Hello,
Looks like starting with Drupal 7, the approach to judging whether the CMS is in production state stopped to work.
Drupal 7 is now 7.12, but it's still useless for production sites. The problem is in modules. Core functions might have be well tested and work as expected. But most popular modules are still not ready, now at 7.12 state.
Drupal 6 works extremely fine with me. I have collected all the required modules, and they are stable enough. Drupal 7 is a terrible mess, since most modules I need are either in alpha/dev (if you're lucky, in beta) or simply do not exist.
To name a few: Facebook interface modules; OG-related; eCommerce; ratings (namely, Fivestar) etc etc. With D6 I install the module and it works. With D7 I install module and study, cursing everything, numerous issues and blog posts to find magic means to harness the damned thing.
I suggest Drupal core developers, now that version 8 is approaching, to change the method of determining whether the CMS is ready. Making core installation fixed and polished isn't enough. Gather stats, look at what external modules are really ready for use and only then go drums and fanfares.
Currently, when I look for proper words to depict Drupal 7 state, I feel uncertain only with adjectives: whether to name it 'major fail' or 'epic fail'.
If Drupal 8 will be released in exactly the same manner as Drupal 7, then Drupal 6 is the last version I use. I can't afford wasting my time looking for endless bug fixes. And I can't fathom using just standard installation, without anything external. And I can't afford re-writing everything external from scratch, either.
I like Drupal. I liked it when it was in version 4. I still recommend it and use it for many purposes. But looks like it's time to get realistic and stop supporting the CMS which is only good in its bare bone state.
Thanks for Drupal 6 and below versions. They are fantastic. I hope Drupal 8 could get fantastic once again.
Update (2-nd of April, 2012): those believing that "hundreds of thousands Drupal 7 sites prove otherwise", please follow the next simple steps:
1. Open the usage stats page.
2. Look at the stats of modules mentioned and pay attention to their development status.
3. Now follow the issue pages of those modules and look at the situation.
4. Now stop mentioning "hundreds of thousands of production sites", since those hundreds either use pure core D7 and/or certain well-tested modules such as Views that do not bring any special functionality. I.e., simple blogs/news portals/whatever that do not try using something challenging.
If the above doesn't convince you, I suggest upgrading your Common Sense and Rational Logic modules. Thanks.
Update 2 (2-nd of April, 2012): the original title (Drupal 7: still not usable for production sites) has been changed to reflect my opinion more correctly.
Thanks to extremely friendly, constructive and relevant comments of people who were so kind to help me to express my thoughts more precisely.
Comments
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Sorry, but that's flat out not true. Besides the fact that there are a lots of d7 production sites, 'Facebook' doesn't even appear in the most installed list until #185 and og not until 114-- even fivestar doesn't show up until #60. Hardly the 'most popular' modules.
See http://webchick.net/node/103 for more info and actual facts.
Not true from your viewpoint,
Not true from your viewpoint, true from mine.
The mentioned modules are mature and well-tested in D6, but faulty/unfinished in D7. The mentioned 'module stabilization' list only illustrates my words: in November 2011 most of the popular modules are still not stable.
I don't care what modules are used in alpha/etc state on existing D7 production sites. I have real-world experience trying
- port my own D6 sites to D7 - failure, I had to stop using most of modules, and the rest were unstable
- create new sites on D7, involving heavy Facebook/other socials interaction, using ratings etc - Facebook modules do not work, polling is buggy etc etc etc
When the situation is like in D6, when most tasks can be solved by simply installing a module that works right now - then I shall consider your words true.
And several facts from
http://drupal.org/project/usage
#1 Drupal core - stable
#2 Views - stable
#3 Token - no 7.x stable versions, RC available
#4 Pathauto - stable
#5 Chaos tools - no 7.x stable versions, RC available
#6 CCK - most of it is in D7 core; no stable 7.x-2.x versions
#7 Administration menu - no 7.x stable versions, RC available
#8 IMCE - stable
#9 Google Analytics - stable
#10 Wysiwyg - stable
#11 Date - stable
#12 Webform - stable
#13 File field - no 7.x version (moved into core)
#14 Image API - no 7.x stable versions (dev only)
#15 Image field - no 7.x version (moved into core)
#16 Image cache - no 7.x version (moved into core)
#17 CAPTCHA - no 7.x stable versions (alpha/beta/dev only)
#18 Advanced Help - stable
#19 Backup and Migrate - stable
#20 Link - stable
and so on. If anyone tell s me that a production site uses Chaos tools, Entity API and other popular, but not yet stable modules - I only say those webmasters do not care about possible risk. Production sites, as I understand that word, use stable versions only.
and so on. If anyone tell s
I can't agree with this comment for two reasons:
1) 'stable' releases often turn out to have bugs in them
2) 'not yet stable' releases often turn out to work entirely fine
Module maintainers make their own decision as to how a module should be classified, therefore the decision is almost arbitrary. Everyone knows what the different tags mean, but each person evaluates their module as having filled those meanings in different ways. I know of one module maintainer who built a module, and wanted to release it to the community, but didn't have time to properly maintain it, so he released it as a beta version, even though he himself was using it on a production site. I've used the same module on a couple of production sites without any issues at all.
The best thing to do is test out each module and see if it works for your site or not.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
It might be a surprise, but I
It might be a surprise, but I *did* test every module myself, regardless its declared state.
I have had several unpleasant pieces of experience that gave me the impression I expressed in words in this post.
"I've used the same module on a couple of production sites without any issues at all."
Good for you. My overall impression of trying to use D7 for not-too-standard site type led me to a conclusion that D6 reached the stable state, talking of most popular modules, much quicker.
I will be surprised if D7 manages to get that good in 2-3 years.
It might be a surprise, but I
But you said this:
But if you were trying out unstable modules, it means you were considering using them - which means that by your own words you weren't caring about the risk.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
I agree
I agree, and it's very frustrating. Good open source projects seem to not care about breaking backward compatibility, so what good are they? I'm frustrated with the cognitive dissonance created by the trend-chasing wankers, legitimate progress, backward compatibility, and self-righteousness. It's like the pedantic nature of geeks is eating the OSS community alive because creating a subset of people who know what's going on is more important than letting a platform mature and everyone knows what's going on. I'm at a loss. I just tried to kick off a Drupal 7 project, but I need node relationships and nothing looks as good as what was available in Drupal 6. In 2010, everyone was soooooo sure Drupal 7 was going to be ready for prime-time on day one. That will NEVER be the case as long as you throw out backward compatibility, because some projects reached a state of maturity and were not maintained, so their maturity in Drupal 7 will never be on that level, unless lots of resources are thrown at them.
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If oss' focus on the future is so contrary to your preference, then you should just stay with commercial software where they have the capability to have a truckload salaried staff to handle backwards compatibility.
That's simply not true. The d7 modules are much more full featured and advanced-- entityreference, entityreference_prepopulate, references_dialog, & eva provide a far better user experience than anything that could be cobbled together in d6.
Unfortunately providing
Unfortunately providing backwards compatibility with D6 would not have been realistic. D7 is really a rebuilding of D6 as it ideally could have been. If backwards compatibility had been added it would have made for an extremely bloated backend, and D7 would be even slower than it already can be.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
_
Again, no, 'most popular' is not a 'viewpoint' it's a fact that is measurable. You didn't say 'the modules I need most' you said 'most' popular'. And the fact that there most certainly are tons of very professional d7 sites in existence also contradict your 'viewpoint'.
That's not to say the process couldn't use some improvement, and that there's a lot of variability in the contrib space, but hyperbolic and inaccurate posts in the forums from those that have not bothered to contribute anything back in almost six years aren't likely to bring about any valuable discussion or change.
Besides, if drupal doesn't meet your needs feel free to use whatever you think does-- in the end, it's all about using the right tool for the job.
