Saltlabs Sprint: Zope and Plone sprint in a new location

After Earl Zope II is now nearly relocated to the Python 3 wonderland, gocept will move to a new head quarter in the next months. This is the right time to celebrate with a new sprint, as we have now even more space for sprinters. The new location is called the “Saltlabs”, a place for IT companies in Halle (Saale), Germany.

Sprint information

  • Date: Monday, 1st until Friday, 5th of October 2018
  • Location: Leipziger Str. 70, Halle (Saale), Germany

Sprint topics

This sprint has three main topics:

Create a final Zope 4 release

Before releasing a final version of Zope 4 we want to resolve about at least 40 issues: Some bugs have to be fixed,  some functions have to be polished and documentation has to be written resp. reviewed. On the other hand there is the re-brush of the ZMI using Bootstrap which should be completed beforehand, as it modernizes the ZMI and allows for easier customisation, but might also be backwards incompatible with certain test suites. There is an Etherpad to write down ideas, tasks, wishes and work proposals, which are not currently covered by the issue tracker.

Port Plone to Python 3

The following tasks are currently open and can be fixed at the sprint:

  • successfully run all Plone tests and even the robotframework tests on Python 3
  • Zope 4 lost the WebDAV support: find resp. create a replacement
  • document the WSGI setup and test it in a production ready environment
  • port as many as possible add-ons to Python 3 (e.g. Mosaic and Easyform)
  • work on the Migration of ZODB contents (Data.fs) to Python 3
  • improve the test setup with tox.
  • start to support Python 3.7

Polish Plone 5.2

The upcoming Plone 5.2 release will appreciate some love and care at the following items:

  • new navigation with dropdown and better performance
  • Barceloneta theme: ease the customisation and improve responsiveness
  • parallelise the tests so they run faster
  • remove Archetypes and other obsolete packages

See also the list of topics on plone.org for this sprint.

Organisational Remarks

In order to coordinate the participation for this sprint, we ask you to join us on Meetup. We can then coordinate the catering and requirements for space.

As this sprint will be running longer than usual (five days), it is also possible to join only for a part of the week. As October 3rd is the national holiday, we are trying to organise some social event for those who are interested in having a small break.

For a better overview, please indicate your participation also on this doodle poll.

 

Zope is welcome in the Python 3 wonderland!

Earl Zope already got the beta permission to stay in the Python 3 wonderland some months ago. His current objective is to help old friends to come to the Python 3 wonderland and to make new friends. He has to build trust in his will and ability to stay in the Python 3 wonderland.

The Zope-4-Welcome sprint last week was a great opportunity to work towards the final permission for Earl Zope. We were a group of 15 developers from different companies and backgrounds building applications on Zope in various ways.

We accomplished the following goals:

  • There are some old friends of Earl Zope. He thought that he no longer needs them in the Python 3 wonderland but other applications built on Zope need them, so they were pushed towards the new land:
  • Knight RestrictedPython got some love and a new beta release.
  • Earl Zope could help an old friend (a custom Zope 2.13 application) to get prepared to move to the new land.
  • Duchess CMFCore got a beta permission for the Python 3 wonderland including her beloved siblings:
  • Prince Plone is not yet ready to live in the Python 3 wonderland but he is already a welcome guest. It is only a matter of time before he will get an alpha permission:
    • The instance starts and many actions in the UI work pretty well.
    • The test story was brought some steps further so it is possible to start testing Plone under Python 3.
    • Details are described in a Blog post of Philip Bauer.
  • The migration of a toy Data.fs was tested and successfully completed. (Details will follow in another blog post.) The Migration took the following steps:
    • from Zope 2.13 on Python 2.7
    • via Zope 4 on Python 2.7
    • to Zope 4 on Python 3.6
  • The ZMI of Earl Zope got a facelift (Zope#249) which is not complete yet but looks promising.
  • And last but not least Earl Zope himself got the 5th extension of his beta permission: Zope 4.0b5.

Earl Zope says a hearty thank you to all who where involved in this sprint in Halle or remote by coding or providing the resources and time to code.

Welcome in the Python 3 wonderland!

A heartily welcome for Zope in the Python 3 wonderland

Once upon the time there was Earl Zope II. A wise guy was telling him that his world will come to an end. He found out that this was true that he had only some years to prepare to immigrate to the Python 3 wonderland.

