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How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

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Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#11

Post by snowwrestler »

daxfohl wrote: post #4
ams6110 wrote: post #2

I think conversely that Drupal 8 is the swan song. Too late to the party. Everyone who was really unhappy with the spaghetti bowl of code in prior drupal versions has already moved on. Those who have not, are not interested in rebuilding their sites on a new platform. They just want Drupal 6 to keep working. Drupal 8 is not a gentrified neighborhood, it's more like the ghost cities in China: clean, modern, well-desig…

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

They haven't moved on.

You're not going to get an accurate picture of the CMS market here on HN. Most folks here are developers...PHP CMS's are not what they are interested in. The prevailing opinion on HN is something like "CMS's suck, you should build it yourself with node/React" or whatever.

If you need to build a content website, and the information architecture is complex, Drupal is a very strong choice. I haven't use D8 yet, and I would not recommend building a high-profile project on it yet, unless you really want to be an early adopter. But D7 works well and will be supported for a long time yet to come.

If your info architecture is fairly simple, take a look at Wordpress. You'll have an easier time finding low-cost vendors than with Drupal. Drupal is powerful but expensive.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#12

Post by bartmcpherson »

noamyoungerm wrote: post #10
daxfohl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

CMSs are dying and static sites are replacing them - there's absolutely no reason to run a complex backend when the entire site is supposed to hold some text and maybe a space for comments. Things like Jekyll or Hexo are straightforward and easy to work with, but because static sites are really just tools to transform markdown into HTML, something like Metalsmith could probably even handle online shops.

Static sites for large institutions is asking for trouble down the road. Think about universities with hundreds of content providers. They'll put anything and everything on their sites with no regard for the standard layout/design. CMS gives them design choices, and enforces standards so you can update/refresh the look and feel in the future.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#13

Post by snowwrestler »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #6
ogsharkman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drupal 8 is not a gentrified neighborhood, it's more like the ghost cities in China: clean, modern, well-designed -- and empty. I'm digging this analogy.

I don't find Drupal 8 that nice. It still uses crappy render arrays ('#var_name' => 'value') ... really? Ugh. It still has random errors, our module stopped working because of a cache corruption. How does that even make sense? Clear cache is now needed to get twig changes to propagate. Man. That is so slow and so pointless.

It's 1.0 software, essentially. I've got several D7 sites, and I'm not even planning to look at D8 until the fall. Thanks for finding all the early bugs for me, though. :-)

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#14

Post by thrillgore »

snowwrestler wrote: post #13
monk_e_boy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find Drupal 8 that nice. It still uses crappy render arrays ('#var_name' => 'value') ... really? Ugh. It still has random errors, our module stopped working because of a cache corruption. How does that even make sense? Clear cache is now needed to get twig changes to propagate. Man. That is so slow and so pointless.

It's 1.0 software, essentially. I've got several D7 sites, and I'm not even planning to look at D8 until the fall. Thanks for finding all the early bugs for me, though. :-)

I'm probably not going to move to D8 until there are concrete plans to retire D7. Which is still something being discussed in the community.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#15

Post by daxfohl »

snowwrestler wrote: post #11
daxfohl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

They haven't moved on. You're not going to get an accurate picture of the CMS market here on HN. Most folks here are developers...PHP CMS's are not what they are interested in. The prevailing opinion on HN is something like "CMS's suck, you should build it yourself with node/React" or whatever. If you need to build a content website, and the information architecture is complex, Drupal is a very strong choice. I haven…

Very believable. I'd have probably responded with the "prevailing opinion" to myself if I hadn't been the one that asked the question. :)

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#16

Post by chrisparsons »

daxfohl wrote: post #4
ams6110 wrote: post #2

I think conversely that Drupal 8 is the swan song. Too late to the party. Everyone who was really unhappy with the spaghetti bowl of code in prior drupal versions has already moved on. Those who have not, are not interested in rebuilding their sites on a new platform. They just want Drupal 6 to keep working. Drupal 8 is not a gentrified neighborhood, it's more like the ghost cities in China: clean, modern, well-desig…

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

I imagine most (like us) are just staying put until a clear alternative is present. There's no rush to get off of Drupal 7. Security updates are still flowing, the module environment is finally starting to mature, and there's no real sign that there's an EOL being set anytime soon.