"but hyperbolic and
"but hyperbolic and inaccurate posts in the forums from those that have not bothered to contribute anything back"
Pray tell me all you know about my contribution into promoting and assisting Drupal. Looks like you think you can judge whether I have any right to criticize it. I suppose you won't be insulted if I tell I don't care whether you think you can, or not.
My words are based upon my real-life experience trying to port existing sites from D6 to D7 and to create several not too standard sites running under D7.
In both cases D6 -based solutions is stabler and less bug-infested than D7 ones. Also, I try to keep informed about D7-related development. D5 and D6 were and are really good tools, suitable for the majority of sites. And I hope D7 could become too in foreseeable future.
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your tracker and attitude in this post speak for themselves.
And you can criticize whatever you like-- as you did. Your post was not deleted or edited away.
Just don't expect not to be taken to task when your entitled, false, and clearly undeserved attitude is called out-- particularly by those that do contribute.
Like it or, agree or not, open source is a meritocracy and your actions and words will be measured against your contributions.
More over I find it particularly ironic that, in light of your zero contributions and clear problem with drupal, you have no problem stepping up and claiming credit for the hard work of others: http://drupal.org/node/1510568#comment-5810404.
Hypocracy, to say the least, lol.
I suppose you understand you
I suppose you understand you speak for yourself only.
I suppose also you understand that the tracker at Drupal.org isn't the only indicator of whether I did anything significant for Drupal-related projects.
The assortment of words you are using to describe my attitude shows you take the criticism as kind of personal insult.
If the real meaning of my post evades your attention, I am not the person who will explain that to you twice. I usually do not pay attention at all to people making personal notices. Your response prove I should have folloed that rule.
Thanks for your comments and extremely understanding, well-explained viewpoint.
=-=
A correction to Konstantines list above. Ctools released a stable version March 28, 2012.
It's also worth noting that CCK isn't actually in core. The field API is in core which essentially deprecates CCK for Drupal 7.x. The 7.x version that Konstantine notes is for upgrading from D6 CCK to D7 Fields api. Other features from CCK in D6 like field permissions are in independent modules for D7. I wouldn't expect a D7 version of CCK marked stable at any point in time.
The Japanese have a saying
The Japanese have a saying "10 people, 10 colors". Each user of Drupal is different, and uses it a different way. I've started recently using Drupal 7 for my client (and self) projects, as for me it is ready. But I am a developer, coding a lot of my own functionality rather than relying on contributed modules, so this is a big difference. Even when I do need a module, if I find an error in it, I am able to fix that (generally).
That said, I am only one type of user. I think for people that rely mostly or entirely on modules, D7 will not be usable for some sites. It all depends on the site's needs.
I found the same thing happened when D6 came out as well to be honest. Initially, most modules were D5. But by the time D7 came out, most D6 modules were not only in full release, but were often on version 2+.
The point being, sometimes D6 will be a preferable option. Other times D7 will be. It cannot be said D7 is definitely not ready, because it most certainly is ready for some projects. And it cannot be definitely said that D6 is the better option, because sometimes the necessary D7 modules will already exist, and D7 will be a preferable choice.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
A Russian saying goes "There
A Russian saying goes "There are as many opinions, as many people". Something similar.
I express my own thoughts. I hope that's obvious. There are projects that can run perfectly on D7 - if external modules required (if any) are stable already. That's true.
But most daring, challenging type of D7-based sites require too much of hacking/manual intervention right now, to make the unstable modules work well together.
I switched to D6 a year after it has been released and there were no major problems switching, just few small glitches here and there, and as modules were being developed, glitches were gone.
D7 modules I need are still unreliable, despite all those famous pledges "My module will be D7 ready". And as I studied all the long-stable D6 modules I use in my sites, the absolute majority of their D7 versions are alpha/beta/dev, or simply absent.
So...you're claiming D7 is
So...you're claiming D7 is not "production ready" because your favourite contrib modules haven't quite caught up yet.
works at bekandloz | plays at technonaturalist
Read all the above comments
Read all the above comments by me, there's enough in there, including stats from projects usage.
I claim what is true and proved by projects usage stats - most popular modules aren't yet stable.
The lag in contrib is a big
The lag in contrib is a big problem, and could get worse for D8 :-(
For a certain type of user a more gradual upgrade model would be better. But then Drupal would be less good for big projects which are going to need a lot of custom work in any event. These projects probably make most of the revenue for the the most influential Drupal shops, who have most influence over direction. Drupal wants to do most things for most people, from SaaS, an alternative for WP for small sites, a solid CMS for medium sites (Drupal 6 does that well), a robust framework for big projects requiring cutting edge features (e.g. web services initiative). This wide appeal is Dries's aim, is admirable in theory, and is not going to change any time soon. I would not sell a client Drupal 6 unless asked for it because it will face an end of life problem too soon. There is no perfect CMS, you just have to weigh all the pros and cons and take your pick... Drupal 6 + contrib was a great option for a stable ready-made, fairly stable sophisticated CMS, but Wordpress is increasingly capable of filling that space.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
OK, I am working on a project
OK, I am working on a project that is planned to be really big. I chose D7 after discussing that with many a Drupal guru, since I was convinced the efforts are worth using new major version. And the time I would spend on the project would affect how the project owner view Drupal and its perspectives. This means it could also affect whether Drupal will have one more supporter, financial meaning included.
Well, it's a hell of work (talking of my using D7 for the project), most of which is inventing quick workarounds and applying patches instead of "install - configure - use" approach.
I think there should be kind of informational services, similar to /project/usage - that could reflect the actual state of modules and their real usability. That could show the real state and encourage module developers to make their new version's port better.
I spent much time promoting Drupal and encouraging people suing it for site creation purposes. Too much to just abandon it without trying to change the situation for better.
I think the bigger a project
I think the bigger a project gets, the less likely you're going to be able to simply "install - configure - use" it.
I'm doing most of the theming for a big project atm and being very glad I'm not doing any of the module development; there are a LOT of custom modules. We initially thought we'd be able to cobble something together from stuff like eCommerce or Drupal Commerce and erp (planned on working with the module devs to help upgrade to D7 if necessary). Big job turned out too big for nicely packaged solutions.
Concurrently I'm helping a friend out (nice simple job I have here, testing the sites in a bunch of browsers and making sure they validate as much as they're going to with vendor extensions and css3 stuff that hasn't made rc but is otherwise supported by normal browsers) and I have no idea how big in terms of users this project is, the actual project itself doesn't look terribly huge code-wise (although in fairness compared to the aforementioned behemoth not a lot will look big again :) but he still needed to write a custom module to fill in some key functionality that couldn't be provided by an available module or collection thereof.
My blog (tiny little affair, not much in the way of bells and whistles) works out of the box (if "works out of the box" means grabbing core and the contrib modules you want and cobbling together something that works), the only module I wrote was a date converter (from Gregorian to theAbysmal Calendar) because I couldn't find one that had already been done.
I'd love it if there was less of a lag between a major version release and contrib modules catching up, but the reality is it may not be a terribly high priority to the module devs for whatever reason. Perhaps a bit of assistance or financial incentive could motivate them to get upgrades done quicker.
works at bekandloz | plays at technonaturalist
Myself, I would be glad to
Myself, I would be glad to both personally donate to those 7.x modules that are getting stabler, and to attract someone else' attention.
Of course the complex projects are subject to many problems - modules incompatibilities, bugs not yet discovered, PHP versions incompatibility and so on. I have accustomed to 'point' intervention in case of Drupal 6.x sites, when most modules are stable enough to survive quite a number of them working together. I have also had a personal site that migrated from Drupal 4 to Drupal 5 and later to Drupal 6 - remaining quite stable, although migrations were quite a challenge.
Personally, I'd be glad to know of what incentives could work most efficiently (I suppose money isn't the only one) and encourage both users and developers to switch to a new major version ASAP.
Thanks.
