[Zope] - Why I don't think Zope will work for me

Jim Fulton jim@digicool.com
Wed, 30 Dec 1998 00:07:57 +0000


Curtis Galloway wrote:
> 
> Zope is very cool.  Zope has many useful features.  But I believe that storing
> most of your useful data inside an opaque object database is a fatal flaw.

This is a rather strong statement.

I could say that requiring me (and my customers) to have access
to the application file system, or to do without long-running transactions
is a fatal flaw.  But I won't. ;)
 
> I learned through painful experience that having your project data in text
> files in a filesystem is a Good Thing.  You can use standard UNIX tools to
> manipulate these files.  You can use EMACS or vi or any other tool to edit
> them.  And most importantly, you can use CVS or RCS or any other similar tool
> for source control.
> 
> I just don't see how you can build a large project with multiple developers
> using a Netscape browser as your editing tool, unless I'm missing something
> very obvious about the way Zope works.

We do it all the time.  Of course, I'd much *rather* use emacs as
my editing tool.  When Zope has FTP support, then this will be possible.
Actually, when FTP support lands, a number of interesting scenarios will
be possible.

Note that you don't absolutely have to use Zope's database if you don't
want to.  For example, you could use ZPublisher and DocumentTemplate
without using the rest of the Framework.  Of course, you'd lose alot
of functionality, but you'd retain alot of cool benefits.

It might be interesting if you or someone else came up with a kind of 
Zope folder that simply got it's objects from a file-system directory.
Presumably, the subobjects would be made available as Zope objects that 
played within the Framework, but were actually stored in the file system.

Jim

--
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