Want to build a shop using Zope, but how?

[Franz GEIGER]

I want to do the next step in CGI programming and want to use Zope to build
a web shop.

Besides downloading Zope and installing it on my Windows box I printed the
Zope book and read thru it. There is an example all thru the book which is
not of great help for me (at least I think so). While it is good to teach
you the very basics of Zope it does not seem to provide advanced topics.
When it comes to advanced concepts you are very likely to encounter "But
this is beyond this book" (ZClasses e.g.).

I've got the impression, that if one wants to use Zope for anything advanced
he has to download some modules from www.zope.org. But this site really
confuses me. Every day there are new modules released and every few days new
versions of those modules. I don't want to spend hours and days to figure
out what to download so that Zope is of advanced help for me.

The same seems to apply to documentation. Zope still seems to move very
fast. Which of the docs and how-to's are still relevant and which are
outdated?

Yes, I saw one or two Zope products on e-commerce which could be
interesting. But how can I understand those products if I do not understand
Zope yet?

I must admit that I am looking for fast success. Since I know Python I know
fast success is possible ;-). How can I achieve fast success using Zope? My
hope was to find information somewhere on how Zope supports a Pythoneer in
CGI programming: How to deal with cookies in Zope, how to manage session
etc. I am less interested in DTML.

Or did I get something completely wrong here? Anyone here who was in the
same situation? How did you proceed?

Any hint's welcome!

Many thanks in advance and best regards
Franz GEIGER


P.S.: Don't get me wrong because of my clumsy English: I WANT to use Zope.
It's oo approach is too appealing.