[Zope] user-owned products?

Kyler B. Laird laird@ecn.purdue.edu
Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:36:32 EST


Over the last few months I've been getting much
more comfortable advocating Zope as our supported
Web application environment.  I'm *finally*
getting around to building my own products,
however, and I just realized how limited they 
appear to be.

It *seems* that Zope products are at the
evolutionary point that CGI handling was years
ago.  Remember when we had to use "cgi-bin" for a
CGI script?  Any user who wanted to run a script
would require some setup by the admin.  Then we
got smart and got rid of cgi-bin directories and 
put CGI scripts where they belong - in the hands
of the user (and in the users' directories along
with everything else).

Looking at Zope products, I see this happening
again - only worse.  Instead of simply creating a
directory for someone to fill with CGI scripts, I
have to personally maintain every product that
anyone wants to add to the Control Panel (or give
that person way too much authority).  Also, every
product will be available to every user.  With
tens of thousands of developers working on their 
own projects, this is *not* a Good Thing.

[Is there/Will there be] a way to allow users to
create their own products for their own use?  I
want people to freely whip up ZClasses and use
them throughout their sites.  I don't want them
to bother me or other users with their creations.

I haven't tried Python methods yet, but from what
little I've picked up about them, I think they
will be a huge step forward in giving users safe 
power.  This doesn't solve the products issue,
though, does it?  Can a user make his own class
without other users seeing it?

Any insight will be appreciated.

Thank you.

--kyler