Summary

Plone is one of the first CMS projects to be built using Python and it is still being actively developed. This week Eric Steele, the release manager for Plone, tells us about how it got started, how it is architected, and how the community is one of its greatest strengths

Brief Introduction

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• Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Eric Steele about the Plone CMS.

Interview with Eric Steele

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• Can you start by explaining a bit about what Plone is and how you got involved with it?
• How did the Plone project get started and how has it evolved over the years?
• What makes Plone unique among the myriad CMS tools that are available and which of them do you consider to be direct competitors?
• Plone has managed to keep an impressive track record of security. What are some of the key features that enable that?
• I know that for much of its history, the default data storage for plone was the ZODB (Zope Object DataBase). How would you describe its benefits and drawbacks for someone who is familiar with a relational database?
• Plone is one of the most long-lived Python projects that I am aware of. What are some of the most difficult maintenance challenges that you have encountered over the years of its existence?
• What does the internal architecture of Plone look like?
• One of the major tenets of the project is the ability to install extensions. What are some of the most interesting plugins that you are aware of?
• What kinds of projects are Plone best suited for?
• What does the workflow look like for a user of Plone?
• What are some of the most interesting uses of Plone that you have seen?
• What are the biggest challenges facing the Plone project and community as development and deployment paradigms continue to change?

Keep In Touch

• Plone
  • Website
  • Forum
  • IRC: #plone on freenode.net
• Eric
  • Twitter
  • E-mail

Picks

• Tobias
  • The Inquiry (podcast)
  • PyCon US
• Eric
  • Really Bad Chess
  • Home Assistant

Links

• Zope
• ZEO
• PloneFormGen
• Rapido
• CastleCMS
• Plumi
• Bika LIMS
• Quaive (Plone Intranet)
• Open Advice

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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