[Zope-dev] Re: ploneout - Or how using zc.buildout for a common Zope2 project might look like

[whit]

Jim Fulton wrote:
> whit wrote:
>>> I'm not clear on what the advantage would be.  I'm probably missing 
>>> some use cases.  I think they are both valid approaches to the problem.
>>>
>> my main usecase is to be able to use buildouts in a workingenv without 
>> having to rewrite the recipes... right now, I have to do one or the 
>> other.
> 
> Sure.  I still don't know what that means. :)
> 
> *Maybe* you'd like to use workingenv to install eggs and use buildout to do
> other things like set up zope instances.  If that's the case, then it's
> just a matter of writing recipes that take into account how you install 
> eggs
> and scripts. But maybe that's not what you mean.
> 
> ...
> 
>>> If people really see value in having buildout and workingenv work 
>>> together, perhaps Ian and I could explore this a bit at PyCon next 
>>> month.
>>>
>> +1.  my general feeling is that there is a enough overlap that this 
>> would be beneficial.
> 
> Specific use cases would help to guide this.

the main usecase for me is the following... hanno writes a recipe for 
plone, and I want to use that recipe as part of setting up a openplans 
development environment (for example inside my workingenv that I've been 
developing w/out plone).

I'd like with minimal effort to have build in my setup without having to 
dig too deep into the existing buildout or the framework driving it.

This might be as simple as having buildout(at my own risk), do less with 
creating special pythonpaths in scripts(or perhaps just appending the 
existing one as the zope2 zopectl script does now).

I'd also like to have the development eggs and normal eggs go where I 
currently have my eggs(lib/python, /src). as I believe you've pointed 
out that can be done by simple modification of the cfg file and that'd 
be fine.

>>>> try to justify why a zope hammer is better and why zope folk keep 
>>>> building new hammers that don't play nice with everyone else's 
>>>> hammer loses us cred.
>>>
>>> You seem to be implying that workingenv is somehow a standard tool 
>>> and that buildout is a zope-specific tool that needlessly duplicates 
>>> a standard tool.
>> I was perhaps offbase in my comment about egg handling.
>> workingenv of course is not a standard tool. what I'm presenting here 
>> is a perspective I face on a regular basis; for a developer using 
>> workingenv already, it's far more standard than something else he is 
>> not using...and vice versa. 
> 
> No, it's more familiar -- to these people.
> 

actually, in my current workplace, workingenv is the standard way to set 
up one's dev environment.  but in the context of the previous statement, 
familar is perhaps a better word.

>> in the case of tools that enable a developer to start quickly, 
>> developers are very difficult to ween from habits that are currently 
>> working.  when a large and complex task such as building plone becomes 
>> codified in a technology that is not familar or easily compatible with 
>> the the developers current environment, it's an issue.
> 
> The alternative seems to be a custom shell script.  I can see how this
> would be familiar to the people who wrote it.  When there are well
> established and documented buildout recipes for doing common tasks, then
> there will be familiar tools, for some definition of familiar.

this is where rob started with our deployment strategy. I like buildit 
and buildout's codification of what happens in a build in cfg file since 
it creates a fairly auditable place to see what is happening(as well as 
extend it).  we are going to re-write the shell scripts using buildit 
and if plone uses zc.buildout, would like not to have to replicate that 
part in our own system.

>>> zc.buildout is in no way zope specific.  Can a Zope developer not 
>>> develop a tool without it being stamped as "zope specific"?
>> maybe... maybe not.  When a developer struggles with more than one 
>> tool from the same general source, it matters little to them whether 
>> one depends on the other or not.   That's true for languages, 
>> companies, frameworks and everything else.
>>
>> I think it really depends whether something transcends it's immediate 
>> community(and maybe here whether a z floats in front of it's name 
>> somewhere). 
> 
> So lets see. To contribute to the wider Python community, I should
> change the name of my Company or change jobs. Hm.
> 

>> for packages from zope or plone people, if they rides roughly with 
>> existing python techs
> 
> In what way does buildout "ride roughly with existing python techs".
> It builds on setuptools.  Do you mean that if there is another
> community package that does something somewhat similar, we aren't
> allow to create a similar package just because we are associated with
> the Zope project.
> 
>  > and come from a zopeish repository,
> 
> Oh, I have to use a different repository.
> 
>> sadly they are  liable to get branded w/ a legacy reputation that 
>> haunts the name.
> 
> Has it occurred to you that the problem here doesn't lie with the
> Zope project or Zope developers?
> 
>> inversely, those of us zope and plonistas may be a bit uncritical of 
>> projects coming from close to home
> 
> Oh, as someone who gets lots of criticism, I really don't think that
> is much of a problem.
> 
>> and allow such technologies to stay inaccessible to wider audiences.  
> 
> How are we doing this?  The primary forum for discussing buildout
> is the distutils sig.  It is released through PyPI.  It doesn't depend
> on any other technology that we use -- other than Python.
> 
> What should I do to make it more accessible?
>

jim, this is not a personal attack on zope corp or the good work you 
guys have done.

It is merely an observation about our entire community concerning some 
of social factors pertinent to this end of the python pond stated as an 
answer to what was obviously a rhetorical question by you. I apologize 
if it seemed otherwise.

I won't address your new set rhetorical questions/statements, except to 
say that we, zope community in toto, are the only people who can take 
action on our side of our relationship with the rest the world.

in making zc.buildout a widely useful minimal dependency technology and 
by taking part in this conversation(as acrimonious as it may seem at 
this point), I think you are positively effecting this relationship.

Hopefully the outcome of this conversation will mean that plone using 
zc.buildout won't in any way be divisive for people who choose different 
ways of setting up their development environments and have one less 
reason to bounce off of plone and therefore zope.

-w

-- 

------ d. whit morriss ------
- senior engineer, opencore -
- http://www.openplans.org  -
- m: 415-710-8975           -

"If you don't know where you are,
  you don't know anything at all" 


Dr. Edgar Spencer, Ph.D., 1995