I read the four comments that
I read the four comments that were here before I posted which is how I drew my conclusion (accurate or otherwise). It sounds to me like you're trying to apply a truth for you and anyone else in your situation to everyone. Most of my favourite contribs are stable (I am also using a few that are -beta or -rc from devs I know write good code or that I've tested a lot) therefore as far as I'm concerned it's well production ready. Different opinion.
A lot of the lag is probably due to the changes introduced between 6 and 7, and if the meta discussions I've read on just theming in D8 are anything to go by, I think John_B's prediction that the lag may get worse in D8 is a fair one.
works at bekandloz | plays at technonaturalist
If the lag grows bigger and
If the lag grows bigger and situation worse, it means things should be changed. At least people should be warned about the real-life usability of a new major version.
And I could be glad to be of service to be able to monitor such stats and make things to change for better. The power of Drupal is its contributed modules. Without hundreds of well-tested CMS is only good for really small number of use cases.
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Not when these are your starting paragraphs:
How do you think that makes Drupal look to someone who is newly considering Drupal and checking out the forum? If you want to state your opinion, that's fine, but you need to make it clear that it is just your opinion. The fact is that the number of Drupal 7 sites has surpassed the number of Drupal 6 sites by nearly 40 thousand sites. By writing up your opinion based on what works for you as if it were some sort of global fact, you are spreading FUD.
There has always been a contrib lag and will always be a contrib lag. That's just the nature of open source. You are never going to get the volunteer maintainers of 10 thousand modules to all have their modules upgraded and ready to go at the same time as core. There are, however, steps being taken to address the problem of having the most popular modules ready. Before proclaiming doom and gloom on Drupal 8, I suggest people keep current with what's going on in the whole framework vs product debate.
"The fact is that the number
"The fact is that the number of Drupal 7 sites has surpassed the number of Drupal 6 sites by nearly 40 thousand sites."
So what?
It's something like "two millions of users can't be wrong"?
If someone makes standard blogging/news portal/forum/whatever site with D7 and the site works fine, I am really glad to know that.
The problem arise when there's need in something slightly non-standard. Facebook/other socials integration (including seamless registration of new users), AJAX-style commenting, flexible poll fields for content types (per-node polls), setting up user groups with full access control on content type/actions etc. - solving every type of these task I find out that D7 is not even distantly ready to handle that, whereas D6 is much more suitable.
You won't prove anything with numbers. You can impress me if you show me really complex sites using D7, where something very non-standard is used and D7 with its contributed modules shows its real superiority and might.
Would you care to offer me some links of such D7-powered sites?
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If the fact that there are more sites on Drupal 7 than Drupal 6 does not convince you that Drupal 7 is usable for production sites, then there's really no point in me doing further research. Any site I come up with, I'm sure you can find an excuse to justify your opinion. Just a waste of both of our time and, well, I'd rather spend my time contributing to Drupal than trying to counter your FUD.
In the future, I would
In the future, I would suggest you to leave my privilege to make decision and reply intact. Do not try to 'predict' what I *would* response, OK?
I asked the plain question - please give me a sample of D7 production site using, for example, something I was trying to achieve with existing contributed modules - but failed to make them work.
"Any site I come up with, I'm sure you can find an excuse to justify your opinion"
I suggest you just talk to people, without assuming you know what they will actually say.
Thanks.
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In the future, I would suggest you not demand people spend their time researching something for you while not allowing them to consider the ROI on their own time. Given your attitude on this thread, I don't believe it's worth my time to do the research because I don't believe you would be convinced. If you are truly interested in the answer, you are free to do the research yourself.
lame answer
sorry Michelle but your answer is really lame. Quantity is not quality. I'm struggling to upgrade a complex site from D6 to D7 and Konstantin is right. And the point is that this "lag" was not so big in D6. In other words D7 was not out when I was able to have a perfect complex site functioning in D6. I'm afraid D8 will be out and I will not be able to migrate to D7. That's the point Konstantin is trying to make. Thousands of blogs and simple CMS sites are just a triumphalist statistic. Real life world is much more troublesome. And nobody wants to denigrate Drupal. But I'm afraid that resistance to constructive criticism is the safe path to getting lost.
One of the major, very
One of the major, very justified complaints about D6 was that there was only one entity type - the node. If you wanted to use comments or taxonomies, you had to repurpose nodes to be something they weren't meant to be. A node is essentially a type of article, with a title, an author, and a body. I had to repurpose a node to represent a mail account one time, with the smtp server and authentication details, and other data. This really is a different type of entity, but I didn't have the framework to deal with other types of entities.
Drupal 7 improved on the failings of the D6 system by introducing entities, and turning comments and taxonomies into their own entity type that can be attached to any other entity type. With the D7 system, I could have created my mail account as an entity, rather than forcing a node to be something it wasn't. The D7 system is much more powerful and scalable as a result. But with that scalability comes complexity, and with complexity it becomes more difficult for the average coder to code.
This is where I believe the lag with D7 has come from. And it's only to be expected - with a more complex system, it takes more time to adapt. Expecting people to be able to understand D7 as fast as D6 is unrealistic.
The biggest problem I see with D7 isn't the system itself - the system is built extremely versatile. The problem is that there are few examples and only sparse documentation. Most things I figure out on my own, because there just isn't documentation to show how the things are done. There are a few examples, but not enough, and not dynamic enough. And on the API site, much of the documentation is slacking.
Personally, I think that after D7 was finished, the team would have been better off spending six months to a year writing documentation and examples before starting development on D8. this would have given developers something to work with, so that they develop for D7 more quickly and effectively. The lack of documentation and examples has led to this situation where many modules have not been updated properly, and many users are unhappy, such as the one who started this thread.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
Thanks, Virgil. Of course the
Thanks, Virgil. Of course the initial post of mine is rather emotional. If I would write "some of production sites still can't use...", I would receive response like "well, use something else instead".
If there are complex sites, tightly interfaced with social networks/other services, if there are sites having implemented such long-awaited entities as advanced (and working) poll field types etc etc etc - I would like to know, both to learn how and to support those modules' developers.
I do not want to leave Drupal. I spent much time encouraging many people to use it, assisting in setting up/creating custom Drupal-based solutions and I think Drupal is still the best universal CMS and framework in PHP world.
But something should be definitely changed, otherwise 7.x will reach the overall modules' maturity level only when 8.x is released.
And I am ready to assist in that.
Then start submitting
Then start submitting patches. That's the fastest way to get things done.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
_
Again, no-- this is NOT constructive criticism which is almost always welcomed. This was yet another whining entitled post full of fallacies by someone who clearly takes far more than they give. It gets really old after a while.
so.. what if I consider it was constructive criticism?
so.. what if I consider it was constructive criticism? Are you going to play both referee and party in this?
I can tell you for certainty that what you do is another whining developer post who considers that because he contributes as a developer, he is entitled to disqualify somebody else critical approach just because is... critical. And that's purely lame. And using that old adagio "someone who clearly takes far more than they give" (without basically knowing if that's true or not) is just another proof that you have no other argument but just sententiously expressing a quasi-moral judgement about me. Pathetic... and disappointing. That's all I can say.
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I didn't say anything about quality. This thread claims that Drupal 7 is unusable in production. Of those 350K sites, I daresay a fair number of them are production sites. Therefore this thread is spreading FUD. If this thread was saying it can be hard to use Drupal 7 if you have a site that needs a lot of complex contributed modules that have not yet been upgraded to Drupal 7, I would have no argument with it.
Spreading FUD is not constructive criticism.
But the devil is in the details.
Yes, that's true. You were talking only about quantity. Numbers. 350k. ... etc. But the devil is in the details. (as the old saying). Maybe there are thousands that are working perfectly... using only the core. And nobody argues against that. The point was that when you want more complexity (a.k.a. quality) you hit a lot of snags in 7. And, BTW, Konstantin asked you politely to give some examples of complex sites using D7 and you still haven't produced any. You only gave statistics and assumptions (like "Of those 350K sites, I daresay a fair number of them are production sites.") I guess you realize that this is what most politicians do when they don't want to give a straight answer.
