[Zope3-dev] ZCML alternative

[Itamar Shtull-Trauring]

Stephan Richter wrote:

> Actually nothing changed really. All he had to do is provide his own z3.py 
> file and deactivate some of the server setup ZCML. It was actually not as bad 
> as he made it sound.

Not true. I wanted to make my server a drop-in replacement for z3.py. In 
order to do that I had to read in the ZCML, and replace the ZCML server 
definition with my own, which I couldn't figure out how to do. 
"Deactivating some of the ZCML" meant I had a server that ignored most 
of the ZCML config files, with no way to get them working, so I could 
not get a functional zope3 server going.

Which is ridiculous - if I could get zpublisher hooked up to my own HTTP 
server in 2 hours, why couldn't I or Shane manage to make it a 
replacement for z3.py in the same amount of time? The answer being ZCML. 
  It made it *much* more complex to hook up, and I needed to figure out 
obscure code paths and read whole modules to figure out how the hell 
this stuff all worked. Which I didn't manage to do, so I gave up.

If there's one thing I learned from Zope2, it is this - do NOT require a 
lot of work for developers to get something going. Having additional 
functionality is great, powerful tools are wonderful, but DON'T require 
people to understand them or force them to use them before they can 
start developing.

You could argue that it's my fault, I don't know enough about Zope3, 
etc. - and this is true. But Shane didn't figure it out either, and he 
certainly knows a lot more than I do about Zope3.