[Zope3-dev] How does Zope.Configuration work?

[Guido van Rossum]

[me]
> > The "hello world" of Zope3 is still too big.

[Chris Withers]
> That succinctly covers my own personal biggest fear about Zope 3
> over Zope 2.  I've heard similar comments from several disparate
> group[s of people as well...

Better get used to it.  It's a papal edict that making "hello world"
simple is not one of Zope 3's goals.

[Chris again, in a later post]
> Yes, BUT, the only reason that this was demanded is because Zope 2
> got the first part of this stuff very very right: It should be dead
> simple to build small slightly dynamic websites.

Hm.  That was not my experience.  I found maintaining the PSF website
in Zope 2 much more work than mainitaining python.org using CVS plus a
very simple stupid templating tool.  After I moved the PSF website to
a subsite of python.org, the other board members found it much easier
to contribute in the site's maintenance.

[and Tres]
>   - Perhaps now is a fruitful moment for somebody to tackle the
>     problem of writing tools for managing Zope3 configuration?
>     *That* is the problem which Zope3 will stumble over long before
>     TTW scripting.

Yes!

>     If site administrators can't figure out how to
>     install packages, we're doomed:  Zope3 transfers a good deal
>     of the "burden of complexity" from developers to site admins.

This bothers me.  I think it's a mistake to think that site admins
should be given control over every little detail of every app they
install.

I like the scenario that Brian gave yesterday (in the context of the
scurity discussion): a busy site admin has to grant permissions to a
newly hired editor.  Brian showed that all that was needed was a
single permission assignment, and argued that that was all that the
site admin had time for.  Installing an app should be as
straightforward.

While it's OK to give site admins the ability to tweak apps, unless
they understand the app very well that's not going to do them any more
good than giving them the ability to edit the python source codes
comprising the app.

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