A TG Developer Gets Ploned

[percious]

Hey all,

I am coming over to your side of the proverbial web framework pond as
my current employer is throughly entrenched in Zope/Plone technology.
I thought I would start this thread to express my experience as a
somewhat experienced [only with TG, php and cgi (yikes!)]  framework
developer.  This should evolve to show somewhat of a comparison
between TG and Plone, at the very least.

Ok, so I spent roughly 3 days (20+ hours) getting plone to work
properly in my desired development environment (and it's still not
perfect, but livable).  Now, many of you will say "Why don't you just
download the Unified installer and be done with it"  Aha!  Yeah, well
I did that and it doesn't meet my needs.  See, I am a firm believer
that one should keep up to date with his/her unit tests, and keeping
one directory (site-packages) tidy is much more reasonable than
updating 6 or 7 separate plone/zope applications.  Did I mention I
will be installing more than just one PZ app...?  PZ, TG???
rhymes...weird.

Anyhow.  I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty on getting Zope to
work, that is mostly here: http://groups.google.com/group/plone-users/t/7d8a730e7fd428f7
.  I will say that it was a major PITA and required me to re-compile
my version of Python.  Now maybe there is no way around this, but I
have never had to do such a thing to get a package working.  I would
think at the very least there would be a fail-safe so that those
packages which require C-optimizations would have associated Python
packages.  I found a nice post about how the Unified Installer does
this, but no direction as to what was wrong with my particular
environment.

Thankfully a member of this board stepped up and pointed me in the
right direction, and Zope was all-but up and running when I finished.
The one thing that was required after that was to install libxml2-
python to get rid of a pesky error after my zinstance was started.
See, I'm getting the lingo!

Ok, and plone isn't even installed.  Let's compare this with TG

install python
download ez_setup.py and run
easy_install -a -Z turbogears
...ok, so you probably will have to get a few other packages too,
namely:
easy_install -a sqlobject
...and you will probably have to get mysql-python working too.
tg-admin quickstart

start-application_name_here

and it runs!


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[Martin Aspeli-2]

percious wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I am coming over to your side of the proverbial web framework pond as
> my current employer is throughly entrenched in Zope/Plone technology.
> I thought I would start this thread to express my experience as a
> somewhat experienced [only with TG, php and cgi (yikes!)]  framework
> developer.  This should evolve to show somewhat of a comparison
> between TG and Plone, at the very least.
>
> Ok, so I spent roughly 3 days (20+ hours) getting plone to work
> properly in my desired development environment (and it's still not
> perfect, but livable).  Now, many of you will say "Why don't you just
> download the Unified installer and be done with it"  Aha!  Yeah, well
> I did that and it doesn't meet my needs.  See, I am a firm believer
> that one should keep up to date with his/her unit tests, and keeping
> one directory (site-packages) tidy is much more reasonable than
> updating 6 or 7 separate plone/zope applications.  Did I mention I
> will be installing more than just one PZ app...?  PZ, TG???
> rhymes...weird.
>
> Anyhow.  I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty on getting Zope to
> work, that is mostly here: http://groups.google.com/group/plone-users/t/7d8a730e7fd428f7
> .  I will say that it was a major PITA and required me to re-compile
> my version of Python.  Now maybe there is no way around this, but I
> have never had to do such a thing to get a package working.  I would
> think at the very least there would be a fail-safe so that those
> packages which require C-optimizations would have associated Python
> packages.  I found a nice post about how the Unified Installer does
> this, but no direction as to what was wrong with my particular
> environment.
>
> Thankfully a member of this board stepped up and pointed me in the
> right direction, and Zope was all-but up and running when I finished.
> The one thing that was required after that was to install libxml2-
> python to get rid of a pesky error after my zinstance was started.
> See, I'm getting the lingo!

Please take a look at http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/buildout

> Ok, and plone isn't even installed.  Let's compare this with TG
>
> install python

install python

> download ez_setup.py and run

download ez_setup.py and run

> easy_install -a -Z turbogears

easy_install -U ZopeSkel

> ...ok, so you probably will have to get a few other packages too,
> namely:
> easy_install -a sqlobject

... none of that

> ...and you will probably have to get mysql-python working too.
> tg-admin quickstart

paster create -t plone3_buildout myproject

> start-application_name_here

cd myproject
python bootstrap.py
./bin/buildout
./bin/instance fg


Okay, two more steps, but not as hard as you make it sound. :)

Martin

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[Martin Aspeli-2]

> Ok, so I spent roughly 3 days (20+ hours) getting plone to work
> properly in my desired development environment (and it's still not
> perfect, but livable).  Now, many of you will say "Why don't you just
> download the Unified installer and be done with it"  Aha!  Yeah, well
> I did that and it doesn't meet my needs.  See, I am a firm believer
> that one should keep up to date with his/her unit tests, and keeping
> one directory (site-packages) tidy is much more reasonable than
> updating 6 or 7 separate plone/zope applications.

