pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

Chad Knepp wrote:
> You seem to not be participating as much as most of the rest of the
> original core group and I am curious what you think about a lot of
> this stuff that has been flying around lately.  I've noticed that you
> are quite responsive re: technical stuff but haven't been
> participating as much in some of the more tense topics like
> 'platform'.  Before I guess at things I'd like to give you a chance to
> explain where you're at.  Anyway, in general I'd like to be hearing
> more from you or know that on a set couple of days of the week you
> will be responding to questions we pose.
Sorry for lack of communication. I had a day off from
the list (too much conflict and needed to get some work done).

My preferences:
1) Work on python middle layer, front end and back end
agnostic.
Yes, Yes, Yes.

2) Zope on ibiblio - wait and see if they want to install it.
Yes OK. Lobby ibib to covice them that they should look at Zope again.

3) Spend a heep of money on buying a server on ibib.
Waste of money!
Some advantages of having someone else administer your machine
as it lets us concentrate on the aplication, and does not
involve us in a lot of nitty grity, like security, db tuning.

4) Find another host which can provide Zope.
We would lose data this way!
We would lose a valuable group member.
Commits us to keeping funding going indefinately
as well have to find the funds each year for the server.

As to Zope itself, kind of mixed fealings.
Yes its a lot of good features which can make some development
easy.
But don't have a really clear idea as to how the plant db
side could really integrate into it. Where does a plant object
live in the Zope system? I can see a lot of tricky work
needed to get it running: defining specialised container classes,
creating lots of ZCatalogues. Problems with needing to stop
the server if we want to modify a python class. Need to
get very deep into the documentation if you really want to
do anything unusual. How much would we need to modify
ZWiki/Squishdot to make it work seamlessly with our system.

I admit a lot has to do familariaty with SQL type data structures.
And being a bit to lazy to put the time into learning zope
(maybe getting a bit too old to really be excited about having
to learn a whole new way of thinking).

And having just recoded pfaf db in php/myqsl, it just
seems that doing it this way is soo easy. I'm most of the
way through the db and its only 2000 lines.

Not 100% sure if zope is really the best object database
out there (some places I've looked, show it as only an
application server and don't list it as an object db).
It seems quite tied to using a strong hierarchacal tree
structure for refereing to objects.

        Ramble, ramble

                Rich
--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
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