[Zope] Zope stability

[Theodore Patrick]

>> Version Control and Development

Option 1 - VERSION OBJECT
There is an object called a version that will take existing zope code and
copy it into a protected space for development work. You can test a version
seamlessly and then roll your changes forward or undo them. It is a handy
way to edit a ZOPE site live and not affect operation until development is
complete. It is a rather hidden feature and easy to miss.

Option 2 - CUT, PASTE AND RENAME
You could also just copy your work folder into another folder work on it and
them merge the code by simply changing the name of the folders. That would
immediately route request to the new root/folder. If you have issues you can
easily undo the changes in the control panel. Typically for us work is done
progressively on areas of the Zope site, change a form here, change a SQL
method there. It tends to make the process easier to just make a copy of the
dependent objects and modify and test the code in an temp folder.

Option 3 - Production Server - Development Server
This model has worked well for us. As you can run Zope on any capable
workstation, it makes sense to do large development work in this model an
move the projects into a staging area for testing and deployment.

Option 4 - Make Backup/Archive/Version of your ZOPE ODB
Weekly we make a copy of the ZOPE ODB for backup and archive purposes
besides our daily backups. If we ever need old code we have a version that
we can put on any development server and retrieve the contents. It is a very
convenient way to manage the overall development process. With every dot
release of your code make a copy of the ODB. They tend to compress really
well and as they are 1 file make things easy. Make sure to compress the ODB
before you make a version, It tends to improve the performance of the
database and make your code smaller as it eliminates all changes stored in
the Database.


Hope this helps although there are many different ways to work with Zope
these are the most useful for us.

Theodore E. Patrick
Ishophere.com