I don't quite understand what you're talking about here... At the very
least, if you're just starting out and trying to get something running,
using an installer is probably the best place to begin. It doesn't touch
your site-packages or anything else global at all.

Martin

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[percious]

Part II

Ok, so now I can get Plone up and running.  I have been following the
wetfeet tutorial which I find to be excellent.  I think it might be a
tad out-of-date however because I had to go rummaging around to get
plone working.  No biggie.

ok, so download plone, install anywhere and copy over the Products
directory.  Done.
Hmp.  Plone Site is not showing up in the drop-down for "add" ok, well
restart, or easy_install Plone into my site-packages.  No dice.  Ah,
good 'ol README.txt.  Looks like I now have to copy over the lib
directory.  Gotcha.  Aha! things are appearing, but no plone site...
hmmm.

Ok, there is a log directory, this doesn't take a genius to figure
out.  cat event.log....  right, tons of PIL errors, and a few wlement
trees !  Ok, well it looks like it needs the pil package... ok, so
easy_install PIL
ok, installed.... hmp, still not working.  (easy_install element_tree
works though)  ok, so lets put it in the lib directory for the
zinstance.  easy_install -d . PIL ... ok installs.  Still not
working.  Well hmp.  let's make a directory called PIL and copy
everything from the egg in there, and VOILA!  working Plone.

ok, compare this to TG Toscawidgets.  (no where near the
functionality, but a package built on TG)

easy_install toscawidgets
oh, and you will probably want forms and ajax forms so...
easy_install -a twAjaxTools
Done.

Ok, so that is my experience so far.  I still have this cludgy version
of PIL in my zinstance packages instead of site-packages where I want
it, but everything works.  It tooks some figuring out and some
searching, but it works.  I am ready to be a plone developer now.

I might also note that the length of time between posting and getting
a response on the boards is about 4 times that of TG, and I am
wondering if I have found the right place for such assistance or not.
It does seem like there are very knowledgeable members here and if the
right question is asked, poof! out comes the answer.

So far for a framework that claims to offer so much for so little
effort I am not yet seeing the pay-off.  I am sure that I will see in
the near future how all this work pays off with ease of development,
but I will have to keep you posted on that one.

thanks to those of you who stepped up and were willing to point a ZP
newb in the right direction.

-chris


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[Reinoud van Leeuwen]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 01:57:17PM -0700, percious wrote:
>
> I might also note that the length of time between posting and getting
> a response on the boards is about 4 times that of TG, and I am
> wondering if I have found the right place for such assistance or not.
> It does seem like there are very knowledgeable members here and if the
> right question is asked, poof! out comes the answer.

Your first posting more looked like sharing your experiences than a clean
question to me ";-)

(although that does not at all mean that we should not look into your
criticism.)

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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Hi,

Btw - thanks for doing this - it's very valuable to us to get outside
perspectives!

> Ok, so now I can get Plone up and running.  I have been following the
> wetfeet

Which tutorial is this? URL?

> tutorial which I find to be excellent.  I think it might be a
> tad out-of-date however because I had to go rummaging around to get
> plone working.  No biggie.
>
> ok, so download plone, install anywhere and copy over the Products
> directory.  Done.
> Hmp.  Plone Site is not showing up in the drop-down for "add" ok, well
> restart, or easy_install Plone into my site-packages.  No dice.  Ah,
> good 'ol README.txt.  Looks like I now have to copy over the lib
> directory.  Gotcha.  Aha! things are appearing, but no plone site...
> hmmm.

Again, I'd look at http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/buildout.
Also, note that we don't generally install Plone via easy_install. Plone
and it's packaging predate Python eggs, although all new packages are
being managed as eggs and old packages are being migrated.

> Ok, there is a log directory, this doesn't take a genius to figure
> out.  cat event.log....  right, tons of PIL errors, and a few wlement
> trees !  Ok, well it looks like it needs the pil package... ok, so
> easy_install PIL

Did you read that README? :) The problem here is that PIL can't be
installed as an egg, and must be compiled on your system to work.

> ok, installed.... hmp, still not working.  (easy_install element_tree
> works though)  ok, so lets put it in the lib directory for the
> zinstance.  easy_install -d . PIL ... ok installs.  Still not
> working.  Well hmp.  let's make a directory called PIL and copy
> everything from the egg in there, and VOILA!  working Plone.