And when you quote the initial statement ("This thread claims that Drupal 7 is unusable in production"), you are deliberately cutting out the rest of the context. The whole statement was this:
"Drupal 7 is now 7.12, but it's still useless for production sites. The problem is in modules. Core functions might have be well tested and work as expected. But most popular modules are still not ready, now at 7.12 state."
As you can probably see, the second part was a pretty decent explanation(clarification) of the initial (harsh I may admit) statement. You may not like it. You may want to say "If you don't contribute you are not allowed to have opinions", blah, blah, blah, but be aware that there are people out there who may just want to use Drupal 7 and even invest in it, but when they see that this module doesn't work or maybe this functionality is not possible, they may lose interest. Of course Open source doesn't mean you are entitled to any support, or anything like this. Nobody is asking for this. But, I guess, you can express your concerns and critique. Or maybe not...
"If you don't contribute you
And for those people, there is Drupal 6. Problem solved.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
thank you!!!
Thank you!!!
This was the point the original post was trying to make! But it seems some people just don't want to admit that. For obvious reasons.
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I can guarantee you that there are not 350K Drupal 7 sites that are using only core. Therefore, not only is Drupal 7 usable but contrib is usable enough that sites are being built with it. Maybe not all sites; I won't argue that there are some sites that require functionality that is hard to come by in D7. But, overall, production sites are being created on Drupal 7 and therefore the premise of this thread is incorrect.
Why should I spend my time digging through the case studies to come up with sites to present to him to see if they will meet his qualifications for a sufficiently complex site? Seriously, do you think I have nothing better to do with my time? It's bad enough I'm wasting time replying here. Going off and researching is a bit much.
You're really reaching here. I'm not evading the question. I'm saying it's not worth my time to spend hours researching sites to counter his FUD, especially when the statistics alone already counter the premise in the title. If he didn't want to say that Drupal 7 was unusable, then he should have chosen a better title.
Uh, no, I was pretty clearly not saying that.
title!!!
so now your only problem is the... title????????
That's really ridiculous. So we both actually agree that there is kinda difficult to find complex production sites using D7 but we should not quite... say that. Or use a title that is actually sententiously saying that... Ummm! Interesting. This sounds to me more of a propaganda war than an interest in reality. But hey, I give up. If soft skin is more important than reality then there is no need to argue. I'm always in favor of people not being hurt. Even in their "amour-propre".
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The title is setting the premise which is then repeated in the post. He goes on to clarify that what he really means is that it's useless because of the contrib modules but that's still FUD. It may be useless to him because the particular modules he is using aren't ready and he isn't willing or able to make them so but that still does not make the software useless to the community in general.
It's not that it's difficult to find complex production sites using D7; it's just tedious and not something I'm interested in doing. I'm sure they're out there but I don't want to have to go dig them out. I did put the call out on Twitter, however, so folks that would like to give a shoutout to their success at using D7 can chime in. If anyone happens to be reading what I write on a Sunday night, anyway. LOL!
Don't take this the wrong
Don't take this the wrong way, but I see that you aren't a contributor. Not a single commit.
That means that when you come across a bug, instead of fixing it and moving on, you spent 5 times more time attempting to apply patches you don't understand, then spend an afternoon in the forums complaining about it. Since you don't feel in control, you spend too much time and money, and naturally get frustrated.
The rough truth is: contrib owes you nothing. And there will always be a module (or two, or six) in a hundred that will not be ready enough to solve your problems without extra work, no matter how long you wait to declare a new core version stable.
Especially compared to D6, which has been stable for so many years (because of the slow D7 release cycle). There are exceptions to this. For example, the D7 version of Views Bulk Operations is more stable and performant than the D6 version ever was and will be. But that has more to do with the fact that the new branch addresses the previous architectural shortcomings, than with Drupal core itself.
Your view of Drupal 7 is subjective, as mine is, so I won't address it. Just tried to get to the crux of why people stumble. Comes down to a set of expectations. Maybe it's a result of overly-enthusiastic developers promising the world (without coding) to non-developers.
I wonder, if I contribute
I wonder, if I contribute anything, will I become magically entitled to criticize Drupal without any harsh response in return?
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I see that you aren't a contributor. Not a single commit."
That doesn't mean I do nothing to promote Drupal. I suppose you understand that.
That doesn't also mean I have no impression of what is a development for a large project. It doesn't also mean I did not got involved in team development, either.
Looks like that "you committed nothing! we don't owe you anything!" is kind of reflex when certain open-source developers are criticized.
In my opinion, when you offer your work to the open-source community, there's responsibility and understanding from both sides.
Users are expected to express gratitude and understanding to the developers. Developers are people using, in most cases, their spare time for projects that rarely give them too much positive feedback.
However, developers are also expected to understand that no one would feel positive if they provide faulty code, if they do not meet dead-ends, do not keep with promises.
f you are interested what I am telling to people now about Drupal, here is my complete viewpoint. I suggest reading it at least twice instead of commenting reflectively (nothing personal).
Drupal is a great CMS and framework, well-tested, well-documented and suitable for almost any type of site. There are hundreds of contributed modules written to address most popular tasks.
However, if you are really expecting to build stable and easy to maintain site, I suggest using Drupal major version one digit below the latest available until the latest one exists for at least 3 years. Otherwise, you can find that modules that were well-tested and of production quality in the previous version, are either missing or not yet achieved appropriate quality.
Unless you only plan to use core, most tested Drupal 7 functionality, I suggest you use Drupal 6 until it's not declared unsupported.
I hope I made myself extremely clear.
My reply was about being
My reply was about being self-sufficient, scratching your own itch, and managing expectations.
Seems that the message didn't get across. Nevermind.
Sorry friend, but
350,000 using D7 in production clearly disagree.
I suggest reading the
I suggest reading the discussion above before trying to mesmerise me with numbers.
question
so, should we understand that if somebody is not a developer (but only a builder - to use Johan Falk lingo -), that person is not allowed to express concern or constructive criticism?
Just let us know it's all about a certain "second class citizen" approach and we will get it.
I'm just asking..
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nope-- that's just a straw man typically floated by those that don't contribute.
There are quite literally TONS of ways to contribute back that involve ZERO code. New users typically complain most about documentation. Every single user on drupal.org is able to edit the docs. And I'm sure there's not a module maintainer in existence that would turn down a patch for documentation for their module. Not to mention screencasts. Or replies in the forums.
The op has 4 pages of trackers posts in almost 5 years-- only small fraction of them were created by someone else.
What makes people think it's ok to take take take, and whine about something not being to their liking when they don't contribute back? Where else would that be acceptable behavior?
Second class citizens are those that don't contribute, not those that are not developers. And that's a choice every user makes. No one is forcing them to be 'second class citizens'.
I wonder, do you notice you
I wonder, do you notice you are easy to call people names when they do not are not the Great Open Source Contributors?
It's amusing to count adjectives you are trying to assign to me.
Once again, in case you didn't notice. I don't really think you care about anyone opinion but yours, but wonders do happen, don't they?
1. My not contributing to Drupal at Drupal.org doesn't mean I do nothing for Drupal promotion.
2. I have explicitly stated what is it I don't like. I suggest you stop assigning your fantasies as my thoughts or reasons. If you need to know my thought or reasons for whatever statement, just ask me.
3. If I really didn't care about Drupal development, I would abandon any disputes long ago.
And please do me a favor if you don't agree that D7 development in part of contributed modules requires improvement, or you just don't care about it - please continue fantasying about my motives etc. somewhere else. Not in this thread.
Thanks in advance.
that's the point
You see, that's the point. I think Konstantin contributed enormously opening this discussion. But, obviously, for you "contributions" are only a certain kind of contributions.
