Python/Zope vs. Java/JSP

[Paul Boddie]

kosh <kosh at aesaeion.com> wrote in message news:<9ebtpi$3k1$1 at apollo.csd.net>...
> 
> Most programmers problems I have seen with zope so far is a complete 
> refusal to listen to how things work and refusal to read manuals.

For a long time, however, there weren't really any decent manuals - at
least not on product development.

> If you understand python and just read the zope book which is freely
> available and a tutorial or two that someone will point out on #zope on 
> irc.openprojects.net developing python products in zope is very easy.

I trust that the tutorials are broader in scope and better than they
once were, then. Most of them seemed to concentrate on content
management before - an artifact of Zope's origins in Principia, I
would have thought.

> I  have seen too many though that had it in their head that x is the way zope 
> worked when it was not and they refused to consider that it did not work 
> that way and that in fact it worked in way y which when finally bashed into 
> their head they agreed that was an easier way to work with things. 
> Programmers carry with them many preconceived notions of the "one true way" 
> and this gets them into trouble a lot.

Indeed, but for those of us who were familiar with the concepts of
acquisition and the nuances of DTML from their beginnings in Bobo, and
who were enthusiastic about that particular technology, Zope just
seemed to make the development of Web applications more tedious and
frustrating. It's pretty hard to keep one's enthusiasm in such an
environment, especially when the documentation is lacking and the
experts just keep banging on about "the Zen of Zope".

Personally, Webware (http://webware.sourceforge.net) seems a lot more
promising for Web application development - at least in the areas
where Zope-style content management isn't important in the application
being developed. It's also much easier to get under the hood in the
spirit of open source. And I would think that not bundling an object
database also gives it the edge in terms of project acceptance -
people get quite unnerved by such things when choosing technology
platforms.

Regards,

Paul