[Plone-docs] Re: [Plone-developers] plone and sql -- opnion of a very frustrated information manager

[robert r. <ro...@re...>]

Hi Miklos,
if you need an sample how to integrate plone and mysql I can send you one.
For the rest of your points.
Both Zope and Plone have a rather steep lerning curve, so do not loose 
patience.
Ask questions. You sure will get answers.

Robert

Miklos Nyiri wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> We are setting up a website where about a thousand anonymous users can 
> check certain medical test results. We will use Plone as intranet and 
> info providing website, so it seemed obvious that this amazing piece of 
> software will be chosen for this service as well.
> 
> We checked out TORCH and OIO, both are very good but offer too much, so 
> we opted for a small custom solution.
> 
> Concept is the following: put the custom SQL data INSERT pages into the 
> admins folders, make appropriate permissions, and replace the index_html 
> of our patients with the query page that shows them their test results.
> 
> I know that using Z SQL methods-queries this is probably a simple thing 
> to do, but...
> 
> I searched for weeks now and found no serious documentation of MySQL for 
> Plone. I mean I got confused: DTML or ZPT or AT, which adaptor, which 
> concept and why -- there is no summary and comparison for these!
> 
> I found many products for Zope, but again none has a useable 
> documentation, some seem to work but then you find out they were not 
> updated for 3 years, that may not necessarily be a problem, but then 
> there is a scripting error in the SQL syntax, /(Error Type: 
> ProgrammingError Error Value: (1064, "You have an error in your SQL 
> syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version 
> for the right syntax to use near 'LIMIT 1000' at line 1")/ and then I 
> don't know whether the whole three year old package could work with 
> MySQL 4.0.20...
> 
> And since I installed four different SQL related products, I have a new 
> problem: ZMI does not let you know which link (page) belongs to which 
> product, and I cannot find where the actual code is, e.g. 
> http://localhost:8282/UsersUpdateForm/manage_workspace: so I search for 
> a page named UsersUpdateForm or manage_workspace and find neither...
> 
> And even if it would work - how to integrate it into Plone?
> 
> Then Archetypes, it is said to be incredibly productive, but we don't 
> want to do much programming, and just need to do something simple.
> 
> Then, mysqluserfolder, does it conflict with other uses of the DB, and 
> how to expand it etc?
> 
> I know that most of this is related to Zope and not directly to Plone 
> but: I think I followed an obvious path: many users (it may go up to 
> 10.000) require SQL, MySQL is well known, (people feel comfortable with 
> it), use the wonderful Plone system to integrate services and build on 
> Zope's permission system, but I just feel frustrated. This should all be 
> documented I think, with up-to-date, nice examples!
> 
> You may say that I should choose PHP-MySQL :-) but, I guess Plone needs 
> users like me, an information manager who is a heavy user, and who at 
> least has to understand the functioning of the system.
> 
> Sorry for the rant, I hope it was not too harsh, but clear enough to 
> understand what I am talking about.
> 
> Best,
> Miklos Nyiri