[ZWeb] feedback on new zope.org material

[Martijn Faassen]

Carlos de la Guardia wrote:
> I had some time today to go over the material available and here are some
> preliminary comments on structure:

Great, thanks!

> Zope is strong on CMS, no doubt, but many people use it for other things and
> I think Zope 3 in particular has a lot of potential for all kinds of
> applications. While I realize it would be too general to say Zope can do
> anything, I think focusing too much on CMS apps can turn away some
> newcomers.

I agree. We should however not forget to highlight Zope's powerful use 
in CMS context, as this is a strength, and we should highlight 
strengths. We shouldn't make this seem as if Zope is *only* for CMSes, 
but it's a traditional and ongoing strength of Zope and we should show 
off the CMSes built on top of Zope. I think we'd do well to have short 
blurbs on CMSes like Plone, CPS, Silva, and other CMSes, but then I'm 
self interested in the context of Silva, so I won't be writing them myself.

Zope is a platform that has, not just one, but a *number* of different, 
powerful CMSes built on top of it, and we should shout about this 
loudlyh and clearly.

> Maybe why and where are also questions likely to be answered. As in why use
> Zope and where is Zope used.

Good points. Where is Zope used/who is using Zope is important. We need 
a list of showcase sites that use Zope.

Why is a harder question to answer. We can focus on our expertise, 
experience, extensibility somehow. Could you add these questions, 
perhaps with a sketch of the answer, in the structure document so we 
don't forget?

> One question that people asks all the time about Zope 2 is, given the varied
> tools available for the developer (ZPT, DTML, ZSQL, Python scripts, TTW
> development, etc.), when is it advisable to use each and how? That is, best
> practices. I know about several developers that think Zope 2 is the worst
> ever web application environment because they used it in the worst possible
> way and got burned.

Yes, best practices are important. While I'm focusing predominantly on 
marketing Zope to the developers from the first glance right now, we 
need to follow up on that with real meat. I think the list of Zope 
technologies is a good start -- it's a list of current technologies (I 
don't think I included DTML, for instance), and it could provide, with 
links to other articles, jump off points to documentation and best 
practice material.

We need to make sure we sketch this out in our structure document too, I 
guess. Will you do it while you edit it anyway for the questions? We 
have a question "How do I use Zope" added. :)

Thanks again for the feedback!

Martijn