The Open Source Zone

This book is both outdated (it discusses extensively Zope extensions that are no longer supported) and incoherent (it is
just a collection of unrelated example projects only loosely
tied together by the common theme of managing some content on a
web site). You're better off with the Zope Bible (for Zope) and the Content Management Bible (for CM issues generally). However,
there are a few useful things in it so if you can get it for
$5-10 as a remaindered book, go for it.

This book tries to cover slightly different ground than "how to start using Zope to develop web sites." If you're looking for a good general introduction to Zope, I'd look at either Beehive's The Book of Zope, or the Zope Book (the online edition at zope.org; the printed version is quite out-of-date).<p>This book is basically a walkthrough of several products for Zope (the CMF, ZPatterns, ZUBB, etc.) I doubt you'll find that you've learned much about how to use Zope or how to develop for it, rather than a thin bit about how to apply these products.<p>I also found that this book felt rather hastily put-together, without much continuity between chapters.<p>The only reason I'd recommend this book is if you're looking to learn about ZPatterns, and chances are, you aren't.

First there are lots of code snippets right in the text,
which makes it rather easy to follow things when you don't
have a Zope box next to you. Sometimes they are a bit too
in-depth (like the listing of the SQLLevers in the ZPatterns
example) but most time they are selected wisely.<p>I found a lot of different topics explained (from Zope
for Newbiews, CMS, lots of 3rd Party Products, System Administration,
ZEO) which all bring enough knowledge to you, to start working with
them right after reading. (Or after downloading from the online
website that comes with the book.)<p>The Chapter (actually there are 3) about ZPatterns is actually
the most important to me, because it helped me understanding
this complex topic in a couple of days.<p>This book is a big must-read for all people trying to gain "Zope-Zen"!

I've got copies of the Zope Book and Zope Web Construction Kit and this book is better than the other two, but you really have to reference the website... for updates and errata for the source code.<p>That said - the examples in the book are short and clear and the authors _do_ seem to update the site and reply to emails when errors are found. <p>This is the _only_ Zope book I'd recommend.

This is a good intro to Zope. If you have a free weekend and want to get to know Zope, this would be a very fine way to do it. Zope is amazingly expandable, and that is one of the things that this book points out & demonstrates with several helpful examples. I was amazed at how much the authors were able to pack into the book & pleased with the way they used products to demonstrate important features of Zope. <p>Because Zope is so expandable and versatile, however, they had to leave some things out. A topic that could have used a little more coverage (or maybe a lot, maybe a seperate book?) is database integration. It's a big topic, though, so I guess it makes sense that it isn't fully fleshed out. <p>Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone who (like me) is still getting to know Zope. It's very clearly written and well laid out. Kudos to the authors and publisher.<p>db