There is a safe way to get lost: surrounding yourself only with people who praise you.
There is a safe way for success: making sure you don't dismiss people who are telling you the truth even if you don't like it.
The rest is just kids arguing "I'm right, you're wrong".
Could someone define "contribute"?
@ Second class citizens are those that don't contribute, not those that are not developers. And that's a choice every user makes. No one is forcing them to be 'second class citizens'."
I resent being called a second class citizen because of not being a developer nor not being able to contribute. I am still in the learning curve of setting up a first Drupal website. If I "could" contribute I would. In other words, all of the above comments are from people that can contribute as they are very familiar with the topics they expound on -- when all my ears hear is a foreign encrypted language. I feel as if everyone around me got the keys to the Drupal club but me.
But I want in. I am now seeing that unless I step up to the plate and learn and be part of this thing the only alternative is to quietly back step and just resign to being a WordPress guy. So where does a new person even start? How long does it take to know enough to be useful around here? T.
This pretty much sums it it
This pretty much sums it it http://drupal.org/contribute except that it leaves out training. A lot of blog posts count as training, and I think that even writing as posts or putting on youtube up some of those very basic things to help beginners, things which might be obvious to people who are experienced with Drupal, can be just as useful as the more advanced blog posts. Non-developers are somehow in the minority in the Drupal world, so can feel like outsiders, but it is well understood by everyone, not least by the star developers, that their different kinds of contributions are urgently needed.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
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Constructive criticism is fine but there are more issues with this thread than the (assumed) lack of contributions of the poster.
That said, I will say one thing in the poster's defense. We need to be careful using the tracker to judge peoples' contributions. And I say "we" deliberately because I have been guilty of it as well. As Drupal matures, there are more and more ways to contribute that do not involve the tracker and we need to be mindful of that.
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excellent point. And while the tracker is not the end all and be all of drupal contributions, I find that zero evidence in the tracker is quite predictive of non-contributors. Almost every one that contributes in some way will leave at least some type of evidence in the tracker (even if it's not indictive of the amount or quality of contributions). Also, attitude evidenced by posts in the tracker are another indicator -- demanding, rude, or entitled posts are never the hallmark of a good community citizen.
So while yes, i agree with your point-- people should realize that their tracker will be an indicator of their participation.
Besides, the fallacious and incendiary title of the op, speaks for itself, lol.
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I agree that the tracker can be a valuable indicator. I just don't want it to be the only indicator. There are some people that organize camps or do support on IRC or contribute financially to modules and other things that don't require active d.o posting but are still valuable contributions.
Whether the OP has done any of these things I don't know. I just would prefer that arguments against this thread be made without resorting to the "you have nothing in your tracker so put up or shut up" response that many of us (yes, including me) are often guilty of.
I've never actually looked at
I've never actually looked at anyone's tracker before, but after reading some of the comments on this thread, I went through the OP's tracker a little. I can see why he is frustrated to some degree - he's not having luck with Drupal 7 modules.
For his type of user (a module user, rather than a developer), I can see how using Drupal 7 would be a game stopper, just by going through his tracker and seeing the issues he's run into. Drupal 6 is very likely the better option for him for the type of sites he is developing.
But, as I said earlier, there is more than one type of user. The thread title is most definitely incorrect in that production sites can be built on D7, but I can see how he wouldn't think so.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
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I don't disagree with your assessment. However, what's a user going to do when Drupal8 is released and they are still using Drupal 6.x and it's no longer supported? They jump to Drupal 7 expecting a flawless upgrade including all those contribs they became reliant on. When that upgrade isn't flawless, what kind of "constructive criticism" gets posted then?
The fact is that some modules don't get ported to the next version of Drupal. Some modules get entirely replaced. That's open source in general. It's the risk that is taken as a site builder with no dev skillset to aid in porting modules or fixing bugs.
Drupal is production ready. Some contribs are not. I'm sure I could walk through contrib and find D6 modules that aren't ready for production and find some from D5 that never made it to D6 for one reason or another.
If someone is 100% reliant on contribs and has no coding skillset, they are always better off a version behind the razors edge. In my mind, that's not a reflection on drupal core or developers in general.
"Whether the OP has done any
"Whether the OP has done any of these things I don't know."
Exactly. You (not only you, Michelle) don't know. All you needed t know that was to ask me, correct?
"I just would prefer that arguments against this thread be made without resorting to the "you have nothing in your tracker so put up or shut up" response that many of us (yes, including me) are often guilty of."
Again, I agree. The thread is a good indicator of how certain persons do react when the great Drupal's glory gets dimmed inappropriately (as they see that).
To those interesting: I am Drupal promoter, I am a developer for Drupal-based sites. I develop Drupal modules and themes, but they are not in open source.
I haven't contributed anything to Drupal.org but translations, that's true. I haven't known it's a mortal sin, but I still can change my erroneous ways, I promise.
OK, to sum up. What I would suggest is tracking in some way the actual state of modules readiness for major Drupal versions. That could allow to draw additional attention to projects requiring assistance, at least. As a result, people won't have to wait for years until the majority of modules gets ported and reaches stable state.
Thanks, folks, I quit this thread, since I have already a picture of situation.
Feel free to go on fantasizing about my capabilities, contribution to Drupal cause and all the rest.
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The problem with your approach is that you are misunderstanding the issue. The fact that Drupal contrib lags behind Drupal core isn't some secret that needs to be brought into the light so it can be fixed. The problem is lack of resources to fix it. If the maintainers don't already have some incentive to get their modules ready for Drupal N+1 then the only solution to that problem is to give them incentive or to do it for them. No amount of complaining will change anything because it doesn't add any resources. If anything, it removes resources because people in general find it easier to talk than to do. :)
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Agreed. Though I'd highly doubt those who contribute in those ways or most any other (if not every other way) would post this type of thread, let alone expect that only their side of the discussion warrants listening to. They understand the ups and downs of open source projects and the causes of lag in some areas and aid in making those areas less "laggy".
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No, not likely, but I'm trying to get out of my own mindset of what constitutes contribution and be more open to looking beyond the tracker so felt the need to speak up and point out that we can't assume he hasn't contributed. :)
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I hear ya. I'd speak more on it but I just found a module for D4.5.x that wasn't ported to D5 and is totally necessary for my complex site. :sarcasm: I can't believe Drupal 5 was never ready for production :/sarcasm: :)
Animal Farm
"Constructive criticism is fine but there are more issues with this thread than the (assumed) lack of contributions of the poster."
This reminds me of an "Animal Farm" propaganda slogan: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others".
Huh?
How on Earth could you possibly go from me saying that there are issues on this thread that have nothing to do with his contributions to Animal Farm? That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
The fact it doesn't make
The fact it doesn't make sense for you is just a consequence of your inability to understand the point. And that's indeed regrettable.
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What point? That putting aside the question of a person's contributions and focusing on the actual thread itself makes some people more equal than others? Sorry to tell you this, but I think you may be the only person for which that makes sense.
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I can assure you I can show you that all your 4 points are not valid but I don't think I have any interest in continuing this dialogue of the deaf. You want to be right. I give you that. Just ignore my opinion.
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I'll make it easy for you. Just show me how #1 is invalid. Prove to me that there are no sites out there using Drupal 7 in production. If you can do that, I'll retract all my posts.
I already said something
I already said something about that. The title is not untrue. And all I think goes down to the half-empty/half-full perspectives.
The title says "Drupal 7: still not usable for production sites." Of course we can jump in a lot of hermeneutics in trying to debate every detail of the phrase. Like "What means Drupal 7?" Or "What means "usable"?" Or, "What means "production sites"?" And all this brouhaha can become a whole philosophy in itself. Especially because we clearly do not agree on the answers. And we can avoid agreeing with the other just using (or abusing) a certain interpretation of a particular term. But, as far as I know "people talk to make themselves clearer". Not to bring more confusion. As a result definitions need to be given and used in good faith in order to obtain a minimal understanding.