You need to install PIL as a standalone package, the egg is broken. This
is clearly documented though. There's not much we can do beyond
documenting it. All the installers take care of it, of course.

> ok, compare this to TG Toscawidgets.  (no where near the
> functionality, but a package built on TG)
>
> easy_install toscawidgets
> oh, and you will probably want forms and ajax forms so...
> easy_install -a twAjaxTools
> Done.
>
> Ok, so that is my experience so far.  I still have this cludgy version
> of PIL in my zinstance packages instead of site-packages where I want
> it, but everything works.  It tooks some figuring out and some
> searching, but it works.  I am ready to be a plone developer now.

Try not to think of Plone as something that goes into site-packages. You
create a Zope server instance (a directory with somet stuff in it,
including an object database - no external database server is needed),
and install Plone it it (extract the tarball) - or you use buildout.

> I might also note that the length of time between posting and getting
> a response on the boards is about 4 times that of TG, and I am
> wondering if I have found the right place for such assistance or not.

You posted this at 21:44 and I replied on 21:54, that's not so bad, is
it... This list is generally very responsive (and it's the right place
to ask).

> It does seem like there are very knowledgeable members here and if the
> right question is asked, poof! out comes the answer.

Right. Asking good questions is most of the answer.

> So far for a framework that claims to offer so much for so little
> effort I am not yet seeing the pay-off.  I am sure that I will see in
> the near future how all this work pays off with ease of development,
> but I will have to keep you posted on that one.

Give it a chance at least. :)

> thanks to those of you who stepped up and were willing to point a ZP

What is ZP? It's not an acronym anyone else uses. ;-)

Martin

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[percious]

Yes,
And as I explained, I got the Unified installer working just fine,
(although when you do a runzope there is an error about libxml2.)
My development needs require my applications to share some global
packages, so I was trying to figure out how to get ZP to work within
those constraints.  It took some work indeed.

-chris

On Sep 18, 2:54 pm, Martin Aspeli <[hidden email]> wrote:

> > Ok, so I spent roughly 3 days (20+ hours) getting plone to work
> > properly in my desired development environment (and it's still not
> > perfect, but livable).  Now, many of you will say "Why don't you just
> > download the Unified installer and be done with it"  Aha!  Yeah, well
> > I did that and it doesn't meet my needs.  See, I am a firm believer
> > that one should keep up to date with his/her unit tests, and keeping
> > one directory (site-packages) tidy is much more reasonable than
> > updating 6 or 7 separate plone/zope applications.
>
> I don't quite understand what you're talking about here... At the very
> least, if you're just starting out and trying to get something running,
> using an installer is probably the best place to begin. It doesn't touch
> your site-packages or anything else global at all.
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Acquisition is a jealous mistress
>
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[percious]

Awesome information about ZopeSkel.  That probably would have saved me
some time.  I still thing the developer would have to know about the -
fPIC thing before d/l and compiling Python, which is not a requirement
in TG.  Where in the documentation about installing is ZopeSkel
explained? Still seems a bit more involved...

This is exactly the kind of discussion that would have helped me to
get my installation working and was exactly the driving point of
sharing my experience.

Thanks again guys.

-chris

On Sep 18, 2:51 pm, Martin Aspeli <[hidden email]> wrote:

> percious wrote:
> > Hey all,
>
> > I am coming over to your side of the proverbial web framework pond as
> > my current employer is throughly entrenched in Zope/Plone technology.
> > I thought I would start this thread to express my experience as a
> > somewhat experienced [only with TG, php and cgi (yikes!)]  framework
> > developer.  This should evolve to show somewhat of a comparison
> > between TG and Plone, at the very least.
>
> > Ok, so I spent roughly 3 days (20+ hours) getting plone to work
> > properly in my desired development environment (and it's still not
> > perfect, but livable).  Now, many of you will say "Why don't you just
> > download the Unified installer and be done with it"  Aha!  Yeah, well
> > I did that and it doesn't meet my needs.  See, I am a firm believer
> > that one should keep up to date with his/her unit tests, and keeping
> > one directory (site-packages) tidy is much more reasonable than
> > updating 6 or 7 separate plone/zope applications.  Did I mention I
> > will be installing more than just one PZ app...?  PZ, TG???
> > rhymes...weird.
>
> > Anyhow.  I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty on getting Zope to
> > work, that is mostly here:http://groups.google.com/group/plone-users/t/7d8a730e7fd428f7
> > .  I will say that it was a major PITA and required me to re-compile
> > my version of Python.  Now maybe there is no way around this, but I
> > have never had to do such a thing to get a package working.  I would
> > think at the very least there would be a fail-safe so that those
> > packages which require C-optimizations would have associated Python
> > packages.  I found a nice post about how the Unified Installer does
> > this, but no direction as to what was wrong with my particular
> > environment.
>
> > Thankfully a member of this board stepped up and pointed me in the
> > right direction, and Zope was all-but up and running when I finished.
> > The one thing that was required after that was to install libxml2-
> > python to get rid of a pesky error after my zinstance was started.
> > See, I'm getting the lingo!
>
> Please take a look athttp://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/buildout
>
> > Ok, and plone isn't even installed.  Let's compare this with TG
>
> > install python
>
> install python
>
> > download ez_setup.py and run
>
> download ez_setup.py and run
>
> > easy_install -a -Z turbogears
>
> easy_install -U ZopeSkel
>
> > ...ok, so you probably will have to get a few other packages too,
> > namely:
> > easy_install -a sqlobject
>
> ... none of that
>
> > ...and you will probably have to get mysql-python working too.
> > tg-admin quickstart
>
> paster create -t plone3_buildout myproject
>
> > start-application_name_here
>
> cd myproject
> python bootstrap.py
> ./bin/buildout
> ./bin/instance fg
>
> Okay, two more steps, but not as hard as you make it sound. :)
>
> Martin
>
> --
> Acquisition is a jealous mistress
>
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[Martin Aspeli-2]

percious wrote:
> Yes,
> And as I explained, I got the Unified installer working just fine,
> (although when you do a runzope there is an error about libxml2.)

I believe it's a warning, not an error?

> My development needs require my applications to share some global
> packages, so I was trying to figure out how to get ZP to work within
> those constraints.  It took some work indeed.

It doesn't really... products, you can symlink into
$INSTANCE_HOME/Products, packages you can enable as eggs. Again, I'd
encourage you to look at the buildout tutorial, since this is more
targetted at your needs.

Martin

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[percious]

My point with this was to find out if there is a better boardroom/chat
room to ask questions.  Sorry this seems so critical.  It is hard to
express my experiences without coming off that way.  I know there is
this kind of aura of competition between the frameworks and by putting
myself between two major combatants I am going to see a lot of flak I
am sure!!!!

cheers.
-chris

On Sep 18, 3:00 pm, Reinoud van Leeuwen <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 01:57:17PM -0700, percious wrote:
>
> > I might also note that the length of time between posting and getting
> > a response on the boards is about 4 times that of TG, and I am
> > wondering if I have found the right place for such assistance or not.
> > It does seem like there are very knowledgeable members here and if the
> > right question is asked, poof! out comes the answer.
>
> Your first posting more looked like sharing your experiences than a clean
> question to me ";-)
>
> (although that does not at all mean that we should not look into your
> criticism.)
>
> --
> __________________________________________________
> "Nothing is as subjective as reality"
> Reinoud van Leeuwen    [hidden email]://www.xs4all.nl/~reinoud
> __________________________________________________
>
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[Reinoud van Leeuwen]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 02:16:02PM -0700, percious wrote:
> My point with this was to find out if there is a better boardroom/chat
> room to ask questions.  Sorry this seems so critical.  It is hard to
> express my experiences without coming off that way.  I know there is
> this kind of aura of competition between the frameworks and by putting
> myself between two major combatants I am going to see a lot of flak I
> am sure!!!!

No problem at all. I see it as constructive. Lots of people here are way
too deep in Plone to know the problems that you are encountering. And
think it is good to know what is different in other frameworks.

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[Martin Aspeli-2]

percious wrote:
> Awesome information about ZopeSkel.  That probably would have saved me
> some time.  I still thing the developer would have to know about the -
> fPIC thing before d/l and compiling Python, which is not a requirement
> in TG.

It's not in Plone either, generally. I don't know why you had to do this
(but note that Plone won't run on Python 2.5).

> Where in the documentation about installing is ZopeSkel
> explained? Still seems a bit more involved...

The ZopeSkel/buildout approach is not necessarily the only or officially
sanctioned way of installing Plone (the installers are, more than
anything). Buildout is more developer-oriented. It is documented on
plone.org/documentation, tough.

> This is exactly the kind of discussion that would have helped me to
> get my installation working and was exactly the driving point of
> sharing my experience.

If you'd asked sooner, you may've gotten an answer sooner too. ;-)

Martin

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[percious]

> Hi,
>
> Btw - thanks for doing this - it's very valuable to us to get outside
> perspectives!
It's sort of fun being the "bad guy"...

