To get an idea of where Zope is at, this article by Jon Udell, "Revisiting Zope" from August 2003, should help:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/01/30OPstrategic_1.htmlAs far as Python itself goes, well, here's what Peter Norvig, author of some important texts on Lisp and AI, has to say about it (from python.org):
"Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in this language." said Peter Norvig, director of search quality at Google, Inc.