Something better than ZClasses (was: Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Zcatalog bloat problem (berkeleydb is a solution?))

Stephan Richter srichter@cbu.edu
Tue, 26 Jun 2001 13:38:02 -0500


Hello everyone,

I gotta join this discussion.

iuveno was also thinking about a tool that would replace ZClasses, since 
their performance is far too bad. We had a not so good experience with the 
ZClass-based Kontentor and now that the first part is rewritten in Python 
we can see the speed-ups (the performance increase can be measured in 
multiples - real tests need to be done).
The reason - in my opinion - that ZClasses are so slow are the huge amount 
of Acquistion lookups and the save rendering. You can often code things 
smarter in Python using much less of the "safe" Zope environment, but still 
providing safety through specific commands. I think Formulator is a great 
example of how safe the Python programming can be.
There are two thoughts here:

1. We are building a wizard that asks you all the necessary questions to 
generate a basic class framwework. This wizard (which can be used in many 
other fields - such as installers - as well) is currently being built. We 
use Formulator a lot and I support the development of it as much as I can 
(it is a cool product with many cool features). If anyone is interested in 
helping developing that tool (which will be released under the GPL as all 
of the iuveno products), then I can make an electronic copy of my personal 
notes and I setup a CVS.
Formulator at Zope: http://www.zope.org/Members/faassen/Formulator
Formulator at Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/formulator/


2. Phillip Auersperg from bluedynamics.com uses ObjectDomain quiet heavily, 
since it has a nice JPython API that comes with it. He already built a 
reverse-engineering tool for ZClasses and is now going to write another 
tool to automatically generate DBObjects from a UML diagram in 
ObjectDomain. I am very excited about this tool, since it will make the 
already fast DBObject development even faster. As soon as Formulator goes 
into 1.0, I am going to think about binding the Formulator to DBObjects, so 
you can quickly generate forms for each object. In Berlin in two weeks, we 
are going to discuss this integration in more detail...
Bluedynamics URL: http://www.bluedynamics.com
DBObjects/SmartObjects URL: http://demo.iuveno-net.de


I am very glad to see that we all have the same vision. We all just need to 
work more together (especially me included). This way we can have some 
strikes against the big ones...

Regards,
Stephan

--
Stephan Richter
CBU - Physics and Chemistry Student
Web2k - Web Design/Development & Technical Project Management