So, the title may sound harsh (for some people) and probably more of an "half-empty" perspective but there are at least two points in its favor:
1. - Even if there may very well be several production sites working flawlessly with complex configurations of D7, there are obvious signs that there are many who are struggling to migrate complex production sites to D7 while D8 is on the horizon.
2. The content of the post gives a pretty decent explanation of what the title wanted to say. So, unless your approach wants to be only emotional, there is enough explanation there about what the poster actually intended to say. And if anybody wants to be intellectually honest then he/or she needs to read the title in the context of the entire post. I must add something: I totally agree you should not curse in a title or use a dash or a point for a title (rendering it both un-indexable and useless) but being extremely strict with how a title should look like may give some people one more reason not to post anything. So, let's be reasonable.
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No one is arguing that there isn't a contrib lag. What we are arguing against is the OP saying Drupal 7 is unusable because not all of contrib is ported yet. Writing that in a forum post is needlessly scaring new folks and therefore I took the time to counter it. From there, it just got silly and I'm only replying because it's late Sunday night and I'm too tired to be productive so I'm indulging myself.
I really don't know what you're going on about in many of your posts, especially the Animal Farm comment completely out of left field. I think maybe you just need to take a deep breath and learn to deal with the fact that there are sites out there using Drupal 7 (and contrib) in production no matter how much you might want to think otherwise.
Thank you, but again I only
Thank you, but again I only can regret the fact you do not understand the parallel I made with that Orwellian phrase.
Regarding your statement "I think maybe you just need to take a deep breath and learn to deal with the fact that there are sites out there using Drupal 7 (and contrib) in production no matter how much you might want to think otherwise." I think the opposite is also valid and you also may need to take a deep breath and accept that you may not be entirely right and there are people who genuinely promote Drupal quite often and still are struggling to use D7 (and contrib) in production sites "no matter how much you might want to think otherwise."
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What parallel? I said we should argue this based on the contents of the thread and not on the contributions (or lack thereof) of the original poster. Your response is that my coment is somehow related to a story where some animals are more equal than others. Those two have nothing to do with each other other than being complete opposites and you refuse to explain what you think the relevance is.
If I were saying that no one out there is struggling to use D7 then, yes, I would be wrong. But that's not what I am saying. I am countering the premise that Drupal 7 is unusable in production by saying there are people using it in production. Saying I am wrong is saying that there is no one using Drupal 7 in production which is clearly untrue.
At this point, I can only conclude that you have not actually read any of my posts and are just throwing arguments out there based on what you imagine I am saying.
Michelle, you misquoted me.
Michelle, you misquoted me. It is you who are saying that I presumably said they are related. I never said that. Clear example of your manipulation of my words. What I said (and I quote myself now, although is not very elegant) is "This reminds me of an "Animal Farm" propaganda slogan: "All animals are equal but....". And I stand by it. Because it is almost the same idea. Apparently you didn't get George Orwell's point. Or maybe never even read the book. Maybe you only watched the American cartoon. Maybe would be more genuine to say that. The point was (in his allegory) that in that "society" initially all "comrades" (animals) were considered equal (something like in the early bolshevik society or in the utopian world after the French Revolution (if you know anything about those). Anyway, after a while, the generous slogan of "All animals are equal" mysteriously "evolved" into "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others". The irony is fantastic. Especially for those of us who lived under such political regimes and understand the "jargon". The point was that in a "democracy" like that everybody is considered equal until little by little, for reasons that belong obviously to the "comrade leaders", some people begin to be more equal (sic!) that the others. That is "the party" and "the masses". Or, in other words, you are free to speak... as long as you are singing music in the ears of the "comrade leader". So, anyway, that's the point and is a suave irony. I'm sorry you didn't get it. Explaining it kills all its beauty.
Regarding your second point, you are doing exactly what I told you are going to do. You are saying that because the glass is half full then we should consider it full. And I agree that for those who are successful it may look like that. But Konstantin's perspective was that because the glass is half empty then it should not be considered full. And he used some harsh incendiary words with which I do not agree. If for nothing else just because I like and I love Drupal.
But the point is that whether words may be offensive or submissive, you may like or dislike them, that is almost irrelevant. The relevant thing are the facts behind the words. It is obvious for me that both you(and others) on one hand, and Konstantin(on the other hand) reacted emotionally charged most of the time. And emotions are good and interesting but they carry little value when we try to understand the facts. And the fact is (regardless if Konstantin contributes or not, and if he (in some people's eyes) have any right to say anything - positive or negative - ), the fact is he apparently has had some bad experiences with D7 in production complex sites. Not just to be the devil's advocate, but I tend to agree with him in some regards. Now, there are many possibilities. Either he is stupid and doesn't know how to install and work with Drupal 7 so he can fully benefit from it. Or maybe he is evil intended and just want to gratuitously denigrate Drupal. Or maybe he is overwhelmed and confused. Or maybe he is right. At least partially. I don't think I saw anybody trying to understand why is he saying what is he saying.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if people are going to answer with emotions to emotions the result will be what we've seen here. And that's both sad and useless.
I didn't get what you were
I didn't get what you were alluding to with Animal Farm either - and yes, I've read the book. But I don't see how your comparison fits - Konstantin's posts are all still here for everyone to see, along with all replies.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
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I understand the meaning behind "Animal Farm" just fine and have no need of your condescension. What I didn't, and still don't, understand is what relevance it has to my posts. I am the one that was saying we should respond to the thread on its own merits regardless of the contributions of the poster. The only connection I can see between the story and my posts is with the initial idea that all animals are equal which I would think is a good thing and not one that would need any sort of Orwellian reference.
That is completely incorrect. He is saying all glasses are empty because his is empty. I am saying some glasses are at least partially full therefore not all glasses are empty. Simple logic. You continue to argue against me based on your imagined version of my posts saying all glasses are full. I continue explaining that you are arguing against something I'm not even saying.
What emotions? Other than annoyance at repeatedly being told I am saying something I am not, this has nothing to do with emotions. I haven't gotten heated. I haven't attacked the OP. I started out countering the assertion that Drupal 7 is useless in production which I feel is a harmful premise that needs countering but mostly my posts in this thread has been a futile attempt to get you two to actually read the posts rather than arguing against what you imagine people are saying. I guess another emotion is coming into play now: boredom. Clearly you would rather make up opponents to argue with than acknowledge we are saying the same thing and I've really tired of the whole thing.
I got tired long ago. I even
I got tired long ago. I even offered to give you satisfaction and encouraged you to think you are right. You were the one continuing to provoke and accuse. And if you ask me what accusation the answer is that I do not read what you posted. Well, that's blatantly not true. What makes me think you either do not read what I post or you just throw accusations for the fun of it. As I said, feel free to consider you are right and feel free to have fun. I'm not going to stop you.
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emotion begets emotion, similar to the way violence begets violence. You can't smack the hands of one while overlooking the others who do similar. Else that's just bias. This thread wasn't started in a way that called for an engagement in any meaningful discussion. Rather, it's more of a rant. Thus, the thread was started with emotion. ( i understand you realize that based on your comment quoted )
You can put forth that those who are on the opposite side of Konstantine's debate/argument should be able to approach this kind of thread without emotion. Though, I'd put forth the idea that THAT would also be giving credence to the Orwellian philosophy you're trying to weave in to the fabric of others. One can either apply the philosophy to all, else don't apply it at all.
Hammurabi++
I'm not trying to "weave"
I'm not trying to "weave" anything. It was just a funny thing (particularly in that person's discourse) that reminded me of Orwell's slogan. But, of course, you are entitled to believe what you want. Any conspiratorial theory you prefer. Unfortunately you just want to remain stuck in one inflexible position and applaud it as reasonable. Good luck with that. The world is full of righteous people. And don't take me wrong. I admire you. I just cannot be like that. I choose to think even if the other party choose only to act or react emotionally. And I guess this can give you peace of mind and bring this regrettable kafkian dialogue to an end.
