[Zope-Perl] Python and Perl scripts

[Michel Pelletier]

David Ascher wrote:
> 
> Michel Pelletier wrote:
> > Actually from looking over that page a little I think maybe they're
> > almost the same thing, you can use PerlScript from ASP and, let's say
> > you can use Perl Scripts in Zope.  To the end user, this just looks like
> > the above product with Zope integration.  While maybe confusing to us,
> > that may be a good way to re-enforce the two under the same name, if you
> > are using ASP and you want to use Perl, you use a PerlScript, if your
> > using Zope, it's a Perl Script; both from ActiveState.  It might be more
> > good than bad to have them be the same.
> 
> Please, not that.  There's a wide community of PerlScript users, and the
> semantics are different, the associated bugs and features are different,
> etc. etc.  A minor issue is that there may even be a TM on PerlScript
> which might not jive w/ the Zope definition, I'd have to check.
> 
> Regardless of the PerlScript issue, I too don't like the word script, as
> many many people refer to "Python scripts" all the time, and they mean
> something altogether different than what is currently PythonMethods.  I
> think that calling them scripts is inviting a whole other set of
> confusions, different but not altogether dissimilar from the use of the
> word 'Method'.

Yeah, that argument is pretty strong.  We're not sold on 'Script' yet. 
Your second argument is really the meat of it, I can sympathize with
your first objection, especially WRT confusing the two products.

Ken Manheimer wrote:
> I, for one, cannot think of a better name than "* methods".  They
> *are* zope methods, composed in python.  I do not see the reasoning
> behind the objections.  The question is not whether Zope's "Python
> Methods" work the same way as methods do in python, but rather,
> whether they work like methods, in zope!
> 
> I hate "Python Script".  It utterly fails to convey the point that the
> things *do* work as methods, not scripts.  Now, i know i have haven't
> been paying close attention - is there a way to use them not as
> methods?
> 
> And look at the company you're invoking - JavaScript, VBScript, etc.
> Or possibly even worse, direct dissonance with the "* Script" in MS'
> scripting engine (whatever it's now being called) uses.  Do you really 
> want to conjure these parallels?

I suggest you chat with Evan and Jim abit about our reasoning, which I
think is pretty sound and Amos and Gisle agree (at least to Method not
being ideal, not necesarily Script being good), especally WRT getting
rid of the semantic connection to "method" and "self" and also how PMs
have more explicit binding concepts out of the box than, say, DTML
Methods (which are also going to change names according to Jim,
something like "DTML Templates"? I don't remember exactly but they won't
be called methods either).

In Zope, the word Method is so overloaded, API methods? Python Methods? 
SQL Methods?  Then theres the people in the Python community, what does
it mean to them?  Nothing like any of these web objects.  

I agree with you that they're method-like, perhaps "web method" like,
but I don't think Python Methods are much at all like methods in python,
and that's why i dont like the name.  The argument binding is different,
the usage is different, the method namespace is different.  The only
time they *are* like methods in python is when they are methods of a
ZClass, which I think is only one audience, a _much_ smaller audience,
then those users who will use them to script their website,
un-obfusicate their DTML, and re-use their logic in their favorite
language that starts with "P".

Another thing is that Method means a lot to programmers, but we should
be focusing on usability.  What is a method to a newbie or someone who
has only HTML experience?  Nothing, probably.  But what about a script
and a template?  Your argument that we don't want to be in that crowd
can be turned against you.  From a usability perspective, we *do* want
to be in that crowd.

How about:

Python/Perl Web Script
Perl/Python Scriptlet
Python/Perl Web Method

?

-Michel