walkah: Why I Hate Drupal

I was in your session and thought it was very thought-provoking. I think you're right in the fact that in order to move to a more framework-like approach, certain modules need to be ripped out of core and relegated to contrib. If you think about it, things like blog, forum, contact, etc really don't belong in core. "Utility" modules like CCK, Views, Token, etc are more appropriate for a core distribution of a framework. The other modules can be moved to contrib and then packaged up in a "blog" or "forum" install profile. As is currently being discussed on the devel mailing list, a lot of the innovation happens in contrib anyway because you're not beholden to Drupal core release cycles (well, except for core API changes!). Things like Advanced Forum or Panels can create a new release whenever they want. They can add new features as they see fit without having to wait to get their patches committed to D7 core or D8 core.

I thought you raised a lot of great points and am interested to see if this gains traction in the community, but I think it will be a fairly slow transition. Maybe by Drupal 10 we'll get there!

This was a great presentation, James. I'm really appreciative that someone got up and gave a session like this. More than anything I hope it paves the way for more frequent, and open-minded, discussion of process/cultural issues within the Drupal world.

Thanks again, and indeed I'm sorry that the video cut the comments (I unfortunately didn't get to attend the actual session).

It was nice to have the dirty side talked about. Sometimes we need to stop blowing smoke up each others.... well you know. And I have to say, I agree with you.

I think the first step is people being excited about change and being open to the possibility of change being in directions very different from where we are going on with parts of the project. Change is hard. We need excitement about change.

Hi James,

I didn't attend Drupalcon, but, I saw the presentation on archive.org.

I agree with many of the points you raised and was reminded of how Dublin Drupaller used to take on the role of "Drupal Antagonist" to drive a discussion on drupal.org. Good to see someone continuing that tradition.

I always used to react in the wrong way when I saw posts like this..but, I've learnt to react positively, question what my pet hates are and invariably I come up with ideas where drupal can improve.

great work.

Phil.

i think a lot of software could benefit from someone taking a look at it and saying "this sucks. how can we fix it?". good work

I first got the idea for this talk several months ago watching the DjangoCon 2008 keynote Why I Hate Django by Cal Henderson.

s/got/stole

Walkah, you're my new hero.

Your talk was refreshing, insightful, important and encouraging.

Drupal is not a product, but even more so, it's not a religion. Far too often, any criticism of Drupal is treated as blasphemy. People talk about "The Drupal Way" as if it were some divine, infallible process. A community reality check was sorely needed.

From one heretic to another, thanks.

I am attracted to Drupal for the movement aspect of things, and it was very refreshing to hear a solid voice in the community using some tough love to help it stay on track. Drupal is still incredibly young, and it doesn't seem like any irreversible path has been taken, so way to go James for speaking up now, and way to go to the community for voting it up! You talk opened up lots of new pathways in my brain to understand Drupal better.

Hey James,

Missed your session at DC/DC, but enjoyed watching it here. I agree that Drupal should be understood clearly as a CMS framework and that core development should be guided by that understanding and everything it implies. Acquia's entrance onto the scene around Boston DC gave me some hope that increased attention to meta-development issues (e.g. testing, performance, upgrade paths, etc.) would ratchet things up to allow for broader use. But I think the longer-term question for Drupal is whether the architecture can evolve beyond that, beyond the goal of building one-off content-managed sites, even important ones like recovery.gov. If the platform could support building full-blown redistributable and extensible applications - i.e. "classes" of CMS sites - that would really be something.

Just watching this on archive.org (http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconDc2009-WhyIHateDrupal)

Great presentation! Wising I was there.

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bull-100

Fascinating and courageous presentation, not to mention enjoyable.

I have used many open source CMS and Drupal is by far the most simultaneously powerful and frustrating CMS.

The attitude of Drupal developers is often (not always) poor.

The documentation of Drupal is often (not always) poor.

The applications created with Drupal are often (not always) amazing.

Is Drupal more trouble than its worth? Depends on the project, depends on the developer, depends on the budget and timeline.

The fact that "Is Drupal more trouble than its worth?" is debatable means the platform is not yet mature.

JOKE TIME!!!!!!!

Q: How many modules does it take to make Drupal user-friendly like Wordpress?

A: There's a module for that!!!!!!!!

Agreed with it.!! They are good reasons why one should hate it. I once used it and I got rid of it immediately. I think Joomla betters than it than CMS and Wordpress is best when considering for Blogs.