[Web-SIG] [Proposal] "website" and first-level conf

[Chris Withers]

Jim Fulton wrote:
> On Mar 3, 2007, at 11:27 PM, Chad Whitacre wrote:
> ...
>> Now, Jim: it looks like Zope still uses a Unix-y userland for
>> INSTANCE_HOME, yes?
> 
> Yes, but I hate it.  At Zope Corporation, We're moving away from it  
> for a number of reasons.

I actually like it a lot, still, and I haven't heard compelling 
arguments, for me, for other things...

The big plus point for me is that everything needed for one deployment 
is in one folder.

I agree with Jim that in large-scale deployments, as ZC does, there may 
not be the need to worry about this, but I think python is probably in 
use in a lot more projects where there's more than one project per 
machine, and you want to be able to totally isolate them from each other.

INSTANCE_HOME in Zope 2 felt like the right balance for me...

> For development, it adds structure that isn't needed.  A Zope  
> instance really only needs a few files.  Trying to minic some  
> notional unix layout just adds pointless structure.

It's kindof self documenting though:

/etc -> config
/bin -> scripts
/var -> data
/log -> logs

I like that consistency, regardless of its origins...

> The traditional complex Zope instance file layout lead to the use of  
> an instance "skeleton" to deal with all of the files, which led, in  
> turn, to a copy and hack style of configuration customization that is  
> inflexible and encourages cruft.

I think the Zope 3 skeletons went the wrong way. The skeletons work, but 
where they only contain config that's specific to that instance. Zope 
3's notions of putting python scripts (and non-trivial ones at that!) 
and the like into the instance home made me shudder...

> For production deployments, we (Zope Corporation) install files into  
> the *real* Unix tree where site administrators want them. 

Not everyone runs on unix. Having a standard layout that fits into a 
folder works cross platform to a large extent.

> Keeping the number of files used by an application minimal makes it  
> easier deal with the different needs of development and deployment  
> and makes it easier, at least for me, to deal with different  
> configurations.

Yep.

> I'll note that I find lib/python especially silly. 

Agreed. lib would be fine, mindyou, so would Products ;-)

cheers,

Chris

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