[Zope] Front door on the Zope web site (Was Re: [Zope] SmartWorker)

[Thomas B. Passin]

>  o What questions should the Zope.org home page, and pages
>   one click away, answer?

>  o What are some effective ways to answer those questions?

>--Paul

Darn right, these are important.  When I went to the Zope site, I had almost no
idea what it was good for.  Now that I've been fooling more with it, I still
can't say that I have a full understanding.  So how many people will be checking
out the site and then moving on?  Probably many!

I am a Cold Fusion user.  I started using it because I needed to retrieve data
into web pages from relational databases.  Cold Fusion is great for doing that
(using ODBC) and for formatting pages.  It is very easy to use and to write code
for.  The markup language is much easier to read and understand than Zope's.  I
can easily get all kinds of info from the server, including cgi variables.  It
is very reliable.  The documentation is fairly good. The user interface is
pretty good, and the the source code editor (Cold Fusion Studio) is an excellent
product.

So why would I also be interested in Zope?  First, Cold Fusion is too expensive
for me to use personally or for internal, semi-supported department projects.
Second, I like the idea that I could run all kinds of Python code in a simple
way.  This potentially lets me plug into any Python development project in the
future.  Third, the pre-packaged products, like discussion groups, etc., offer a
very easy way to get started with them.  I could also modify them if I wanted
to.  Fourth, I'm interested in being able to use other platforms.

BTW, why isn't this mailing list on Confera?  This would be a good illustration
of one of Zope's capabilities.  Or is Confera too clumsy to use in practice? If
so, we should be aware of this and hopefully we can improve it.  I think it
would be very useful if some key zope applications, actual working ones like a
discussion group, were available right from the Zope home page as demonstrations
of what you can do with it.  The "Zope Exits" section of the site is apparently
intended for this purpose, but it is ineffective because 1) the name does not
convey the intent,  2) the two links currently present are not good examples of
the sort needed (clear, simple, with the relationship to Zope made crystal
clear), and 3) you can't tell, when you go to one of these linked sites, what
Zope features they use.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work and creativity of those people who
have worked hard to create and extend zope and its documentation, and I don't
mean in any way to criticize their work.  But since this topic has come up,
let's face it, Zope support and explanation still has a long way to go.


Thomas Passin