[storm] some questions about Storm (from the perspective of Grok)

[Martijn Faassen]

Hey Gustavo,

Gustavo Niemeyer wrote:
[snip why no schema generation]
> So, basically, we didn't want schema management mixed with the ORM
> for the following reasons:

[snip reasons]

Those all look like good reasons to me. I like especially how you can 
simplify your approach and separate concerns by not having to worry 
about schema creation.

As usual this is a matter of trade-offs. I know you're open to this, so 
I'm not arguing the case, just making an inventory of the reasons *pro* 
schema management:

* all in one place: everything's in the Python code, no other place to 
look.

* Distributability: if I give my Python code to someone else (as an 
egg), that other person can also get the database set up the same way.

* portability between databases. Since you'd have worked hard on an 
abstraction across different databases, you don't have to worry about 
setting up the schema slightly differently for each database.

* rapid application development. A Python programmer may get an 
application up and running without doing more than hacking Python code.

So now we have a nice pro and con picture. We should record this stuff 
somewhere. Maybe a blog entry?

>> Concerning Zope 3 integration, has anything been done by anyone about
>> integrating Storm's variable/property system with Zope 3 schemas? It
> (...)
> 
> No, we haven't seen anything being done about it yet.

Okay, good to know we're in an untapped field here. I wonder if Lovely 
systems can say something here as a big Zope 3 user too. If they 
*haven't* done this stuff, it'd be interesting to know why not. :)

>> would be nice to be able to deduce a schema automatically for a
>> database-backed class (or perhaps the other way around), so one can use
>> Zope 3's form system. I'd love to discuss this with others; perhaps
>> someone has already thought about this topic.
> 
> That's an interesting point.  Zope 3 interfaces are probably more suited to
> create the schema than the Storm class itself, since their goal is
> precisely to define rather than implement.  I would guess that it's also
> quite easy to create the Storm properties automatically, if that was
> wanted.

Yes, I think it's probably easier to do schema -> storm than the other 
way around. It'd be fairly easy to add new field types supporting 
particular features of Storm, such as references.

[snip]
> I'll be happy to discuss and try to participate somehow if you want
> to try something like that out.

Yes, I'd like to. I will get back to you. I will be playing more with 
Storm in a Grok context soon, which will lead me to more concrete things 
to say. There are also various others in the Grok community who may be 
interested in this topic.

Thanks for the helpful answers so far!

Regards,

Martijn