[Zope-CMF] Chicken and the Egg -- WAS -- Using CMF without portal like features

[Amr Malik]

> > I've seen very little beginner info that starts with using the different
> > types of CMF content types, despite having search through the docs and
> > exploring numerous times.
> 
> 
> You are going to have to customize more skins, if you don't like the
> current layout.
> 
> >  I believe that many other web developer's are
> > going to have this same need to have some sites that aren't portal
> > oriented for end users, but that still take advantage of the CMF
> > framework for either workflow or separation of presentation and content
> > or both.  So, I'd sure like to see some good tutorial docs geared toward
> > that.
> 
> 
> Could be you would write one?
> 

To take my own personal example, because I'm in the same kayak,
I am a beginner with CMF and I would love to write documentation for it, but
I am at a point currently where I can hardly tell my PortalWorkflow from my
PortalSkins, and it would be kinda tough to write anything useful! 

This documentation issue is a bit slippery one! How to write documentation
for something that you're trying to learn, without actually knowing the
system that you're trying to document. In my opinion, the initial
responsibility
lies with people who know the system to teach it to new comers (with some level
of detail which may seem redundant if not ridiculous to people who can crank
out a product in a matter of days!) 

  And I don't necessarily mean handholding 
and spoonfeeding people, but at least something that can be grokked by lessay
a current web-developer with some web-app/db/appsvr experience. Currently,
if there is any documentation available, sometimes it just talks about 
interfaces etc, and if one doesn't understand the framework (chicken) to begin
wit, they can't do anything useful with it to create anything usable (egg) 
such that they can build upon that knowledge and extend to suit their needs 
(chicken?)

The current method of everyone new to the system slogging through the code 
seems a bit inefficient and counter-productive as far as grassroots Zope+CMF 
penetration is concerned! But maybe that's not the goal to begin with, and I
just misunderstood the whole opensource thang!

just my 2 cents (canadian) :)

Amr

P.S I don't want to sound like an ungrateful prick! There is some documentation
for CMF, yet it seems mainly for the initiated (with some exceptions).
However, from where I stand, it seems like a sheer cliff, and it would take me 
a while to spin my own rope, smelt the iron and make myself the axe and the 
hooks and the rest of the climbing gear from scratch ;) (here I go with the 
cheezy metaphors again!)



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