>
> > Ok, so now I can get Plone up and running.  I have been following the
> > wetfeet
>
> Which tutorial is this? URL?
http://plone.org/about/movies (second one from the bottom)  I compare
this to Kevin Dangoor's 20 minute Wiki.  (but plone does more useful
DB stuff right off the bat)  Very fast paced!!!!  I like it.  Funny,
keeps my interest, not boring.

>
> > tutorial which I find to be excellent.  I think it might be a
> > tad out-of-date however because I had to go rummaging around to get
> > plone working.  No biggie.
>
> > ok, so download plone, install anywhere and copy over the Products
> > directory.  Done.
> > Hmp.  Plone Site is not showing up in the drop-down for "add" ok, well
> > restart, or easy_install Plone into my site-packages.  No dice.  Ah,
> > good 'ol README.txt.  Looks like I now have to copy over the lib
> > directory.  Gotcha.  Aha! things are appearing, but no plone site...
> > hmmm.
>
> Again, I'd look athttp://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/buildout.
> Also, note that we don't generally install Plone via easy_install. Plone
> and it's packaging predate Python eggs, although all new packages are
> being managed as eggs and old packages are being migrated.
>

Yeah, i'll look at the buildout.  I have a good idea how the layout of
the webapplication is now.


> > Ok, there is a log directory, this doesn't take a genius to figure
> > out.  cat event.log....  right, tons of PIL errors, and a few wlement
> > trees !  Ok, well it looks like it needs the pil package... ok, so
> > easy_install PIL
>
> Did you read that README? :) The problem here is that PIL can't be
> installed as an egg, and must be compiled on your system to work.
>
That's weird, because numpy has to be compiled and works fine as an
egg.

> > ok, installed.... hmp, still not working.  (easy_install element_tree
> > works though)  ok, so lets put it in the lib directory for the
> > zinstance.  easy_install -d . PIL ... ok installs.  Still not
> > working.  Well hmp.  let's make a directory called PIL and copy
> > everything from the egg in there, and VOILA!  working Plone.
>
> You need to install PIL as a standalone package, the egg is broken. This
> is clearly documented though. There's not much we can do beyond
> documenting it. All the installers take care of it, of course.
>
> > ok, compare this to TG Toscawidgets.  (no where near the
> > functionality, but a package built on TG)
>
> > easy_install toscawidgets
> > oh, and you will probably want forms and ajax forms so...
> > easy_install -a twAjaxTools
> > Done.
>
> > Ok, so that is my experience so far.  I still have this cludgy version
> > of PIL in my zinstance packages instead of site-packages where I want
> > it, but everything works.  It tooks some figuring out and some
> > searching, but it works.  I am ready to be a plone developer now.
>
> Try not to think of Plone as something that goes into site-packages. You
> create a Zope server instance (a directory with somet stuff in it,
> including an object database - no external database server is needed),
> and install Plone it it (extract the tarball) - or you use buildout.
>

yep. got it.  Just seems weird to me that the "Products" cant be
inside some library that can be updated readily.  In some way this is
good because you can update the products individually and not risk
downtime, BUT isn't that why we write unit tests and have a release
version of our applications as well as a dev?

> > I might also note that the length of time between posting and getting
> > a response on the boards is about 4 times that of TG, and I am
> > wondering if I have found the right place for such assistance or not.
>
> You posted this at 21:44 and I replied on 21:54, that's not so bad, is
> it... This list is generally very responsive (and it's the right place
> to ask).
>
Replies to this post were expected to be swift (I did stir the pot a
little, no?)

> > It does seem like there are very knowledgeable members here and if the
> > right question is asked, poof! out comes the answer.
>
> Right. Asking good questions is most of the answer.
>
> > So far for a framework that claims to offer so much for so little
> > effort I am not yet seeing the pay-off.  I am sure that I will see in
> > the near future how all this work pays off with ease of development,
> > but I will have to keep you posted on that one.
>
> Give it a chance at least. :)
>

Happy too, and I'll be a pycon for the full length of the sprints...

> > thanks to those of you who stepped up and were willing to point a ZP
>
> What is ZP? It's not an acronym anyone else uses. ;-)
>

ha ha! my hand hurts from typing Z-o-p-e and P-l-o-n-e

-chris


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[Martin Aspeli-2]

percious wrote:

> http://plone.org/about/movies (second one from the bottom)  I compare
> this to Kevin Dangoor's 20 minute Wiki.  (but plone does more useful
> DB stuff right off the bat)  Very fast paced!!!!  I like it.  Funny,
> keeps my interest, not boring.

Ah great. I don't have time to watch videos, so I never watched these. ;-)

>> Did you read that README? :) The problem here is that PIL can't be
>> installed as an egg, and must be compiled on your system to work.
>>
> That's weird, because numpy has to be compiled and works fine as an
> egg.

