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

[Andreas Kostyrka]

On Wed, 30 Dec 1998, Jim Fulton wrote:

> 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
But I do not require file system access. The point is that I can use the
filesystem (if I'm allowed too). Even better I can upload an .tar.gz of
the whole site at once, ...
> 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.
Not really. FTP is not acceptable as it unencrypted. ;) That doesn't work
to well with my paranoia. (Sorry, some of this paranoia even lingers
around when my sysadmin hat is stowed away *g*)

> 
> 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.
Some of the functionality. But then, CVS and staging servers work REALLY
WELL with dialup connectivity, while versioning in the production server
requires me to be online during the work, ...
(As it is the production server, I just cann't copy over the database
 files and replace them later, some user might changed the database,
 right?)


> 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.
Actually, I've come up with a tiny Zope replacement :)

Andreas
-- 
Win95: n., A huge annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system
     crashes, usually just before saving a massive project.  Easily cured by
     UNIX.  See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS, Win 3.x, Win98.