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;) Thanks. That clarifies (at least for me) that your perspective does not allow for middle ground. Only one side or the other.
I don't see how my attitude toward any of this is any kind of attempt at being righteous. Far as I can tell, you too have put quite a bit of emotion into this lengthy 2 day thread. Else, there'd have been no need for finger pointing, name calling, or judgements to have been passed on the characters of fellow human beings merely because they chose to refute some of what they viewed as incorrect statements to the project as a whole (prior to the thread's name calling, judgement casting, finger pointing spiral).
:awaits the trend of accusation to fall on me that dictates putting words into someone's fingers/mouth now:
I'm flexible. I even tried to
I'm flexible. I even tried to bring the thread somewhere positive by asking what Konstantin was trying to accomplish with this thread, so that we could maybe make something of it, but he ignored that post.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
I was trying to just watch,
I was trying to just watch, but when a person tries to convince others I am speaking things I didn't speak, I have to intervene.
"What we are arguing against is the OP saying Drupal 7 is unusable because not all of contrib is ported yet."
OP is saying exactly what he says. Namely, he says there are modules out there, required for feature expected from production sites that are not just yet another personal blog/whatever - modules that are either unstable yet, or simply absent.
"Writing that in a forum post is needlessly scaring new folks."
Yes, let's pretend D7 is useful for everything D6 is actually used for at the moment. Just get ready to explain to those angry new folks that they just have to wait several years more, or choose another CMS, or assist in patching/fixing faulty modules etc etc.
What I am talking about are stats. Statistics shows that the lag of modules actually being ready is not in favor of D7. D6 was more or less ready for challenges less than a year after its release. If the trend persists, then when D9 is out there, D8 is still not actually usable for complex sites.
And something must be done with the trend - do you agree?
Cite me, that's fine. But don't tell others that I say what is actually your interpretation of my words.
Thanks.
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No one is pretending anything. Drupal 7 lacks some contrib functionality that Drupal 6 has. And Drupal 6 for a very long time lacked functionality that Drupal 5 had. And Drupal 5 lacked functionality that Drupal 4.7 had. And so on. This isn't news. I haven't yet seen anyone here argue that Drupal 7 is perfect and will suit everyone's needs.
You and Virgil seem to have made up something to argue against here since you can't refute what we are actually saying. Instead, you keep putting words in our mouths to make your arguments against all the while changing yours with "well, what I really meant was". We've gone from just plain "unusable" to "unusable if you need modules that connect to 3rd party sites".
Changing your argument because you can't defend it and changing the other side's position into something else that you can argue against makes for an impossible discussion. I'm pretty much done here unless something comes up that I feel I must respond to. You go on arguing with your phantoms.
"You go on arguing with your
"You go on arguing with your phantoms." - you're still see only things you wish to see?
Everything I wished to express I had already.
Everything else is but your imagination. I have nothing to "defend" - there are modules that refused to work as expected, and those have been (partially) listed.
If there is/are a production level site using those and other problematic modules, I would be quite glad to know how are they harnessed and what are the settings used.
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Proof that when the bears are fed by humans, the bears always return to have humans feed them. ;)
Language
Both sides agree that Drupal 7 is currently not the right choice for people who want to push the limits of what Drupal can do in certain directions in a large production site without the developer experience to fix bugs on their own. No need to debate that further.
What I do want to point out here, though, is that the reason this thread has gotten heated is that Konstantin's initial post used aggressive language. I'm going to break it down in the hope that Konstantin can see why people were offended and hopefully shape his language to more carefully shape his point in the future.
Here are some quotes from the OP:
In all of these cases, Konstantin is saying "Drupal 7 sucks for everyone." Each of these statements is very derogatory, and each of these statements assumes that everyone will have the same experience with Drupal 7. It is clearly not the case that everyone has the same experience with Drupal 7 (I believe we've already agreed on that). So, Konstantin, in the future please be more careful to make it clear that your opinions are your own, and try not to generalize them to everyone, especially when you are directly insulting people's work.
As the kicker, the OP follows up with this:
While clearly opinion, this statement is obviously disparaging. And even though it's also opinion, the problem, again, is that this statement is generalizing. Konstantin didn't say that "it's an epic fail for me." He said it's an epic fail in general. Millions of people feel otherwise. While it may be the case that people with more specialized needs than those millions of people do struggle with Drupal 7, it is hardly fair to suggest that everyone will have the same negative experiences with Drupal 7 as Konstantin has had.
So please, we agree on some of the basic points being made here, but let's put this issue to rest because this discussion is really about aggressive language and that's never a good thing.
I should also note that others on both sides have made aggressive remarks as well, not just Konstantin.
I started to write something
I started to write something along the same lines yesterday, but was not able to word it as well and erased it. Nice job.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
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yes-- excellent job! And thanks for taking the time to formulate it and post it.
And for the record, I apologize for my part in heating up the discussion-- FUD and entitlement are definitely buttons I need to make a more effort to avoid in the future.
besides, threads that start out like this almost never end up productive in any way whatsoever.
it's definitely time to let this particular dog lie...
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yes-- excellent job! And thanks for taking the time to formulate it and post it.
And for the record, I apologize for my part in heating up the discussion-- FUD and entitlement are definitely buttons I need to make a more effort to avoid in the future.
besides, threads that start out like this almost never end up productive in any way whatsoever.
it's definitely time to let this particular dog lie...
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Very well said. You have summed up my frustration perfectly. As someone who has struggled with Drupal 7, I would never argue that it and its contrib are all ponies and unicorns. But taking the stance that it is unusable in production along with all the other derogatory remarks and putting that in a public forum visible to people who are contemplating using Drupal is something I needed to counter with some reality.
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Yep. Those types of inflammatory remarks bode well. It's also interesting that you single out the views module and state that it brings no special functionality.
Views is 'inner' module, so
Views is 'inner' module, so to speak. It doesn't involve interacting with any other service/entity outside Drupal-powered site by itself. It's all about the way data are selected and displayed. It brings nothing special that couldn't be already implemented by other Drupal features, but Views is convenient.
Note that most useful 'inner' modules are already ported and reached stable state (at least RC).
As for 'inflammatory remarks', you are entitled to whatever interpretation you desire, that's obvious.
The problem I have with this
The problem I have with this comment is that you are painting your own requirements on other users. I have never used any of the Facebook modules on any site even in D6 - nor do I generally use the external API modules. The type of client I generally work for/with is not interested in any large scale integration with social networking sites, and for the small things that they sometimes do want done, I usually build it myself as its much more lightweight than the modules out there.
So while I do understand your frustration in not being able to use the modules you want/need, their unusability doesn't equate to D7 being unusable, it just means that those modules are unusable. Other types of users are using D7 just fine.
