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Before Django the gold standard for Python web apps was Zope. What a tremendous achievement by the Django team!

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Zope? Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time... A long time. I wonder of this magnificent monstrosity is still alive?
- leetrout 6y ago
  I was just reading this last week talking about zope.interface https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2021/03/interfaces-and-protocols.html https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2021/03/interfaces-and-proto...
- dragonsh 6y ago
  It’s still alive and underpins the CMS plone [1]. It has evolved and separated into zope [2] zodb [3] and ztk. [1] https://plone.org https://plone.org [2] https://zope.org https://zope.org [3] https://zodb.org https://zodb.org Note: circled the link.
  - samuell 6y ago
    I remember being quite interested in zodb for app development in python since it alleviates the need for an orm... it is a bit like a document store, right?
    - dragonsh 6y ago
      Yes indeed it is and also comes with High availability and horizontal scaling. It’s is an object store but is ACID compliant.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
rhizome31 6y ago
Not sure if a lot of people on HN are old enough to remember that :)
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Not many have ever heard of it, but everyone has seen the design that borrowed from the most well-known software that used Zope - Plone. Of course, I'm referring to the early design of Wikipedia, which closely copied the design of Plone.
- fullstop 6y ago
  In my mind HN skews older, but I have no idea why I think that. For what it's worth, I definitely remember Zope.
- pantulis 6y ago
  Well, that's what I'm here for ;)
adiyatmubarak 6y ago
I thought Pyramid is old enough, but I just heard this Zope
fulafel 6y ago
I remember Zope was pretty universally disliked by Python programmers. But it was for a time probably the most enterprisey thing with Python inside, so maybe it got more points in corporate places as something to try as an alternative to Enterprise Java Buzzwords. Before Django there was a lot of choice and active libraries / frameworks for Python web app development, IME most apps gravitated more towards "ala carte" use of libraries than one size fits all frameworks, a bit like people do in Clojure today. Zope was more like a ready to use CMS that incidentally enabled you to mod it using Python in a clunky way. The object database part of Zope (ZODB) was pretty cool though, used separately (inside Zope the framework-enforced object schema made it just clunky). As long as you didn't let it spread too wide over your codebase. But it had transactions, flexibility of (and problems of...) schemaless, and replication, a long time before the "NoSQL" craze.
- fulafel 6y ago
  Replying to myself: for those interestedin ZODB, there's also a simpler standalone remake called Durus (by well known Pytoneer Neil Schemenauer): https://github.com/nascheme/durus https://github.com/nascheme/durus It might not have the replication / distributed features though.
dagw 6y ago
I recall there being some 'wilderness years' between people generally deciding that Zope was a bad idea and Django 'winning'. I remember using frameworks like Turbogears and CherryPy for a while before Django and Flask split the 'market' between them.
- rodelrod 6y ago
  This is how I was seeing things play out in the early 2000's: — Python Programmers: why do we still have to be doing this in php/Perl/JSP/ASP when Python exists? — The World: here's Zope — Python Programmers: is that supposed to be joke? Then in 2003 WSGI showed up and it was a matter of time, leading to the years of wilderness that you describe until Django won out. I confess that I was more team Pylons, but happily conceded.
teilo 6y ago
Ah, Zope, that wonderful monstrosity. I build a purchase order system for my company in it back in the day. It made that type of business app very easy, as long as you didn't expect any kind of performance or scalability. The magic of Zodb was also its weakness. But even today, I think it would still be faster to develop a basic business app in Zope than in Django.

Zope? Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time... A long time. I wonder of this magnificent monstrosity is still alive?

leetrout 6y ago
I was just reading this last week talking about zope.interface https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2021/03/interfaces-and-protocols.html https://glyph.twistedmatrix.com/2021/03/interfaces-and-proto...
dragonsh 6y ago
It’s still alive and underpins the CMS plone [1]. It has evolved and separated into zope [2] zodb [3] and ztk. [1] https://plone.org https://plone.org [2] https://zope.org https://zope.org [3] https://zodb.org https://zodb.org Note: circled the link.
- samuell 6y ago
  I remember being quite interested in zodb for app development in python since it alleviates the need for an orm... it is a bit like a document store, right?
  - dragonsh 6y ago
    Yes indeed it is and also comes with High availability and horizontal scaling. It’s is an object store but is ACID compliant.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

rhizome31 6y ago

Not sure if a lot of people on HN are old enough to remember that :)

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Not many have ever heard of it, but everyone has seen the design that borrowed from the most well-known software that used Zope - Plone. Of course, I'm referring to the early design of Wikipedia, which closely copied the design of Plone.
fullstop 6y ago
In my mind HN skews older, but I have no idea why I think that. For what it's worth, I definitely remember Zope.
pantulis 6y ago
Well, that's what I'm here for ;)

adiyatmubarak 6y ago

I thought Pyramid is old enough, but I just heard this Zope

fulafel 6y ago

I remember Zope was pretty universally disliked by Python programmers. But it was for a time probably the most enterprisey thing with Python inside, so maybe it got more points in corporate places as something to try as an alternative to Enterprise Java Buzzwords. Before Django there was a lot of choice and active libraries / frameworks for Python web app development, IME most apps gravitated more towards "ala carte" use of libraries than one size fits all frameworks, a bit like people do in Clojure today. Zope was more like a ready to use CMS that incidentally enabled you to mod it using Python in a clunky way. The object database part of Zope (ZODB) was pretty cool though, used separately (inside Zope the framework-enforced object schema made it just clunky). As long as you didn't let it spread too wide over your codebase. But it had transactions, flexibility of (and problems of...) schemaless, and replication, a long time before the "NoSQL" craze.

fulafel 6y ago
Replying to myself: for those interestedin ZODB, there's also a simpler standalone remake called Durus (by well known Pytoneer Neil Schemenauer): https://github.com/nascheme/durus https://github.com/nascheme/durus It might not have the replication / distributed features though.

dagw 6y ago

I recall there being some 'wilderness years' between people generally deciding that Zope was a bad idea and Django 'winning'. I remember using frameworks like Turbogears and CherryPy for a while before Django and Flask split the 'market' between them.

rodelrod 6y ago
This is how I was seeing things play out in the early 2000's: — Python Programmers: why do we still have to be doing this in php/Perl/JSP/ASP when Python exists? — The World: here's Zope — Python Programmers: is that supposed to be joke? Then in 2003 WSGI showed up and it was a matter of time, leading to the years of wilderness that you describe until Django won out. I confess that I was more team Pylons, but happily conceded.

teilo 6y ago

Ah, Zope, that wonderful monstrosity. I build a purchase order system for my company in it back in the day. It made that type of business app very easy, as long as you didn't expect any kind of performance or scalability. The magic of Zodb was also its weakness. But even today, I think it would still be faster to develop a basic business app in Zope than in Django.