Project Contract

This contract proposes to continue to extend my knowledge on the Zope framework, which is an open-source and free framework designed specifically for web-development and site maintenance. Although I began to explore Zope in earnest last semester (Fall 2002), during EDIT 6100 in which I completely redeveloped this site utilizing the Zope platform, I still have a lot about the tool to learn about. Primarily, I have been "getting around" the basic Zope architecture by implementing things the traditional way by connecting to a database system such as PostgreSQL and writing standard SQL scripts and learning basic enough Python to do rudimentary forms processing.

Even so, I have yet to grasp some of the Zen of Zope aspects, so to speak. Some examples include learning about the integrated object oriented database system upon which Zope is built upon as well as how to make my logins and session tracking logic "Zope aware" so that the numerous Zope plug-in products can be more readily accessed.

Since there seems to be a lacking of any real documentation on how to do some of the more basic web-development tasks via Zope, I propose to develop eight short lessons detailing some of the aspects of Zope I have yet to learn about or fully master to this date. Putting together such lesson plans will force me to dig under the covers of Zope, examining source code that makes up the Zope framework as well as combing the web for answers to the specific tasks I am seeking to accomplish. I will also look at some of the ways I "got around" the Zope system when I was pressed for time to simply get something implemented and compare some of these work-arounds with the Zope way. Such research will then be documented over the course of the next eight weeks and hopefully be of use to other newcomers to the Zope way of doing things as well as the various students that have expressed more than a passing interest in Zope to me through my contacts and projects in the instructional technology classes taken to-date.

For the project to be developed at the end of eight weeks, I am actively considering the following possibilities.

• Continuing to develop the lesson plans into a more comprehensive set incorporating some of the basic things I have already learned as well as the new knowledge gained.
• Last semester, the local Red Cross chapter posted to the general IT listserv soliciting help in developing a web-site. I wrote back offering to help as part of developing my skills for class. Currently, I am awaiting further feedback from the originator and could possibly move forward with this possibility if I hear more this semester.
• My brother has opened a restaurant and has expressed interest in my developing a web-site for his restaurant that offers tid-bits about the local community of Beaufort, S.C. as well as possibly a short discourse in wine-tasting and pairing with meals (he is somewhat of a wine connoisseur).
• I have a domain URL reserved that I was planning to dedicate to describing technical solutions to common business problems utilizing Open Source software. The above lesson plans could possibly become one of the first installments of this new web-site as well as giving me a very real opportunity to employ some of the new knowledge gained during the next eight weeks.
• I have always been interested in writing a truly useful Zope product such as a journaling system shopping cart system or even an POP3 email client for the Zope framework, so this is also another possibility for a project to tackle.
• Yet another project idea is to develop a Zope product plug-in that provides the ability of users to log in and create a rubric for their website. After creating categories of evaluations and assigning points to various learning objectives, they will be able to hit a finalize button that will generate a rubric for them without having to learn/write a lot of HTML to do so.