[Grok-dev] Re: What is Grok anyways... time for a name change? :)

[Martin Aspeli]

Hi Martijn,

> I took some notes from this thread (thanks Sebastian for starting it) 
> which would be a good starting point to start working on 
> changing/expanding/new texts for grok.zope.org. Martin, I'd be happy if 
> you could produce something here - from what you write we seem to have 
> been effective in communicating what Grok is all about to at least you. :)
> 
> We can then work together at giving it the proper place on the website.

Yes, I'd be honoured. You'll need to manage me a bit though. Email me in 
private (more than once if I don't reply, though I'll try) and tell me 
what you need and in what context.

> Now to the digression:
> 
> Martin Aspeli wrote:
> 
>>> A programming language named after Monty Python's flying circus?
>> Actually, in the types of circles I work, Python is seen as a poor 
>> cousin to Ruby, because people have heard of Rails (a lot, if you read 
>> thins like InfoQ or TheServerSide, it's like the cool new thing), and 
>> say "Python needs something like that". Hence the whole 
>> Guido-chooses-a-framework thing (yay, that made a whooping great amount 
>> of difference). Actually, Python is (from what I can tell) a lot broader 
>> in scope and possibly more widely used than Ruby, it's just that to most 
>> people (at last among certain groups) "Ruby" is a shorthand for 
>> "Ruby-on-Rails" and Rails has had ridiculous hype.
>>
>> But I digress...
> 
> Right, Ruby (through Ruby on Rails) has definitely been hyped extremely 
> effectively.
> 
> I'd say Python is *definitely* more widely used than Ruby, by the way. 
> (though of course that might be changing if Ruby on Rails grows). 
> Python's very extensive library support is a witness to that. I think 
> there are few programming languages out there that have the range of 
> choice in libraries that Python has by now.

You're preaching to the choir. :)

> I was actually pleased to discover recently some *negative* discussions 
> on Ruby, and Rails, in the blogosphere. I wish them well, but after so 
> much hype it was a breath of fresh air. A bit more realism will do them 
> good - they're probably going to learn a lot of lessons the Zope 
> community has learned years ago. As a nice bonus, and ironically so, 
> Python is gaining the reputation of actually being *fast* in the Ruby 
> world. :)

Heh, right. I mostly ignore language food fights, and if someone 
presented a sufficiently good argument for using Rails in a project, I'd 
give it a good go. I believe a programmer is only a good developer if he 
can pick up a new language in a weekend and be productive with it after 
a week.

> Anyway, to bring this back to Grok, Grok wants to have the cake and eat 
> it: we say Grok is cool and exciting and new *and* grounded in years and 
> years of hard-won experience. It is built on a solid mature platform but 
> it's *not* crufty and messy. One of our main assets in the Zope 
> community is a deep history and deep experience. If we can associate 
> maturity/experience with new/cool in people's minds, we stand a chance 
> of making an impact.

I completely agree. It's just that selling this is more difficult even 
if it's true. People naturally distrust those kind of statements and 
disregard them. It's all down to careful phrasing.

I'd like some kind of diagram...

> Note that I've seen Rails, Django and TurboGears use something like this 
> strategy: "yeah, this is new, but based on years of experience/in house 
> work/existing other frameworks we're reusing". Zope can do that better 
> as we have our experience in the public record.

Yep.

Martin