If I was building a new site that made sense to use a CMS and not build something from scratch, I'd still probably go Drupal 7.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#17

Post by daxfohl »

bartmcpherson wrote: post #12
noamyoungerm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CMSs are dying and static sites are replacing them - there's absolutely no reason to run a complex backend when the entire site is supposed to hold some text and maybe a space for comments. Things like Jekyll or Hexo are straightforward and easy to work with, but because static sites are really just tools to transform markdown into HTML, something like Metalsmith could probably even handle online shops.

Static sites for large institutions is asking for trouble down the road. Think about universities with hundreds of content providers. They'll put anything and everything on their sites with no regard for the standard layout/design. CMS gives them design choices, and enforces standards so you can update/refresh the look and feel in the future.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. Do you have any additional thoughts on when a CMS is appropriate versus static sites or from-scratch sites?

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#18

Post by ommunist »

daxfohl wrote: post #4
ams6110 wrote: post #2

I think conversely that Drupal 8 is the swan song. Too late to the party. Everyone who was really unhappy with the spaghetti bowl of code in prior drupal versions has already moved on. Those who have not, are not interested in rebuilding their sites on a new platform. They just want Drupal 6 to keep working. Drupal 8 is not a gentrified neighborhood, it's more like the ghost cities in China: clean, modern, well-desig…

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

Depends on a client. Static site? Consider jekyll. Custom functionality and integrations? Look into Symphony. Canned solution for typical workflow real cheap? WordPress is the answer. Huge budget to share? Go Drupal.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#19

Post by ksenzee »

ommunist wrote: post #18
daxfohl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have they moved on to? I'm investigating CMS's for a client (an task I have entirely no experience with). Is Joomla any better? Or is the whole concept of CMS dying?

Depends on a client. Static site? Consider jekyll. Custom functionality and integrations? Look into Symphony. Canned solution for typical workflow real cheap? WordPress is the answer. Huge budget to share? Go Drupal.

If you're using Symfony anyway you might as well look into Drupal 8 if it's a content-heavy site. You get a lot of what you would otherwise build for free, and anything else you can do with Symfony.

Re: How to Survive Gentrification of the Drupal Community

#20

Post by snowwrestler »

daxfohl wrote: post #15
snowwrestler wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't moved on. You're not going to get an accurate picture of the CMS market here on HN. Most folks here are developers...PHP CMS's are not what they are interested in. The prevailing opinion on HN is something like "CMS's suck, you should build it yourself with node/React" or whatever. If you need to build a content website, and the information architecture is complex, Drupal is a very strong choice. I haven…

Very believable. I'd have probably responded with the "prevailing opinion" to myself if I hadn't been the one that asked the question. :)

Ha! :) IMO the true advantages of a popular, open-source CMS are not in the code, which I think most developers will agree tends to be idiosyncratic at best. The advantages tend to be business-type advantages, like:

- It's easy to find case studies to help explain and plan your project.

- It's easy to find vendors who can build or support the technology. That makes it easier to run competitive RFPs, and fire/replace vendors without having to rebuild from scratch.

- You benefit from a security program that has a lot of inputs--a lot of bad guys trying to get in, and a lot of good guys trying to keep them out. The code is battle-tested and frequently patched.

- You benefit from a community module system that has a lot of inputs. Chances are if you want to do something, there is a module to do it, or at least get close.

- You can more easily empower "tech savvy" employees to do pseudo-development tasks like build filtered lists and manage content workflows. It's easier and cheaper to scale tech-savvy employees than full developers.

- There are enterprise-savvy support options available.

- It's easy to find hosting.

Developers, particularly those who want to innovate and build new tools and products, tend not to value these sorts of things as much.

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