[Zope-dev] Re: AdaptableStorage

[Shane Hathaway]

seb bacon wrote:
> Shane, AdaptableStorage is insane and beautiful - congratulations :-)

Thanks!  I've been working on this for a long time.  Two years ago a 
Digital Creations customer demanded proper object-relational mapping. 
The customer abandoned us for different reasons, but I feel like the 
root cause was our inability to fulfill that basic requirement.  Ever 
since then I've focused on this.  It took 99% perspiration and 1% 
inspiration, yet inspiration accounted for 99% of the implementation. :-)

> It could fit a possible project we have coming up where a requirement is 
> to store content in an XML format inside MS SQL Server.

It should fit that use quite well, I think.

> Do you have a TODO list?  Are there any "particularly alpha" parts?  I 
> would need to get an idea of the risk I was taking on, but if the list 
> is sufficiently small, I love to help mature and extend the product.

I didn't release the alpha until all the gnarly details were dealt with, 
like moving objects on the filesystem and implementing complex mappers. 
  The only things left to do before calling it a "beta" release are:

- Implement specific mappers for more Zope 2 object types, like DTML 
methods, BTreeFolders, etc.

- Come up with a good manual cache invalidation scheme.  Currently, you 
can disable the cache (or turn on "volatile" mode, which is really the 
same thing) and you'll see immediate updates, but you'll lose a lot of 
performance.  There needs to be a way for applications that modify the 
database to tell Zope about the modification, so Zope can reset its caches.

Shane