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The Season of Slashdot's Discontent
May 1, 2008
It's been a scratchy couple of days in the tech blogging world for Drupal, as a review of David Mercer's new Drupal book veered off-topic and turned into a discussion of Drupal's appropriateness for various projects. As is to be expected in a fast-moving Slashdot discussion thread, opinions were heated and curmudgeonly grumbling was the order of the day. Today, Acquia's Jeff Whatcott notes that blogger Scott Miller is writing that Wordpress, Drupal, and other web frameworks are bad for innovation. Miller admitted readily that he'd never used Drupal, and the emphasis of his post was on people using blog and CMS frameworks to build custom applications when they should be starting from scratch. Still, for those of us who drink the Drupal Kool-Aid, it can be tough seeing these kinds of statements tossed around. How should we, the folks who build and use Drupal, approach these kinds of discussions?
To some extent, they are inevitable. The more visible a given technology or project is, the more critics will chime in. Back in the 2007 Predictions thread on Drupal.org, I said that backlash would be coming as Drupal transitioned from a niche web CMS to a framework with broader usage.
[In 2007 and beyond] Drupal will 'arrive' and no longer be seen as the hot newcomer. This will be evidenced by individuals and companies that use 'Drupal' as a resume-fodder buzzword without actually knowing how to work with it, an increase in of 'Drupal backlash' on sites like SlashDot and Digg, and blog stories by disgruntled former Drupal users. This won't be an inherently bad thing: it's what every system experiences. As Yogi Berra once said, "No one goes to that restaurant anymore: it's too busy."
That's exactly what we're seeing -- Drupal has a much higher profile than it did just a couple of years ago. Where does the backlash come from? Some have legitimate criticisms that we should take to heart. Still others just didn't find Drupal a good fit. A handful don't know much about Drupal at all, and are just parroting stuff they read on Slashdot or expressing annoyance at the latest group of enthusiastic framework advocates. That's certainly nothing new -- every technology faces that. ColdFusion? ASP.Net? Django? Even the Rails community saw controversy when one of its influential members became disillusioned.
Drupal's successes with both large and small sites over the past several years demonstrate that we don't have anything to prove. While it's obviously not a good fit for every project, Drupal has proven itself as a great tool for building content-centric community sites. As the folks at Acquia are fond of saying, Drupal isn't just about blogging or social networking or portals: it's a social publishing tool, and a great one at that.
The challenge for all of us, I think, is to stay in the realm of the pragmatic. Drupal isn't a perfect piece of software (such things don't exist!) and those of us who work with it daily are aware of its limitations as well as its strengths. We have a commitment to improving it, educating others about its strengths, and honestly discussing its weaknesses. One of the common threads in "I tried Drupal and got burned" stories over the last several months is a feeling of being snookered -- site stakeholders were told that it could do anything, and were frustrated when "anything" proved more difficult than anticipated. Honesty, and the assurance that goes with it, can be a great strength for Drupal evangelists and the community in general.
Comments
just ignore 'em
Drupal has slowly built over the last seven years a successful community and tools to do a variety of things well. We continue to gain new members who are interested in learning and contributing.
Consultants over selling their skills/abilities is nothing new and those consultants then being bitter and blaming others is also nothing new and has been around since that guy sold the emperor new clothes when he didn't know how to sew. Managers not doing their due diligence or being to cheap to obtain quality help or planning sane time lines is nothing new.
Drupal fools you. Its initial setup is so easy that people for some bizarre reason don't expect to actually have to spend time learning or planning things out. It's evolution is so different from most of the other tools (phpNuke, Mambo, phpWebsite, etc) that people are often unprepared or just refuse to accept that difference may involve a learning curve of some sort.
Steven Peck
For the most part, I just ignore them unless they rant on drupal.org.
Results Talk, bull**** walks...
Any developer worth their salt is going to pick the tool set appropriate for the job. If it's truly something unique, then by all means code it yourself from scratch. But for the rest of us who are working on projects where the emphasis is on unique content and the community around that content, reinventing the tool set is a very low priority.
I had a moment not that long ago where I was concerned that I was putting too much time into learning Drupal. Maybe I should be spending more time looking into Django or working on Ruby skills, but in the end realized that I had the tools I needed. My clients weren't interested at all in PHP vs Ruby vs Python. They wanted web sites with the kind of functionality Drupal offers, and as I've become pretty comfortable using Drupal, I can focus on all the other areas a good web person needs to focus on, like UI, SEO, logical architecture, and god forbid, compelling content.
Innovation
Drupal is a tool - a good one, but just one of many.
Most websites don't need any innovation under the hood. None of your visitors will care about that anyways. They want something worth their time. If you want to fill that gap with pure content, Drupal will do the trick just fine.
You can make it look sexy and unique or use one of the stock themes... or even the default theme. Even if you do that, most won't actually care. As long as the theme doesn't burn their eyes and as long as the content is any good, they will be happy. (It's sad but true: No one will care as much about your code as you do. Most wont even care which language you used. *gasp*)
As I see it: Drupal is a compact flexible extensible core, which takes care of all those boring default things. It's a great starting point and for many sites it's actually already everything you need. The code is clean, the templating system is fun to work with, and there is even some rather good documentation. It's really lovely.
If you want to do something radically different, Drupal isn't the answer. But that isn't really much of a surprise, is it?
It's the same deal you get with programming languages. Each one is good for a specific set of problems. If you step outside those boundaries another one would be a better choice.
I for one don't use Drupal for everything. If doing it from scratch is the better (or only) option, I'll do just that. And otherwise... why shouldn't I use Drupal then?
Like many other users I'm very enthusiastic about Drupal, but that doesn't equal borderline fanboyism. It's simply the best tool I know for this set of tasks. That's all there is to it.
Attitudes aren't worth the trouble
But clear misconceptions and untruths -- such as claims that Drupal has "bloated" code, when in fact it's leaner than comparable systems, and half the size of even Wordpress -- are worth addressing, imho. You can't convince the chest thumpers, but others reading may come away with a false impression otherwise.
imho.
Drupal FUD
People that make their living hand coding custom websites, one at a time, HATE Drupal. Trust me I have been on the receiving end of their FUD. The idea that their client could put up a nice Drupal site themselves in 20 minutes or less, instead of paying them $20,000.00+ gives them ulcers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt
I sarcastically often say
I sarcastically often say that all programming languages and frameworks suck because none of them do every crazy thing you may want with little code and none make my farts smell like roses. The right tool for the right project is what it comes down to.
Also, try to build a better system than Drupal from the ground up. Yes it can be done. But it is hard and it will take time which (as I personally quickly realized) can be spent on other things.
Drupal
For 90% of the work I do Drupal is perfect, for the other 10% I write modules to add the functionality I need.
History repeats itself
The "bad for innovation" finger-wagging reminds me of the olden days, when electronic spreadsheets first gained mainstream acceptance. The scolds warned that people using Excel (Multiplan!) and Lotus 1-2-3 to create calculated cells and macros were unwittingly using spreadsheets as a programming language without the necessary checks and rigor. They said we were practicing software engineering without a license.
Yes, over time many new applications have been built from scratch that perform much better than something cobbled on a spreadsheet. But it was the spreadsheet cobblers who helped define the need and how to fill it. I believe that's innovation.
Same with Drupal. If it's a good tool for filling your need, use it. Innovate your brains out.
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