Drupal - An evolution

So it's been a few weeks now that this redesigned blog has been up and running and I thought I would share a few things that came up while designing the site as well as things that have come up in the past few weeks that I've actively used the site.

For those weary of the 'technical' stuff, this is going to be a pretty technical post.

So if you haven't figured it out by now, my site is running on a very excellent CMS called Drupal, which when I first used it, I was trying to develop my own CMS for my mother's blog. So after two weeks of my best intent programming to make my mom's blog the best ever, I finally got to that question that drives so many towards open source software: "Surely someone else must have done this before!?"

And so I entered the deep dark world of Content Management Systems. Well, maybe not SO dark.

To be honest, I didn't even know what to search for. This was in 2003! I'm not even sure the term CMS existed at the time. I might be exaggerating, but I seriously can't remember ever having heard the term before.

So after a day or three of investigation, I ended up with a few choices. Now in 2003, these choices were not so obvious. I ended up with:

• Mambo
• Postnuke
• Drupal

So to recap, had I chosen Mambo, I would have had a system that was discontinued in 2008. Postnuke was discontinued in July 2009. I think Drupal was the right choice then.

But the choice back then wasn't so simple. What made me choose Drupal then? Mambo was an excellent content management system. Postnuke was touted as the most secure one. Drupal on the other hand had something more. It had a community behind the product. There were modules (which most other CMSs call plugins) for every bit of extra functionality that was needed. There were themes. Most important of all though, there was movement and life. Reasonably constant security updates, new modules being created, new themes being created.

So I went with Drupal.

So in November 2003, Drupal released version 4.3 of their CMS. I bit the bullet, designed my mom's site, registered a domain name, and uploaded the finished product. I have never looked back.

Now it's 2011 and I have redesigned my blog using Drupal 7. In retrospect, I should have done it using Drupal 6. Yes, it is my humble opinion that Drupal 7 is not production ready.

Mostly it's because of the low third-party module support. A lot of modules that I used extensively with Drupal 6 are not ready for Drupal 7.

These include, but are not limited to the Adsense and the XML Sitemap modules. They either just don't work or there are major issues trying to get them to work. They don't work out of the box like they used to with Drupal 6. It could also be me not understanding the integration correctly, but that's the point of plugins right? Make integration of functionality easier, right? Oh, well...

Drupal has come a long way though.

Drupal 7 has got a lot of features going for it, like the new Administration Overlay system. The ability to install modules from a URL (like WordPress), contextual links, a new dashboard, a customisable shortcut bar, the inclusion of the Content Construction Kit in Drupal core and so many other things.

Drupal 7 is not a bad system, I just don't believe it's ready for prime-time yet. Once again, it could depend on what you want to use it for. Do you want to create a standard blog? Drupal 7 is perfect for that. Do you want to create a whole site with different sections, different content types with different rules? Drupal 7 is good for that too, it just needs a little more work.

So to finish off, Drupal 7 feels like a lightweight version of Drupal 6. I know it will get there eventually and that I won't regret my decision going the Drupal 7 route (eventually). While the evolution of Drupal over the years hasn't always been a smooth one, it always evolved into something better. There are days when I feel like jumping ship and trying other CM systems, but I just keep coming back to Drupal over and over again.

Drupal has really evolved over the years and I look forward to see what the guys (and girls) of the Drupal community will come up with next.