[ Thanks to Chris
McDonough for this link. ]
“I think Zope is a language for programmatic Web sites. Not a
language that can be called by Web sites and not a server-side
scripting language, it’s the Visual Basic of Web programming (or,
if you prefer a more correct but less accessible metaphor, the
SQLWindows of Web programming). Like those seminal Windows
programming tools, Zope immerses you in the environment for which
you’re programming, in Zope’s case, the Web. To work in Zope, you
work from a browser displaying HTML 3.0 code-not exactly Visual
Studio, but at least it’s operating system-and
location-independent.”
“At the heart of Zope, and what makes it more than just another
server-side scripting language, is an object-oriented database
(which you can back with a relational database such as MySQL, SQL
Server or Oracle). This OODB contains “Z Objects” (+ “Publishing
Environment” = “ZOPE”), the most important of which are page
templates (written in a server-side scripting language called
Document Template Markup Language) and extension objects
(“Products”) that are generally written in a combination of DTML
and Python. The most impressive Zope Product is surely Squishdot
(www.squishdot.org), which allows one to create a Slashdot-style
Web site in an afternoon.”