[Zope3-dev] Re: ZCML

[Casey Duncan]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:07:33 -0500
Jim Fulton <jim at zope.com> wrote:

> 
> I just want to point out that any discussion of switching from
> ZCML is pointless.  We aren't moving away from it any time soon,
> if ever.
> 
> If anyone is serious about championing something else, they
> need to create a working protype of Zope 3 that uses
> the alternative syntax.  As Stephan pointed out, the ZCML
> architecture should make it pretty easy to do an alternative
> syntax.  If such a prototype existed and *worked*, then we could
> look at it and see if it's really any better.

I think many are missing the issue with ZCML by debating about how the
information is spelled. No format will likely IMO be significantly
easier or harder to grok at a glance than the existing one. ZCML holds a
lot of the complexity of the system, IMO this complexity is much harder
to fully grasp than the spelling of the XML.

Shane points out that a GUI would be helpful. In many ways that task is
aided by the fact the ZCML is XML. In fact I would suggest that what
might contemplate initially is a browser which simply transforms the XML
(gasp ;^) into HTML for presentation. This would be read-only, but it
would allow for a "fly-over" view of the system config. In fact this
wouldn't even need to be dynamic at first. A tool could be written to
generate static (gasp again ;^) HTML on the file system (ok, now I'm
getting really loopy) which you could point your browser at.

Now of course this doesn't directly solve the writing problem, but at
least improves the "get the big picture" problem, and might give you a
clue where to write something at least.
 
> But, please don't waste effort on this before X3.0. There's
> important work that has to be done before then and we need
> all the constructive help we can get.

If we are to improve the configuration of Zope I would suggest that we
look at ways to remove redundancy and increase the clarity of the
spelling we already have. This has already been done several times, and
I think it has achieved success. As I use ZCML myself I find it much
less opaque, and I also have seen ways it could be made more clear.

Another meta-task might be to think about what configuration is likely
to be commonly overridden and try to disentangle it from declarations
that only Jim would ever change ;^). I'm sure this is already done to an
extent, but continuing to iteratively reorganize things (like we have
with the modules and packages) could greatly help the transparency of
the configuration on the whole.

-Casey