[ale] Anyone here use Zope?

[John Wells]

Michael,

Thanks for the detailed input on this matter.  I've
been following along because I've heard so many good
things about Zope recently...

If Zope isn't quite there yet for large scale web
apps, what is?  I'm getting ready to begin work on a
project that I would consider large scale, and I'm
charged with identifying the tools we'll use.  I've
been examining both PHP and JBoss/Tomcat solutions. 
What else is out there?  What would you recommend?

Thanks,

John

--- hirsch at zapmedia.com wrote:
> Christopher Bergeron writes:
>  > I've been hearing a lot about it lately, and I'm
> wondering if anyone 'round
>  > here has used/uses it.  It looks very promising
> for web development, but I'd
>  > like some opinions before I dive into it.
>  > 
>  > Anyone use it?  Suggestions / comments?
> 
> Yeah, we used it quite a bit here at ZapMedia.  My
> impression is that
> it is great for small sites, but it is not ready for
> a major
> application yet.
> 
> Specifically, python has serious problems with its
> threading--it
> doesn't really support native threads and so if you
> have I/O bound
> applications performance will suffer.  Zope uses
> lots of threads, and
> until the DB is all in ram, performance will be very
> bad.
> 
> That brings up the second issue.  Zope is not sell
> suited to server a
> large database.  Zope "aggressivly caches" the DB,
> i.e. the cache
> grows and doesn't shrink.  If your active DB fits in
> RAM, that is
> okay.  Once it is all in RAM performance will be
> okay (not good, just
> okay), but it won't scale very well.  If you have a
> 2 gig db you need
> 2 gig of RAM, etc.
> 
> Finally, it is difficult to use normal code control
> practices.  Zope
> does not play particularly well with the standard
> file-centric methods
> most developers are used to.  Zope wants to keep all
> the files in its
> database, and loading them from a repository gets
> pretty convoluted.
> 
> It was my original suggestion that we use Zope, and
> Python ranks near
> the top in my list of favorite languages, so I am
> prejudiced in its
> favor.  Seeing the results of my suggestion (without
> doing any of the
> actual work, but talking a lot to people who did) I
> would say that
> Zope is not mature enough for the task we set for
> it.  I really like
> the OO approach, and think Zope has some really
> elegant features.  The
> Zope Template system does a really good job of
> separating code from
> appearance and the inheritance scheme (acquisition)
> is very slick.  It
> is neat, though somewhat painful, that you can
> manage your site
> completely through your browser.  I still might
> consider Zope for a
> small application, but not for a large, industrial
> size, mission
> critical one.
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------
> Michael D. Hirsch, Ph.D.
> Software Developer
> ZapMedia
> 
> Phone: 678-420-2722                FAX: 678-420-5839
> email: michael.hirsch at zapmedia.com Web:
> http://www.zapmedia.com
> 
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