[Zope3-dev] ZCML alternative

[Guido van Rossum]

(I'm snipping all the other arguments; I happen to agree with Shane in
most points, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.)

> Yes, you forgot another huge advantage of ZCML. ZCML is not aimed at
> the developer, but at the site admin. This way the admin does not
> have to use and learn Python in order to configure Zope, but use a
> syntax (XML) which s/he is most likely familiar with.

You gotta be kidding.  On a customer gig I saw a site admin edit a
config file written in Python.  He was clueless about Python
programming, but did just fine guessing how to make changes.  I am
sure this site admin would be just as clueless about XML (even though
he would fine editing that as well).

> I think that often Site Admins will end up being high level Web
> developers which only know HTML+Tools and JS.

This particular site admin was not a web developer but a traditional
Unix admin -- the web developers were in a different department.

Given that our XML schema (or DTD, or whatever) is entirely unique
(and not very standard as XML style goes, IMO) I doubt that XML has
much of an advantage over Python for non-programmers.  As a
programmer, I'll take Python over ZCML any day (despite the nice
improvements that Jim has made and others that he's promised).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)