It's a problem specific to PIL and the way it's been eggified, I believe.

> yep. got it.  Just seems weird to me that the "Products" cant be
> inside some library that can be updated readily.

They're a very old mechanism. ;-)

> In some way this is
> good because you can update the products individually and not risk
> downtime, BUT isn't that why we write unit tests and have a release
> version of our applications as well as a dev?

I don't see what this has to do with unit tests. You can write tests for
products easily enough.

Martin

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[percious]

> percious wrote:
> >http://plone.org/about/movies(second one from the bottom)  I compare
> > this to Kevin Dangoor's 20 minute Wiki.  (but plone does more useful
> > DB stuff right off the bat)  Very fast paced!!!!  I like it.  Funny,
> > keeps my interest, not boring.
>
> Ah great. I don't have time to watch videos, so I never watched these. ;-)

plus you never had to install a platform which has been running for X
years smoothly for it's developers...

> >> Did you read that README? :) The problem here is that PIL can't be
> >> installed as an egg, and must be compiled on your system to work.
>
> > That's weird, because numpy has to be compiled and works fine as an
> > egg.
>
> It's a problem specific to PIL and the way it's been eggified, I believe.
>
Perhaps I should call over to PIL.  Another note, I have used PIL as
an egg before inside my TG apps.

> > yep. got it.  Just seems weird to me that the "Products" cant be
> > inside some library that can be updated readily.
>
> They're a very old mechanism. ;-)
>
Time for an upgrade?

> > In some way this is
> > good because you can update the products individually and not risk
> > downtime, BUT isn't that why we write unit tests and have a release
> > version of our applications as well as a dev?
>
> I don't see what this has to do with unit tests. You can write tests for
> products easily enough.
>
just saying I can see why the products are in a separate (but equal)
directory.

cheers.
-chris


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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Hi,

> Perhaps I should call over to PIL.  Another note, I have used PIL as
> an egg before inside my TG apps.

Yes - it's some kind of weird conflict with Zope that shouldn't happen
and only does on the egg version.

>>> yep. got it.  Just seems weird to me that the "Products" cant be
>>> inside some library that can be updated readily.
>> They're a very old mechanism. ;-)
>>
> Time for an upgrade?

Move to eggs is happening, but we can't just do it willy-nilly. Anyway,
I don't think you're losing anything by not having these as eggs. Of
course, since it works a little differently to what you're used to, you
will need to adjust your expectations. Maybe it would've been easier if
you didn't know TG at all. ;-)

Martin

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[percious]

Part III

Somewhere along my experience with ArgoUML I got so frustrated that I
decided to go work on something else.  That frustration/resolution?
will be part IV...

Anyway when I got back to my Plone dealings, nothing was working.  I
decided to nuke my zinstance and start from scratch, and and this time
I got an error which was outlined here:

http://groups.google.com/group/plone-users/browse_thread/thread/3242cae3dbae4ae0

So, the final resolution was to zap zope.interface, rendering my
installation of Twisted useless.  (Twisted has caused the problem in
the first place).

The response from the community, as well as the knowledgeable staff
where I work was to install Z/P with it's own Python environment,
which as I explained earlier, does not work for me.

It seems like Zope and Plone are not willing to play in the sandbox
with others.  Twisted is a MAJOR player in the python world, and to
not be able to have Plone and Twisted on my machine in the same Python
instance is sort of a drag.  Great, now I get two copies of
everything, my Zope sandbox, and my Twisted sandbox.  Imagine if every
package was like this?

Since I was/am a TG developer first, I compare it to the way they have
set up their framework.  Not only do they not interfere with other
packages, but the layout of their product is such that third party
software is welcome and encouraged to play.  Everything is separated
into separate eggs so that dependencies can be worked out.  I must
admit, I have had issues with eggs in the TG environment.  And I have
had to zap my easy-install.pth file and install things in the correct
order, but I see this as a function of setuptools, not TG.  The
problem may even be that I needed the -m flag for easy_install which I
just learned about!

In the Plone environment I have not been able to get PIL working
through easy_install, which I think might be a fluke on PIL's part but
I would think that it would be better defined in the documentation how
to handle it.  (The doc does say that PIL is required, but does not
mention that you must manually move it to the myzinstance/lib/python/
PIL directory for it to work right.)

Plone easy to get going as a stand alone?  Yes. Absolutely.
Plone easy to create a product?  We will see with part IV.
Plone/Zope play well with other open source tools? Not quite sure.
Plone/Zope developer friendly?  I am dubious.