His preparation was successful: He got past the strict immigration check and has now a beta permission to stay in the Python 3 wonderland. Earl Zope really likes his new home, but he is missing some friends. Most of them are still at the border of Python 3 wonderland and have to go through the immigration process. Earl Zope would be pleased to offer the same service to his friends as in the old Python 2 land.

To get the final permission to stay in Python 3 wonderland Earl Zope needs to build up trust in his abilities and his stability by other inhabitants and old friends. Therefore, he has to show, that he can work with old and new friends in the Python 3 wonderland.

Zope 4 Welcome sprint – 16th until 18th May 2018

Earl Zope invites you to join a sprint with some helpful people to welcome Zope 4 and his friends in Python 3 wonderland. This means: Bring in your Zope 2 based application and we look together how to port it to Zope 4 or even Python 3. That’s why we call the sprint “Zope 4 Welcome sprint”. You can also help by posting issues or even pull requests about your migration attempts.

Additionally we look forward to work on an improved version of the ZMI (Zope Management Interface) and to fix some bugs preventing Earl Zope from getting the final permission.

The sprint will be located in Halle (Saale), Germany. We meet there from Wednesday, 16th till Friday, 18th of May 2018. Please join us via Meetup even if you are planning to work from remote. You will find more detailed and updated information about the sprint there, too.

Earl Zope II is dead, long live Earl Zope

Zope 4.0b1 released

 

Narrative version

Once upon the time there was Earl Zope II. His lands where threatened by a huge disaster called “Python 2 sunset”. His only chance was to emigrate to the Python 3 wonderland. After a long preparation phase for himself and his courtiers he was able to move to the new land. But the Python 3 wonderland has strict immigration authorities: They only allow “compatible” fellows to get a residency permit. The permission itself has three levels:

  • alpha – To get this level the candidate has to prove that he can breath the Python 3 air and drink the water in this land without getting falling over. Earl Zope II needed a while to acclimate in the Python 3 wonderland as its climate is a bit different from what he was used to.
  • beta – This level requires the the acclimation phase was successful and people could start to rely that the candidate will stay in the new land. Earl Zope II reached this level by proving that all his courtiers – he relies on – are ready for this level.
  • final – To reach this level the candidate needs to prove that he is living in successful relations in Python 3 wonderland. Other inhabitants must be able to trust him and the services he offers. After Earl Zope II now has reached the beta phase he is now able to offer his services and hope that he gets the final level about fall 2018.

Back in his own country Earl Zope II had the official name “Zope2 2.13”. Before the beta phase of his immigration he thought that he would have to change the name to something like “Zope2 4.0b1”. This is looks ugly and some people protested against this name. With the kind and quick help of Baiju Muthukadan Earl Zope II was able to change his official name to “Zope 4.0b1”. Thank you very much Baiju Muthukadan! Earl Zope is very proud of this new shorter name and is heartily thankful for this opportunity.

Technical version

The release of the first Beta version means, that no currently existing features will be removed until the final version. But There will be some new features and many bugfixes.

New Features of Zope version 4.0

  • Support for Python 3.4 up to 3.6: Currently Python 3 can only be used for new projects. There is only an experimental way to convert an existing ZODB from Python 2 to 3 as it is not possible to run the same Data.fs under both versions, see zodb.py3migrate.
  • Zope now by default runs as a WSGI application. The previously used ZServer is still supported but only runs under Python 2.
  • Chameleon based templates are now the default.

Changes

  • The name of the distribution changed from Zope2 to Zope. The previous Zope2 package will remain as a meta package which depends on Zope. This allows packages which require Zope 4.x to depend on Zope instead of Zope2.
  • Removed deprecated code and BBB imports like the Globals package or the internal help system.
  • Some smaller features, bug fixes and security fixes, see the Change log.

Thanks

A big “Thank you!” to all who made this release possible:

  • dedicated people investing time, thoughts and money
  • nice companies allowing their people to participate on Zope sprints
  • the Plone Foundation sponsoring Zope sprints

We had a great Zope 4 Phoenix Sprint helping to raise Zope from the ashes! Thank you to everybody who participated in Halle or from remote.

Roadmap

Beta one of Zope is out:

We need the feedback to adapt Zope to the needs in the wild. The current plan is to create new beta releases once a while after implementing features resp. bug fixes or on demand. The current plan is to release a final 4.0 version in fall of 2018. This should allow software projects built upon Zope to migrate there code before the Python 2 sunset in 2020.

