[Zope-CMF] newbie looking to buy a clue

larry_prikockis@natureserve.org larry_prikockis@natureserve.org
Thu, 30 May 2002 12:09:36 -0400


> yes, i am a newbie to Zope and have been requested by my boss 
> to figure
> out how to impliment Zope-CMF in our intranet.
> 
> Sound familiar?

Actually, I *wish* I were in your position-- I fear more often, it's the
boss wanting to know *why* s/he should even be interested in some free
program with a funny name ;-)   but anyway...

> 
> I have been reading the Zope site and the CMF Dogbowl site 
> and I am still
> looking to find the best place to START learning this beast. 
...
> 
> Is there a START HERE place that anyone can recommend?

for better or worse, you're probably on the right track... In addition to
the zope.org site, there's zopezen.org, zopenewbies.net and a bunch of
others (linked from the main Zope site).  And of course, perusing the
archives of this and the other Zope lists will yield answers to most of the
common questions.

There's also the Zope Book... http://www.zope.org/Documentation/ZopeBook/
which is probably about the closest thing to a full structured introduction
to Zope you're going to find (there are a bunch of other books on Zope
slowly appearing in the bookstores... but it's hard for any book to be
completely up to date when there's so much new going on every week)

The bottom line though is that it seems the way most people learn Zope is by
setting up a server, trying to do something useful or cool with it, and then
asking questions when things go awry.  It's not the fastest process, but,
speaking as someone who was at your stage not all that long ago, you *do*
eventually start getting a handle on things.

Learning python (and for that, there *are* plenty of good tutorials- check
out www.python.org) would, I suspect, greatly shorten the learning curve for
Zope since so much of Zope's "personality" stems from its python roots.
Plus python is a cool language in its own right.

All that said, if you're looking for the quickest way to get something nifty
up and running-- definitely check out www.plone.org.  Plone is a content
management system built on top of the CMF (content management
--framework--).  The documentation section of the Plone site has a lot of
information on general CMF usage as well.

> 
> and why is there not a place to send comments and questions to the
> developers/webmasters of CMF Dogbowl and/or Zope.org?

zope.org has feedback links at the bottom of the page... as does the footer
of messages sent out on this list  :-)


good luck!!  I hope some of my ramblings help...