Is Zope overkill?

[Alex Martelli]

o maj wrote:
   ...
> Basically, i just want something as simple as asp to use, with lots of
> documentation and support available. But i dont like using vb with
> asp.

You can use Python with ASP.  Python is made into an activescripting
compliant language by installing Mark Hammond's win32all extensions to
Python.  The same extensions let you access COM/Automation servers, and
also create them, with Python; AND, they also let you access most Win32
API calls from Python programs.

Another excellent alternative (IMHO) is Webware For Python, which
lets you implement server-side code with several models at your
choice: servlets, embedded-Python within HTML (PSP), _and_ powerful 
rich templating (Cheetah) -- all models interoperate, so building 
a site with your choice of model for each part is OK too.  Webware
is just as flexible in how you can integrate it with your webserver,
from simple CGI scripts all the way to using mod_python (for Apache;
I don't know if there's anything similar if you need to use IIS --
Apache runs very well on Windows machines [though it runs even better
on BSD or Linux ones], so you may not *need* IIS anyway).

There are other alternatives yet, but Webware would be my personal
recommendation for your given specifications.


> So, the question is, is zope overkill for my needs?

That's another question.  If *ALL* you need is to do simple ASP-like
things, and you're sure you do NOT need advanced content management
and similar Zope features, then something like Webware can perhaps
meet your needs better than Zope can.

> Or should i go back using asp with vbscript ?

Definitely not.  I can think of no case which would make vbscript
preferable to Python + Mark Hammond's extensions, even within an
ASP architecture, at the very least.


Alex