So please, correct me if I am missing something, and I don't mean to
just bash your framework.  I have looked at some of the source and it
all looks like you spent a considerable amount of time on it and that
it is well-thought-out.  The fact is that my employer has chosen your
product as the defacto web-management tool, and I am going to get to
know it, and use it.  The last thing I want to do is ostracize myself
from all of you.  Please don't take my criticisms personally.

Yours.
-chris


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[Martin Aspeli-2]

> Anyway when I got back to my Plone dealings, nothing was working.  I
> decided to nuke my zinstance and start from scratch, and and this time
> I got an error which was outlined here:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/plone-users/browse_thread/thread/3242cae3dbae4ae0
>
> So, the final resolution was to zap zope.interface, rendering my
> installation of Twisted useless.  (Twisted has caused the problem in
> the first place).
>
> The response from the community, as well as the knowledgeable staff
> where I work was to install Z/P with it's own Python environment,
> which as I explained earlier, does not work for me.
>
> It seems like Zope and Plone are not willing to play in the sandbox
> with others.  Twisted is a MAJOR player in the python world, and to
> not be able to have Plone and Twisted on my machine in the same Python
> instance is sort of a drag.  Great, now I get two copies of
> everything, my Zope sandbox, and my Twisted sandbox.  Imagine if every
> package was like this?

Well... that's kind of an unfair charge. The problem here is that you've
installed Twisted, which has installed an egg in the global Python
site-packages that contains an old version of zope.interface, which
Plone also depends on. Plone has a local version of this, but the way
your setup works (and you could work around this) that version is
shadowed by the incorrect one from Twisted. This is perhaps a flaw in
Python, setuptools or twisted, but there's very little Plone or Zope
could do about this.

Secondly, I don't buy your argument that you can't use local
environments with either virtualenv or buildout. The fact of the matter
is that these tools are often necessary to do complex, multi-version
development in Python, regardless of which framework you use.

Did you take my advice and try the buildout tutorial? I think you'll
find it much easier to work with, and I don't *think* this problem would
bite you then, though I haven't tried myself.

> Since I was/am a TG developer first, I compare it to the way they have
> set up their framework.  Not only do they not interfere with other
> packages, but the layout of their product is such that third party
> software is welcome and encouraged to play.

So is third party software in Plone. I think this is a gross
over-simplification based on a problem with your local setup that,
unfortunate though it is, there is very little we could do about.

>  Everything is separated
> into separate eggs so that dependencies can be worked out.  I must
> admit, I have had issues with eggs in the TG environment.  And I have
> had to zap my easy-install.pth file and install things in the correct
> order, but I see this as a function of setuptools, not TG.

... or Plone ;-)

> The
> problem may even be that I needed the -m flag for easy_install which I
> just learned about!
>
> In the Plone environment I have not been able to get PIL working
> through easy_install, which I think might be a fluke on PIL's part but
> I would think that it would be better defined in the documentation how
> to handle it.  (The doc does say that PIL is required, but does not
> mention that you must manually move it to the myzinstance/lib/python/
> PIL directory for it to work right.)

You don't need that. I don't do it that way - I have PIL in my global
site-packages, installed using the PIL tarball. It's the PIL *egg*
that's screwed.

> Plone easy to get going as a stand alone?  Yes. Absolutely.
> Plone easy to create a product?  We will see with part IV.
> Plone/Zope play well with other open source tools? Not quite sure.

I don't think that's fair, or particularly true.

> Plone/Zope developer friendly?  I am dubious.

I think this depends on where you're coming from. You are at a
disadvantage in that you come to this world from a different one, which
has chosen different trade-offs, and you're expecting things to be more
similar. I'm sure I'd find TG just as confusing at first, until I read
the documentation and understood how it "should" be done. :)

> So please, correct me if I am missing something, and I don't mean to
> just bash your framework.  I have looked at some of the source and it
> all looks like you spent a considerable amount of time on it and that
> it is well-thought-out.  The fact is that my employer has chosen your
> product as the defacto web-management tool, and I am going to get to
> know it, and use it.  The last thing I want to do is ostracize myself
> from all of you.  Please don't take my criticisms personally.

We don't, but you may want to try to generalise a little less. Some of
the things you say could be construed as a little rash.

Martin

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[kteague]

percious wrote:

The response from the community, as well as the knowledgeable staff
where I work was to install Z/P with it's own Python environment,
which as I explained earlier, does not work for me.

It seems like Zope and Plone are not willing to play in the sandbox
with others.  Twisted is a MAJOR player in the python world, and to
not be able to have Plone and Twisted on my machine in the same Python
instance is sort of a drag.  Great, now I get two copies of
everything, my Zope sandbox, and my Twisted sandbox.  Imagine if every
package was like this?

