[Tutor] Zope and Python...

[Harm_Kirchhoff at mail.digital.co.jp]

 I am using ZOPE under Win2000 purely as a database and not as a web-based 
application.

I fully concur with your observation that it is difficult to get started. 
The mailing list on zope is very very high level and the answers you get 
to beginner questions are sometimes/often too high to understand.

I basically bought all books available on ZOPE, but they all focus on the 
web aspects. There is little available on (mis)-using ZOPE simply as a DB.
However, once you find out how to use ZOPE's ZODB purely as a giant python 
dictionary it becomes really easy to use and is quite fast (at least for 
my limited amount of data). Regarding the books on ZOPE as a web tool, I 
personally got started with 2: Zope Bible and Zope: Web Application Development and Content Management, which I found interesting because it discusses many add-in you can use 
(web-mail, ExternalFS, ...) and, fo course the ZOPE book (which I had to 
read twice).

To my knowledge there is no resource on the net that focuses on absolute 
ZOPE beginners. It is pretty much a specialists circle that takes some 
time to get it. I had a frustrating couple of months, but afterwards I 
could at least do some basic stuff. Regarding ZODB: I do not want to miss 
it. If you need some code to get started on ZODB, I can post it.