Zope 3.0, and why I won't use it

[Martijn Faassen]

Will Stuyvesant wrote:
> So Zope still lives, yay.  Well, I like that they use Python.  
> 
> <rant>
> 
> What amazed me is they write that they "added types to the variables
> and hope that it will be added to the Python project too".  Really. 
> ROFL.

Admittedly this is not a very good description of what is done, but I 
believe you lifted that out of an article on it on zdnet, so they can 
hardly go into deep detail there.

What this actually talks about is the explicit interface notation. This 
actually has a long long history in the Python world and the Zope 
project has been involved in this discussion for as long as this 
discussion exists. It goes back to Jim Fulton's straw man interface 
proposal from, I think, 2000, and the discussions on the now-defunct 
types-sig.

The interface system is also in use by Twisted. PyProtocols is another 
large Python project that can make use of Zope 3 interfaces (and adds 
ideas of its own).

So, while this may come across as arrogant from the Zope project, please 
note the following:

* there's a long background on this of Python community discussion. It's 
not something that the Zope project is suddenly dumping on you.

* it's unfair towards the Zope project and Zope corporation in 
particular. They've funded a lot of core Python development over the years.

> And instead of working on the engine they should have put more work
> into examples.

Both need to be done. :)

>  Simple tutorials. 

While I am sure they can be much improved, and the web presentation of 
the Zope 3 project is not very ideal, I don't think the situation is as 
dire as you suggest here. Witness the Zope 3 book:

http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Projects/ComponentArchitecture/FrontPage/Zope3Book

> Downloadable executables for
> Windows that you can click and install. 

Someone still has to sit down and do this, I think. They do exist in the 
Zope 2 world, such as for Zope itself, Plone, and Silva.

> But most of all simple and
> good examples: webapplications like
> - a wiki in zope

This exists, actually:

http://svn.zope.org/Zope3/trunk/src/zwiki

> - a forum in zope, with agenda and calendar
> - a game like http://216.199.69.100/war/ in zope
> 
> They have a nice free webhosting thing for zope, but to expect new
> users to do everything from scratch...
> The "examples" I found were very disappointing.

I'm not sure where you were looking. Concerning examples and tutorials, 
Zope 3 is just in its beginning phase.

Regards,

Martijn