In the playground of Python there are many sandboxes, and each sandbox has a
different type of sand in it. Some sandboxes have have coarse sand with lots
of small pebbles in them, other sandboxes have smooth white sand. Some kids
like to hunker down in a single sandbox all day, digging all the way to the
bottom of the box. Other kids run from one sandbox to the next, as they are
fond of the variety. But when I mix my sandboxes, I always feel like that kid
who is filling up his bucket with sand from one sandbox and dumping it into other
sandboxes. Sure it seems like a neat idea at the time, to try and get all of
sand in all of the sandboxes of an equal mix of all types of sand, but after
a while you realize it's too much work and you liked it better the old way
when each of the sandboxes had their own distinctive character. Only now,
reverting the sandboxes to their original pristine states is only possible
by dumping out the sandboxes and making a trip to the gravel pit for fresh
sand.

Or speaking somewhat less metaphorically ...

I understand that a lot of Python developers who like to manage only a single
Python installation. It's simple and clean. But Twisted, Zope/Plone, and
 TurboGears are not just Python packages, they are all integrated libraries
(or are applications that contain integrated libraries).

By integrated libaries I mean that specific versions of all of those libraries
are tested to work together (usually by running a suite of integration tests).
They are tested using specific versions of each library. If Twisted is tested
with library X version 1, and library Y version 2, while Zope is tested
with library X version 2 and library Y version 1. Trying to wedge all of that
into the same sandbox can have unexpected consequences.

I've learned the hard and painful way of trying to toss too
many disparate concerns into a single sandbox. This can be especially
problematic when you later on need to hand off maintenance of one section of
your sandbox to another developer.

Each application should be given it's own space - give each sandbox it's
own space. The fewer files one application shares with another another
application, the better, IMO.

[percious]

This made me smile.  Great way to start a monday :-)

Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated on the status of my "sandboxes"
Now to do battle with ArgoUML...

IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?

-chris

On Sep 23, 2:19 pm, Kevin Teague <[hidden email]> wrote:

> percious wrote:
>
> > The response from the community, as well as the knowledgeable staff
> > where I work was to install Z/P with it's own Python environment,
> > which as I explained earlier, does not work for me.
>
> > It seems like Zope and Plone are not willing to play in the sandbox
> > with others.  Twisted is a MAJOR player in the python world, and to
> > not be able to have Plone and Twisted on my machine in the same Python
> > instance is sort of a drag.  Great, now I get two copies of
> > everything, my Zope sandbox, and my Twisted sandbox.  Imagine if every
> > package was like this?
>
> In the playground of Python there are many sandboxes, and each sandbox has a
> different type of sand in it. Some sandboxes have have coarse sand with lots
> of small pebbles in them, other sandboxes have smooth white sand. Some kids
> like to hunker down in a single sandbox all day, digging all the way to the
> bottom of the box. Other kids run from one sandbox to the next, as they are
> fond of the variety. But when I mix my sandboxes, I always feel like that
> kid
> who is filling up his bucket with sand from one sandbox and dumping it into
> other
> sandboxes. Sure it seems like a neat idea at the time, to try and get all of
> sand in all of the sandboxes of an equal mix of all types of sand, but after
> a while you realize it's too much work and you liked it better the old way
> when each of the sandboxes had their own distinctive character. Only now,
> reverting the sandboxes to their original pristine states is only possible
> by dumping out the sandboxes and making a trip to the gravel pit for fresh
> sand.
>
> Or speaking somewhat less metaphorically ...
>
> I understand that a lot of Python developers who like to manage only a
> single
> Python installation. It's simple and clean. But Twisted, Zope/Plone, and
>  TurboGears are not just Python packages, they are all integrated libraries
> (or are applications that contain integrated libraries).
>
> By integrated libaries I mean that specific versions of all of those
> libraries
> are tested to work together (usually by running a suite of integration
> tests).
> They are tested using specific versions of each library. If Twisted is
> tested
> with library X version 1, and library Y version 2, while Zope is tested
> with library X version 2 and library Y version 1. Trying to wedge all of
> that
> into the same sandbox can have unexpected consequences.
>
> I've learned the hard and painful way of trying to toss too
> many disparate concerns into a single sandbox. This can be especially
> problematic when you later on need to hand off maintenance of one section of
> your sandbox to another developer.
>
> Each application should be given it's own space - give each sandbox it's
> own space. The fewer files one application shares with another another
> application, the better, IMO.
>
> --
> View this message in context:http://www.nabble.com/A-TG-Developer-Gets-Ploned-tf4477049s6742.html#...
> Sent from the General Questions mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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