MyZopeExperience

Scouting the terrain - the first thing they did was install lots of products. try to dig around through the web at first. reading DTML how-to's and the DTML library. and when trying to template content they started wandering into acquisition and immediately got frustrated. I tried to steer them more into the focus of using ZOPE, how they used PHP/MySQL? or Perl-CGI - to make a database call and populate content dynamically. after this direction was given they were almost instantly productive. really enjoying the progress they could make with DTML then.

The Hike - quickly they wanted to use a DTML Method (similiar to a template) on a Document (content). and then the mountain raised. the ZOPE namespace comes into play almost immediately with the limitations of DTML. they started to do logic inside of DTML, and run up against the wall of the namespace syntax and were confused. this I'm still confused about but can hack my way around. It IS changing soon, hooray!! I still stayed away from Acquisition.

The Climb - when we got the basic idea of namespaces and they understood quickly the limitations of DTML, they went to PythonMethods? and fooled around getting the basic syntax of python but getting very confused by its strange activities (this was my fault, since Python Methods arent fully baked but they got a taste of the python syntax and could quickly test their code). Then they started using External Python Methods. this is when a light bulb came on in their heads, "wow, I am understanding what DTML is now..."

The Summit - even at this point they would fundamentally look at the ZODB (Zope Structure) as a File system with funny characteristics. This I dont believe ever changed, and its a paradigm problem. but they got to the point where they were assigning attributes to folders and layering folders to acquire variables in the namespace. it was very hazy at the summit, but I believe they understood quite a bit and had migrated and restructured the website to the point it was all cut-and-paste for the rest of the content.

The Escalator Down - Everyone understood the basic language of ZOPE, and when to do specific things. We never got into where you seperate things (in detail) from ZODB vs SQL Databases. Acquistion was usable but was still hurting the brains of them, becasue I couldnt really explain WHY. this may be an unhappy ending, but management got upset that I was taken two peoples (who were not busy) time. And we only got 1/2 the website done. but it was mainly just grunt work. It tooks ~10 business days. I would estimate with my experience now, and w/ ZOPE2.2, my experience now, and me not working on another project to get them where we left off in under 4 days (8-9 hours a day).

update now if I had the layout and 1 person I could have gotten the website done in under 1 day.