didn't even have to read the 
source. :-)

http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ZPT/FrontPage

OTOH, knowing when to use macros and when to use inclusion is a matter 
of art.  There's no substitute for experience.

Shane