Zope preparing to enter Python 3 wonderland

Once upon the time there was an earl named Zope II. His prophets told him that around the year 2020 suddenly his peaceful country will be devastated: They proclaim that with the “sunset” of  Python 2 as stable pillar of his country, insecurity and pain will invade his borders and hurt everyone living within. There seemed only one possible move forward to escape the disaster: Flee to the Python 3 wonderland, the source of peace and prosperity.

This was not as easy as one might think. Earl Zope II was already an old man. He was in the stable age where changes are no longer easy to achieve and he had many courtiers in his staff which he needed all the day.

The immigration authority of the Python 3 wonderland was very picky about the persons which requested permission to settle down. Many “updates” for Zope II and his staff where required to so they eventually became “compatible” with the new country. Earl Zope II was even forced to change his name to Zope IV to show hat he was ready for Python 3 wonderland.

After much work with the immigration authorities it seemed to be possible for earl Zope IV to enter; only some – but important – formalities were needed before he could be allowed to settle down and call himself a citizen of the Python 3 wonderland.

This is where the tale gets real: We need your help to release a beta version of Zope 4. The hard work seems to be done; but some polish and testing is still required to reach this goal.

We invite you to the Zope 4 Phoenix Sprint to help raising Zope 4 from the ashes! From Wednesday, 13th until Friday, 15th of September 2017 we sprint at the gocept office in Halle (Saale), Germany towards the beta release.

Possible sprint topics could be:

  • Work on issues and pull requests regarding the beta release.
  • Make RestrictedPython beta ready.
  • Work on a Bootstrap of the Zope management interface (ZMI)
  • Port CMF components to Python 3 to test Zope 4 for possible issues
  • Work on Plone to make it ready for Zope 4
  • Try out migration strategies for ZODB content to Python 3.
  • Improve the documentation.

You are heartily invited to join us for the honour of earl Zope IV.

Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint – Goal accomplished

The sprint days were really busy for Earl Zope II and the people helping him with the Python 3 wonderland immigration authorities.

  • Zope
    • can be installed using Python 3
    • can be started and renders some views
    • has more than 1.700 of more than 2.300 tests running
    • has some optional dependencies left to be ported.
  • To accomplished this by:
    • Complete porting of RestrictedPython, so a first alpha release with the new implementation was released. (This includes about 260 commits, nearly 100 files changed, 9.000 lines of newly written code and 1.000 lines of code deleted.)
    • Port AccessControl to Python 3. This port covers the Python code of the package.
    • Make an alpha release of DocumentTemplate which supports Python 3. It is purely based on Python code. (Thanks Hanno for the porting work from C to Python!)
    • Note: There were problems porting AccessControl and DocumentTemplate to PyPy so we left this out for now. (Volunteers welcome!)

Besides working on Zope there was other ongoing work:

His majesty Earl Zope II says a warm “Thank you!” to all who helped him to start his new live in Python 3 wonderland. There is still enough work to be done so he can live there and having all the comfort and stability of Python 3. See you on the next sprint!

Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint – Day 1

Welcome to the Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint in Halle (Saale), Germany. We hope you enjoyed the time since the Last call for take off to the Python 3 wonderland.

We already achieved some things:

We discussed the following topics:

  • Use pytest as test framework and test runner for the Zope projects?
    • We decided against this suggestion as it is to much hassle for a too little gain.
    • Using zope.testrunner is not too different from stdlib’s unittest.
    • zope.testrunner it has the really helpful layers feature which is heavily used in Zope and especially Plone. There is no equivalent in pytest for this concept. This would require to rewrite the whole test infrastructure or use a tool like gocept.pytestlayer which coverts layers into purest fixtures – but has its own problems doing this.
  • Improve the situation of continuous integration for the Zope packages:
    • Sometimes tests of a package break because a dependency has changed its behaviour. This does not get noticed until someone makes a change to the package which triggers Travis-CI. It is sometimes really hard to find out which change in which package caused the test failures when the tests are only run at code changes. (Current example: zope.testbrowser which broke because of a change in WebTest.)
    • Hanno activated the cron jobs Travis-CI beta feature for most of the Zope related packages. (This currently requires clicking in the Travis-CI UI and still has to be done for most of the ZTK packages.) Currently it is not clear what happens if such a cron job fails.
    • The Jenkins of the Plone Foundation is also able to test the Zope packages: it could be configured to run them on a regular basis.
    • Tres suggests to use bin/test instead of python setup.py test to run the tests as the latter one is no longer liked by the Python Packaging Authority folks.

