On 3/5/06, Max M <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Geoff Davis wrote: > > Jeff Shell has posted some thought-provoking pieces on his blog that are > > relevant to Jim's recent attempt to better articulate a vision for Zope: > > > > http://griddlenoise.blogspot.com/2006/03/zope-crisis-of-faith-coming-this-march.html > > > > http://griddlenoise.blogspot.com/2006/03/crisis-of-faith-messengers-have-been.html > > > Griddle *Noise* and thats exactly what it is... noise.
Well, I do love me the noise. [ Check me out at No Fun Fest 2006, Brooklyn! http://www.nofunfest.com/ Mar 17 2006 | http://euc.cx/aodl/ ] I say repeatedly that I'm not a good person. I'm cranky. I don't apologize for it. I see a Zope 3 deliverable in front of me that has half-assed versions of Zope 2 items (the page templates, etc). Zope 2 is far more mature here. I'd love to have a vision that would move these half-assed items out of the Zope 3 application server I have installed here, and fit them into a new vision that does match the maturity of Zope 2. And then, when those things are gone, I'll have a simpler Zope 3 to start from that doesn't have those elements as strange distractions. I'll ultimately have a Zope 3 where a third party developer might write a much better behaving through the web Page Template object and behavior. I'll have a Zope 3 with a simple core and easy-to-install extensions. I'll have a Zope 3 that I will be able to tailor to the needs of me and my customers, who have widely varying needs. I'll have a Zope 3 that I can make lean and mean and fast, with a minimum of configured objects and options threatening to take up memory and resources, which is going to be very important in an upcoming project. > He is probably following the discussions on the lists, and then he is > publishing his view on them on his blog instead of participating in the > dicsussion. It's hard to keep up with all of the discussions, and sometimes it's good to just get big ideas off the chest and open what I have to say up to a larger group of people. > We have probably all seen the Ruby On rails in 15 minutes video, where > they showcase their take on nineties web technology. > > I could probably do one that is a lot more impressive with an UML tool, > Plone, archetypes and ArchgenXML. And it would most likely last 10 > minutes... if I talked very very slowly. And I don't know of any UML tool that didn't have me reaching for the shotgun within 10 minutes. UML is great for sketching. If you want tools to do all your programming, you don't need Python. I think it's ridiculous that they hide the programming language and its usability under so many layers. > But that is not the point. He rants about Rails. But what are the > visions of rails? I don't see that anywhere on their website either. I think it's in pretty big type on the front page. "optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity... write beautiful code by following convention over configuration." One of the best visions I've seen about Rails was saying that J2EE is Slow'n'Clean. It's totally proper. It's totally abstracted. There are lots and lots of XML configurations. Lots and lots of separated objects. And it's a lot of work to do something simple. PHP is the other end of the spectrum: it's quick, but dirty. It's a lot of work to do something 'clean'. Rails tries to provide "Quick'n'Clean". After some quick experiences with it this weekend, it mostly works. I think Zope could be a "mostly quick'n'clean." But right now, it's going back towards a "quick'n'mostly confusing". Ruby's `script/generate scaffold accounts expenses` command is beautiful. It generates an application based on a model. No huge layers like ArchGenXML or ArchgenUML. It uses the model in the database. It then *generates useful and usable starting point code for an application*. The generated interface is simple, and unlike a lot of code generation tools it actually feels like code that you can start modifying and working from. So you have a good starting point for an application, and you can pretty quickly start making it your own. The starting point is really basic, rather bland, but usable. So you know that you can start modifying it from there. It gives the experience of immediate results, as well as immediate "ok, now how do I start making it look/behave like I want?". > He is just another developer who wants Zope to consists of only those > elements that he is insterrested in. I don't mind there being other elements. But I don't want them in the way. I have different visions for me, for my customers, and so on. Some of their needs are VERY VERY VERY different than what a full Zope suite offers. But we still like Zope. As I've said, I've been using it in some form for nearly a decade now. Why can't I have my mid nineties experience again? Why can't I save my death march project in a day by moving to two out of three core pieces? Give Python programmers an excellent tool base built on simple and consistent practices. This is what the Component Architecture offers. Using this, various communities will start building the kick ass tools that meet other peoples needs. > In other words. Just like the rails, people he wants the freedom to > reinvent the wheel. Poorly. Zope and Bobo have been around for nearly a decade. Why do so many Python programmers feel the need to reinvent it? I always thought that if Python was to have any built in web programming concepts beyond CGI, it should have built on Bobo. I felt that way in the nineties. I feel that way today. Zope's core ideas are the best out there. Why does no one use them? Because there are very smart people out there that find the rest of Zope intimidating, overwhelming, and getting in the way of their goals. After getting frustrated with it, they go off and reinvent the wheel. Or there are people coming in from PHP (like Django's developers) that are looking for something better than what they came from. For whatever reason, instead of using Plone/CMF/Zope, they wrote their own tool, Django, for use in a newspaper style environment. Funnily enough, newspapers are Zope's roots. Why don't we control this story? -- Jeff Shell _______________________________________________ Zope3-dev mailing list [email protected] Unsub: http://mail.zope.org/mailman/options/zope3-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
