[Zope] perl for zope: a few last comments and then I'm done

[Roman Milner]

OK, I just wanted to say a couple more things about this and then I'll
shut up.  I've given it a lot of thought - trying come up with a way
of looking at it that still makes zope attractive.

So, I started thinking - what if it had been a language that I like
instead of perl.  (lisp, java...)  Also, many people pointed out that
zope already allows methods in other languages. (sql, dtml, xslt).
The thing is - the other languages currently supported address
specific domains.  AFAIK, python is the only "general purpose"
language that zope allows methods in.  And I don't really think there
is much to gain from two tools that do the same thing.  It is sort of
like the perl vs. python philosophy.  Perl - do one thing many
different ways, python - one obvious way to do something.  So, if this
had been a language more pleasing to me, I still think I would be
against it.  IMHO, I think zope should be developled with the python
philosphy as much as possible.  That is one of the reason I chose it.

Also, I don't really think this is about getting access to all the
perl modules.  In truth, python can talk to perl in the same way it
can talk to java, or any language.  Corba, sockets, xml-rpc, any
number of ways.  So, if there was something that perl could talk to
that python can't, or something written in it that you didn't want to
write in python - you could get to it one of these ways, without
having to have actual perl code (or any other language) *inside* your
zope application - which seems to add unneeded complexity.

I agree that this will certainly grow the zope community and that many
perl coders are highly intelligent and helpful.  But I don't think
growth at the expense of complexity is necessarily good.

The idea of perl "black boxes" is nice - but I think not realistic.
People love their favorite languages (including me) and are going to
use it for everything they possible can.  I

I apologize for the emotional bases of my earlier posts. It attests to
my love of zope/python.  About 8 months ago I left a job at a large
corporation where perl was mandated, for a job at a startup where I
was basically allowed to decide what would be used for web development.
That startup now has the largest voice over ip network in the world,
and we are feverishly trying to give our customers a web interface to
the network - using zope.  This announcement made me question my
decision to go with zope - something I thought I would never do.  The
fact is, I think we have too much code written for zope to switch at
this point.

Shutting up now,
^Roman