What's Zope, Doc?
I wanted to attend the LPSG (Linux Programmers' Study Group) this evening but I had transportation problems. Cathy's car is being worked on yet again by the same company that messed it up the last time, following her accident, trying to fix the things they missed. To get to work, she had to take my car. Delia had to work, too, leaving me without transportation to the meeting site, the San Diego County Department of Education complex. When Cathy called to tell me she would arrive some time after 18:00, I told her not to bother ... I would rather skip the meeting.
However, Delia showed up unexpectedly at 17:25, allowing me plenty of time to get there. So I went.
The object (or subject) of the meeting tonight was to form a new group specializing in the programming language Python. For those of you non-programmers who have bothered to read this far, the language is not named after the big snake; it is named after Monty Python's Flying Circus. There is a very good reason for the name: you can expect the language to do strange things.
At least 14 people drifted in and out of the room during the 2.5 hours it was reserved, some staying the full time. At least four of the group program in Python regularly and could probably teach the rest of us about it. There were a few non-programmers there, including the KPLUG (Kernel Panic Linux User's Group) president, who is a Systems Administrator. I probably count as a non-programmer, too, through lack of practice.
The group has a name, SandPyt, the last syllable pronounced as if written "pit". It is supposed to have a Web page or Wiki and may well have one by this time. SandPyt will take one of LPSG's two monthly meeting dates, but LPSG wasn't meeting that regularly anyway and won't miss it when they drop to once a month. There was some joking that the night SandPyt got conflicts with the meeting of the Extreme Programming group, but it is unlikely that anybody interested in WinXP would be interested in Python anyway.
Oh, and what is Zope, you ask? Zope is a Web server or application server (or both) based on Python. That is, you can substitute Zope for Apache, for PHP, or for both, or you can use them all together. Zope is friendly. One of the people at the meeting was a Zope expert.
A similar product, WebWare, was represented by one or two of the group, I'm not really sure. Only one of them did much talking. I get the impression that WebWare is pure Python while Zope is written partly in C or other languages, but I'm not really sure.
Other similar products, such as SkunkWorks and Cougar, were mentioned but not represented. Either Zope or WebWare would be enough for me, I'm sure.
I did want to mention a Python program that I use almost daily, PySol. It is a Solitaire game written in Python and it has grown over the years to include a fantastic number of card games. The only one I play is FreeCell, though. I waste lots of time with it.
Comments (3)
I program programmers.
You'd think eventually you'd be able to use Python in ASP, right?
Python in ASP?? Perish the thought!