Last call for take off to the Python 3 wonderland

Last information for Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint

We are approaching the Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint and hope that all those who are willing to help earl Zope II on his endeavor to port his realm have already prepared there horses and packed the necessary equipment to arrive in Halle (Saale), Germany.

To help with the preparations we have set up some means of communication:

Etherpad

In the Etherpad we have collected a fundamental set of obstacles that the immigration authority of Python 3 wonderland send to earl Zope II via a mounted messenger. If there are additional problems we need to solve with the immigration or other authorities, feel free to point those out in the pad.

IRC Channel

During the sprint we will have an owl waiting for messages in the #sprint channel on irc.freenode.net, so additional information and questions can be placed there.

General Schedule

In general the gates of the gocept manor in Halle (Saale) are open from 8:00 till 18:00 during the sprint for the squires to help earl Zope II. There will be some refreshments in the morning (8:00 – 9:00) and during lunch time (12:00 – 13:00) in order to keep everyone happy and content.

Apart from that, there will be some fixed points in time to meet:

  • Monday 2017-05-01
    • 19:00 CEST, pre-sprint get-together for early arrivals at Anny Kilkenny. Attention: There will be a bigger political demonstration in Halle which might impact the arrival here, take that into consideration.
  • Tuesday 2017-05-02
    • 9:00 CEST, official welcome and sprint planning afterwards.
    • 16:30-17:30 CEST, Discussion: TBD
    • 18:00 CEST, guided tour through the city of Halle, meeting point
    • 19:30 CEST, dinner and get-together at Wenzels Bierstuben, location, separate bills
  • Wednesday 2017-05-03
    • 9:00 CEST, daily meeting and review
    • 16:30-18:00 CEST, Discussion: TDB
    • 19:00 CEST, BBQ evening in the lovely garden at gocept manor
  • Thursday 2017-05-04
  • Friday 2017-05-05
    • 9:00 CEST, daily meeting and review
    • 13:00 CEST, sprint closing session with review and possibility to present lightning talks of your projects.

We are looking forward to the sprint and hope to overcome the remaining migration problems of earl Zope II.

Sprinting to push Zope to the Python 3 wonderland

Earlier this year there was a sprint in Innsbruck, Austria. We made progress in porting Zope to Python 3 by working on RestrictedPython. After this sprint RestrictedPython no longer seems to be a blocker to port the parts of Zope which rely on RestrictedPython to Python 3.

See the full sprint report on the plone.org website.

We will work further on pushing Zope towards the Python 3 wonderland on the Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint in Halle/Saale, Germany at gocept in the first week of May 2017. You are welcome to  join us on site or remote.

Photo copyright: Christine Baumgartner

Zope at the turnpike of the Python 3 wonderland

A little tale

Once upon the time there was an earl named Zope II. He lived happily in a land called Python 2. Since some years there where rumours that a huge disaster would hit the country. The people ironically used to call it “sunset”. Prophets arose and said that 2020 would be the year where this disaster would finally happen.

Zope II got anxious about his future and the future of his descendants. But there were some brave people who liked Zope II and told him of the Python 3 wonderland. A land of eternal joy and happiness without “sunset” disasters and with no problems at all. It seemed like a dream to Zope II – too nice to be true?

After some research it became clear that the Python 3 wonderland was real – not completely as advertised by the people but nice to live in. So Zope II set the goal to settle down in the Python 3 wonderland before the “sunset” disaster would happen.

But this was not as easy as it seemed to be. The immigrant authority told Zope II that he is “not compatible” with the Python 3 wonderland and that he needs “to be ported” to be able to breath the special Python 3 air.

As if this was not enough: As an earl Zope II was not able to migrate without his staff, the many people he relied on for his daily procedures. Some of them have been found to be “ported” already thus they were already “compatible” for the new country. But there was one old, but very important servant of Zope II named RestrictedPython. Zope II could not live without him – but he got told that he never will be “compatible”. The authority even required a “complete rewrite”.

The Python 3 wonderland seemed so near but is was so difficult to reach. But there where so many people who helped Zope II and encouraged him not to give up. Eventually it seemed to be possible for Zope II to get beyond the turnpike into the wonderful land called Python 3.

Back in reality

We are the people who like Zope II and help him to get past the turnpike into Python 3. Since the Alpine City Sprint earlier this month RestrictedPython is no longer a blocker for other packages depending on it to be ported.

Come, join us porting the remaining dependencies of Zope and Zope itself to Python 3. There will be a Zope 2 Resurrection Sprint in May this year in Halle (Saale), Germany at gocept. Join us on site or remote.