[Zope] zopeNewbie Article on Acquisition

[Rik Hoekstra]

> Thank you for your feedback, Rik!
>
> > I wonder whether the parts about inheritance weren't too difficult for
> > someone without any knowledge of the subject.
>
> Yes, I agree. But I wanted to try to put something together that
> was smaller
> than a book. Plus, if someone has absolutely no background in
> OOP, then Zope
> will be hopelessly beyond them. (Try explaining a DTML command like
> <dtml-let item="_.getitem('sequence-item', 0)"> to a person who doesn't
> understand namespaces.)

Ha, try explaining some of the more esoteric constructs to someone who does
:-\


> My purpose was to provide a summary for
> people like
> myself, who aren't programmers by trade, but who have gleaned a few
> programming concept over the years. I read the term "attribute"
> and I think
> I know what it means, but then I see the term "property" a few sentences
> later, and I am not sure if the two terms are equivalent. The process of
> writing helps me make such distinctions clear for myself. If I'm
> fortunate,
> it will help others, as well.
>

OK, understood.

> > Moreover the relation with acquisition does not come to be completely
> clear:
>
> Tell me more! I want to know how to improve the descriptions so that they
> are crystal clear.
>

Hm, I'll have to look that over again.

> > Once again, the part about the working of acquisition itself is great.
>
> I'm blushing...
>
> > One more remark: in the example, you take three folder objects at the
> > same level as the basis for acquisition. While this is no problem in
> > the example shown, in practice acquisition will act to do unexpected
> > (at least for many users, not from design perspective) things if you
> > use it on sibling folders.
>
> Once again, tell me more! What kind of unexpected things happen?
> And in what
> kind of situations is acquisition useful? Now that I understand how it
> works, I can make Zope do what I want (kind of). But why is this
> better than
> the old "one path, one result" system?

Perhaps my drafts for ZBook called "changing context in Zope" may help you a
bit further (haven't got around to the sibling folders and acquisition part
though, perhaps later this week). I have made them available at my Member
pages @ zope.org:
http://www.zope.org/Members/Hoekstra/ChangingContexts1
for easy reference, awaiting further publication.

Rik