Applying code changes on-the-fly using plone.reload

When a Zope instance is running in debug mode, most of the changes made in the underlying code (except for templates, Python scripts, and some other resources like CSS) won't be refreshed in the server until it is restarted. This means that if we want to test a new method or if we had detected a problem and solved it, we must restart our Zope server to see the results. At first glance, it doesn't seem to be a big deal. However, in the rush of development or when making lots of little changes in the code, this could really be a pain in the neck. This is especially true if we are working with a production database because they normally take a long time during server launch.

Fortunately , plone.reload can come to our rescue. In a fraction of a second it detects and refreshes all the changes made to the code. Moreover, if we had modified configuration options (not .py files but .zcml, as we'll see in future chapters), we can apply them on-the-fly also.