[Grok-dev] Introducing Grok / KSS : feedback after 1 week

[Sebastien Douche]

Hi there,
A small post after familiarized Grok (+ KSS) in my company, with
Godefroid (__gotcha) as Guest Star.

+ Using Grok is easy.

+ Using KSS is very easy.

- Lack of KSS support for Zope 3 application (not Plone).

- no support of Python 2.5. The "process" here is using Python 2.5 only.

- Learning visualization machinery is a rough time with z3c.form :
view, skin, layer, pagelet, widget, manager...

- Grok doesn't work with zopectl debug. Testing commands with
interactive environment is a great place to understanding Zope3
(introspection reveals useful information about your program's
objects).

- Where is Paster? It adds a smart error page (with interactive debugger).


Conclusion
~~~~~~~
The try is transformed, we are going to use Grok but there are still
improvements to make it more accessible ;). Furthermore, we will use
grokcore.component for non Zope3 components/modules to facilitate
integration in Grok in the future.

The future
~~~~~~~
Now, we're developing a prototype, so the watchword is simplicity. For
December, the need is a "solid Application, robust and strongly
tested" (c)(tm). Thus, we will need rapidly of :

- megrok.z3cform. I see 3 use cases :
1/ need to basic forms, with "defaults" behavior.
Goals: 101 course for beginner, prototyping.

2/ basics views/forms with "complete stack".
Goals: Grok installs all the necessary, and adds facilities for
modification (skin, layer) or adding personal layout (forms,
pagelet...)

3/ access to z3.forms power.
Goals: deep customization

- megrok.rdb
Facilitate SGBD data access, with or without SQLAlchemy.
Goal: simplification

- kss.core
Using KSS with Grok / Python 2.5
Goal: focus on Zope 3 / Python 2.5 only.



The major improvement for us is megrok.z3cform. If the package is not
available for November, we want paying a core developer to make the
job. Same thing with kss.core for pure Zope3.

PS : Philipp, it's the time to write "Web Component Development with Grok" ;)).


Cheers.

-- 
Seb