SPOPS is a robust and powerful module that allows you to serialize
objects. It is unique in that it also allows you to apply security to
these objects using a fairly simple but powerful scheme of users and
groups. (You can, of course, turn off security if you want.)

It's also unique in that for most objects, you will not need to write
any code. It's true! A fairly simple configuration file is all you
need which you can then feed to SPOPS and have a class for your object
ready to go, right out of thin air.

The configuration you specify not only lists the properties of the
object and possibly some information about where its data should be
stored, but can also describe the relationship an object might have
with another object (or objects).

One great benefit is that you can retrofit SPOPS to existing data. If
you don't use any of the metadata layers or security, you can simply
describe your data in a configuration file, process the configuration
and start making (and processing) objects! If you want to add security
to these objects later, it's easy!

Author: Chris Winters