Zope question: collaborative environments?

[Peter Hansen]

Tom Bryan wrote:
> I'm a developer, and I'd like to create a combination discussion board,
> bug tracking system, and general collaborative environment.  I was
> thinking of using Zope, but I have never even looked at Zope.  Am I crazy
> even to consider using Zope when we won't have any dedicated staff to
> develop stuff for/in Zope and maintain it?  Is Zope easy enough to use,
> simple enough to maintain, and complete enough as a product that I could
> get something set up with just a couple of weeks of work and then simply
> use it?

Short answer: NO!  Note the !.  Don't go there.  Tell your boss to get a
clue about the length of time it would take to even *specify
requirements* for such a system, let alone design, build, test, and
launch it in a couple of weeks.

Longer answer: No!  Been there, considered that.  So has Digital
Creations, I think.  There's lots of us working at using Zope for
exactly the above sorts of applications (NOT all tightly integrated...
that goal went out with Win 3.1) and we have no plans to turn to
anything else.  It is very suitable in many ways for those things and
more.  On the other hand, it has a *steep* learning curve, and becoming
as productive as Zope promises to be will take more than a couple of
weeks.  We've been learning for several months and only now have gotten
past using a very simplistic Portal and a Wiki (220 pages and growing)
for a group of ten.  And we now have one dedicated staff member on this
project, though I'm sure a small group could use it effectively with
only 20-40% of one person's time dedicated.

> Any advice before I waste a lot of time digging into this topic would be
> much appreciated.  (The time frame is very tight.  My boss is planning to
> lend me one of his personal machines to play put on my network at home as
> a zope or sourceforge or ??? server so that I can evaluate it next week.
> He definitely wants something in place in the next few weeks.)

I agree with the other poster: your boss is (IMHO) an inexperienced,
optimistic dolt if he thinks anything can solve his problems in a couple
of weeks.  Tell him to re-read Brooks on the topic of Silver Bullets. 
On the other hand, if he is willing to face reality and take a gamble, I
would recommend he look closely at Zope *anyway*, and consider using it
for a simpler, less grandiose support environment while he takes the
time to *really* evaluate it and his own needs (which sound ill-thought
out), and over time dedicate at least a fraction of somebody's time to
improving and developing it.  We have a lot of faith in Zope's future,
and I recommend it on that basis.  But it won't take a few weeks to get
what you want!

-- 
Peter Hansen