Python + Zope compared to J2EE and .Net

[Istvan Albert]

Sig wrote:

  > framework of our future intranet web applications. He may identify
  > J2EE and .Net as the most serious and only candidates for the future
  > of our intranet technologies.
  >
  > I would like to promote Zope as good alternative to examine. But I
  > don't know how I should position Zope as a serious challenger
  > solution. Is there a hope for Zope in big corporations ?

A year and half ago our research group went through a similar search for
a new application server to move our 40K+ perl cgi (10K registered
users, with an average of about ten searches per minute) code to a new
framework. With my colleagues we've have test driven many technologies,
coldfusion, jsp, servlet, and .NET amongst them. I' have looked at many
templating engines too.

I have looked at Zope too, I liked it but it did not make it through the
next round based on my recommendations alone. I was voted out very
promptly. Unless there are already python programmers on the team, it
will be difficult to sell the idea. We had one programmer who hated so
religiously the way whitespace is handled in python that ridiculed it
every time he had the chance.

I did not push hard on the matter, especially since I was not
programming in python myself at that time, and as a fresh owner of a
Java and XML certification I felt confident that we can easily get there
with java and XML.

Today I do as much as possible in Python, I get things done with a whole
lot less work, and I wonder how much better my old employer would be
doing if we have chosen Zope from the get go. Make no mistake the site
works well with Java, it is robust and fast but I think we work we
needed to put in was a little bit too much. We ended up with a solution
that needs all kinds of disparate knowledge to keep it up and running,
in the end I feel that we have over engineered things.

I have moved to a different city and I know that it will take quite a
while for my successor the get into the game. If I were to do this again
I would argue much harder for a Python solution, mainly based on the
strengths of Python.

cheers,

Istvan.