Python/Zope or better PHP4

[alan runyan]

> However, we're looking for an integrated, object-oriented development
frame
> with some security concepts, so Zope came to our view.

sounds like ZOPE wins within that criteria.  PHP is neither object oriented
nor has a concept of security - at least to the degree of ZOPE.

> My question now, does anyone here have experience with both PHP and Zope?

I've done minor PHP scripting ~ 2 years ago and then did some ASP/COM work
for the past year.  and I feel that ASP/COM is far superior, strictly in
that you can further remove the application (COM objects) logic from the
presentation layer (ASP scripts) - you can do this also w/ ZOPE using
external methods, python methods (application) and DTML
(presentation/reporting).

> Would it be worth take the effort to change to Zope? What about
> advantages/disadvantages?

you would probably be very surprised how fast you can migrate your code from
PHP to ZOPE, especially if you are doing lots of database calls.  but.. this
is comp.lang.python not comp.lang.php, which is a reason to beware of my
bias :) php is a language that can only be exploited in a web environment,
Python is __more__.

advantages:
* ZOPE is more structured than PHP - reusability
* usually easier to 'deploy' products/third party add-ins
* more maintainable
* has concept of 'three tier' - look into ZEO, should be arriving for public
consuption in the next week or two
* community is *really* cool and helpful

disadvantages:
* ZOPE has a steeper learning curve (object oriented, large framework,
acquistion, ZOPE Zen, Python)
* not as fast as PHP, but ZOPE's cacheing mechanism is great! - go read the
zope.org frontpage!
* documentation isnt as plentiful as PHP
* if you dont know python at first -- its kinda weird figuring out DTML vs
Python and you will be reading lots of legible source code (python) if you
are doing *really* interesting stuff.
* doesnt have _ALL_ the example code that PHP has to offer, yet.


> How well does Python work as a web programming
> language compared to PHP (which was designed right from the start for this
> purpose) ?

Python was designed for maintainability.  ZOPE was designed from the
beginning with the web in mind.  ZOPE is written in Python with minor speed
critical pieces in c.  Python can be used alone in a cgi environment as well
w/o ZOPE.  Pieces of ZOPE can be pulled out of the framework and used by
their lonesome

experience: I took two people at work who have never touched python or ZOPE
and within 2 weeks have created a content manager that includes a simple
workflow and publishes ZOPE objects in XML on a staging server.  <- its been
wildly successful for .py beginners to learn and implement *real* projects
quickly w/ Python and ZOPE!

~alan