Webware is one of my favorite webapp. Simply because i understand how it works. There is no magic in.. just a standard Servlet way of think.
But on the other side, i really think some part of webware should be left out. Look at the standard webware packages:
- CGIWrapper
- WebKit
- WebUtils
- MiscUtils
- COMKit
- MiddleKit
- PSP
- TaskKit
- UserKit
Only CGIWrapper / WebKit / WebUtils are used in Webware core. (+ TaskKit) All other stuff are not webware centric, even if they are usually working only by webware developpers:
- COMKit is win32 COM object related (nothing to do w/ webware core)
- MiddleKit is a DB abstraction layer
- PSP is a template language
- UserKit is a user framework ..( someone ever used it ???)
I really think we should provide only a simple package w/ webware core, and find a way to install third parties code as ‘Products’. This is definitly the main feature of Zope.
The recent post of Ian on the webware-discuss mailing list show that we shall write webware component like Wiki .. or AuthModule .. and provide them to the community.
I worked on Zope for about 2 years.. and right now when i want to build a simple website for the lab. Webware never come to my mind simply because it enforce me to rewrite the wheel for everything. In common web project we need some core components like auth, or photo gallery .. things that are really simple and provided w/ simple Zope Products. but for webware we only provide some _unusefull_ / _unmaintained_ Kit.
This is not a contestation post! but a open letter to the webware community.
The current webware package try to enforce developper to use some tools (like PSP / MiddleKit) but this is the wrong way. I never used PSP (i hate this syntax).. and MiddleKit has serious competitor, right now. I usually use SQLObject and ZPTPage. But there is no place on the web where a newbie can find that you can write ZPT in webware .. Webware really need a clean way to build Products and a website that present all this stuff to users.
There are a few things to help. Webware plugins are part of it (you list some plugins there). The ones that are distributed with Webware don’t have any special position — and some are rather defunct — but they are kind of there to show it’s possible.
Standalone WebKit (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/webware-sandbox/Sandbox/ianbicking/WebKit/) is really meant to make Webware apps more easily distributed, and composed into a single site, as well as making Webware itself more easily distributed.
For components, I also have a small bit of infrastructure for that (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/webware-sandbox/Sandbox/ianbicking/Component/). It makes it possible to add functionality to a servlet without subclassing it (i.e., no SidebarPage or SecurePage).
Neither of these are fully developed, but I think they offer some ideas about how reusable Webware stuff (libraries, plugins, components, applications) can be constructured.
I’ve seen that you can use ZPT in webware I think one hint was a previous post on this weblog. Perhaps there needs to be a recipe in the webware wiki?
Yes, I gonna write a little intro to ZPT in webware wiki as soon as i get a little time. But first i need to look at StandAlone Webkit.