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=-=
views = Stable release
token = RC1
pathauto = Stable release
Chaos tools = Stable release
Content Construction Kit (CCK) = Deprecated
Admin Menu = RC1
IMCE = Stable release
WYSIWYG = Stable release
Date = Stable release
Google Analytics = Stable release
Webform = Stable release
Filefield = Deprecated
ImageAPI = Deprecated
Imagefield = Deprecated
Imagecache = Deprecated
Captcha = Beta2
Backup and Migrate = Stable release
Link = Stable release
Advanced Help = Stable release
Libraries API = Stable release
CKEditor = Stable Release
XML sitemap = RC1
Jquery Ui = Deprecated
Jquery Update = Deprecated
Lightbox2 = Beta1
Panels = Stable release
Poormans Cron = Deprecated
IMCE WYSIWYG Bridge = Stable release
Devel = Stable release
Global Redirect = Stable release
Views Slideshow = Stable release
Page Title = Stable release
Rules = Stable release
Entity API = RC1
Nodewords = Deprecated (metatags module , as well as other options in D7)
Transliteration = Stable release
Image = Deprecated
Calendar = Stable release
Menu Block = Stable release
Features = RC1
Site Map = Stable Release
Email Field = Stable Release
Colorbox = Stable Release
Nice Menus = Stable Release
Internationalization = Stable Release
Views Bulk Operations = Stable Release
LoginToboggan = Stable Release
Path Redirect = Deprecated in favor of (Redirect in D7)
Context = Beta2
Voting API = Stable release
FCKeditor = Deprecated in favor of CKeditor mentioned above
Localization Update = Beta3
Printer = Beta2
Automatic Nodetitles = Stable release
Media = Stable release
External Links = Stable release
Taxonomy Menu = Stable release
Vertical Tabs = Deprecated
Better Formats = dev
Location = dev
Ubercart = Stable release
Tagadelic = dev
Emfield = Alpha1 (this is covered w/ Media module IIRC)
Scheduler = Stable release
Gmap = dev
Content Access = beta1
References = Stable release
Taxonomy Manager = Beta2
Mollom = Stable release
Simplenews = Beta2
Fivestar = Alpha2
SEO Checklist = Beta1
Imagecache Actions = dev
Out of curiosity with reference to the state of contrib. I went through the top 75 modules in use. I was going to try to go to the top 100 but my clicker is getting sore. I'm sure the deeper one goes in the list the more often alpha/beta/and -dev which is likely to occur. It is also likely that it is indicative of fewer people using the modules.
Ahh, I just read your comment that was made while i was working up this list. I suppose you will find the list irrelevant as well because they don't connect or aid with connecting to third party sites. I'm guessing that the definition of complex in this discussion is narrowly defined to modules which connect to 3rd party social media sites. Ah well, working up this list was still interesting as to the state of contrib at least where it concerns the top 75 modules.
While it is correct that other drupal features in D6 can do what views does, one can also write their own queries or custom modules. However, views deprecates those "other features" from "other modules" and expands on core features in most cases.
for other users who find the list useful, deprecated means that the feature was moved into core or has been picked up by another module specifically for Drupal 7 due to the api changes in Drupal 7. It is also worth noting that RC (release candidate) releases can be viewed as stable in that they are thought to have no more critical bugs: see http://drupal.org/node/467020
Lastly, sometimes there is only one interpretation to be had with the way others choose to express themselves in text/type/words for the tone used doesn't leave room for alternate interpretations.
:off to update my rational and logic:
"I'm guessing that the
"I'm guessing that the definition of complex in this discussion is narrowly defined to modules which connect to 3rd party social media sites."
Not exactly. Interface with social networks/OpenID providers; user-defined groups with possibility of per-node per-user access control, custom user profiles, media galleries, ratings, per-node polls. There are other desired features.
My estimation is that there are several hundred D7-powered sites using various features, including mentioned above. That is illustrated by low usage stats of modules that can provide the mentioned functionality.
.
OpenID is in core.
Very niche. Can't say if that's possible in D7 because it's not something I have ever needed.
Profile2 has 10034 sites plus there are multiple ways to create them which work fine in D7.
Media is enabled on 46551 sites. Plus, you can do a lot with core + Views.
Can be a lot of things but VotingAPI is enabled on 11,913 D7 sites.
Poll module is in core. Advanced Poll isn't even ready in D6. Polls have issues no matter what branch you're looking at.
So these examples don't work for you but they're missing the point, anyway. No one is saying that every single contrib module available in D6 is ready in D7. You keep narrowing your argument more and more trying to be right and in doing so have changed your argument away from the thing people were countering. If you're going to come over to our side of the argument, you might as well stop arguing because then there is no one left to argue against except your imagination.
"You keep narrowing your
"You keep narrowing your argument more and more trying to be right."
I have mentioned modules and situation when they all were meant to work together. They didn't. Those are facts - there's nothing to "defend" or "argue" about that.
The stats (project/usage) illustrate there are quite few sites using mentioned modules, let alone using a collection of them simultaneously. Those are facts as well.
So, whose imagination are we talking about?
Sorry, I won't repeat the above for the third time. If you only see what you wish to see, there's nothing to discuss.
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Ok, this has gone completely off the deep end and took me along with it. Seriously, dude, you need to read what people are writing. You are arguing with phantoms. There is not a single person on this thread that is saying that everything works perfectly for everyone at all times. The argument was against your original premise that Drupal 7 is completely unusable for everyone. It's not. Neither is it usable for everyone. That's the problem with claiming extremes; they are rarely accurate. (I won't say never as then I'd be making the same mistake.)
I'm a sucker for crazy threads and lack willpower to not respond but this has gotten repetitive to the extreme. I won't promise this is my last post as there may well be something else that needs a response but I'm pretty much done here. I don't know what more to say. I've gone from arguing against your original premise to trying to convince you that I don't argue with your new premise. Either there is a major language barrier here or you are just plain trolling because I don't know what else to call this continuing insistence that we are saying something we are not.
Sorry, I won't repeat the
To be fair, that comment can go both ways.
Out of curiosity, what were you hoping to achieve by starting this thread?
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
First, to see the reaction of
First, to see the reaction of contributed modules developers to the news that many months after the Drupal 7 is out, even popular modules aren't still in stable state. Of course, I received the expected "you've submitted no modules yourself, so be happy with what you have".
Second, to find whether there are other persons concerned about the same problem. There are.
It is amusing to see how the commenters try to force me to follow their ways of discussions. In case someone hasn't understood yet, I am not obliged to answer, if I find the comment rude, offtopic or otherwise wasting my time.
Have a nice day.
First, to see the reaction of
I think even if you had submitted any, the answer wouldn't really be any different. Everyone, developer and user alike, has the option of using what is available, or coming up with their own solution. I live under those same rules. Sometimes I want to use a module, but it's just not ready, and the development budget I have doesn't leave room to develop the solution myself. In these situations I have to approach my client and tell them that they either cannot have that functionality, or will have to pay to have me develop it. You can do the same - only you will then pay someone else to develop it, not do it yourself. But other than that it's essentially the same thing. I guess the difference is that I don't feel the sense of entitlement towards module developers who are doing it for free - probably because I know what it's like to be a module developer doing it for free. You don't have that perspective, which is probably why you feel the way you do.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
"You don't have that
"You don't have that perspective, which is probably why you feel the way you do."
Are you sure I haven't?
I am still amused by how quickly certain people make conclusions. I have nothing contributed to Drupal.org, and thus "I haven't that perspective".
As a matter of fact, I don't have to *prove* that I did anything to open-source community. Perhaps my experience of working in a tech.support makes me more philosophical-minded - I do not call people names just because they are saying something I consider folly.
But, as I said, most open-source developers view themselves as doing a grand favor to others, and do not accept any responsibility at all. "Eat it or go away", that is.
Just an example. I was installing today a brand new Drupal 7 site and there were two unpleasant moments: memcached_admin module printing quite a lot of diagnostics about some missing elements in a passed array, and taxonomy module that printed a terrifying PDO fatal error message instead of simply saying that I may not use that many tags.
A good illustration to what I 've said above (since taxonomy is a core module). Drupal 6 installs on a variety of Web environments without a single squeak. And works smoothly.
Are you sure I haven't?Of
Of course, not, I honestly have no idea what you have done. But, let's look at this comment of yours:
I've never felt this way myself, and maybe it's projection, but I've rarely felt it from other drupal developers either. On the contrary, the impression I've got from most Drupal module maintainers is that they do actually take on a responsibility by supplying a module for the public's use, and they are doing this so they can provide back to the community from which they receive. I actually have a hard time with coming up with other motivations behind their doing so, since there is no direct benefit from maintaining a module.
So between your comments (which generally come off to me as being caustic towards developers), the attitudes of the developers I've seen, and my own feelings as a developer, I have come to the conclusion that I think you probably do not have the perspective of someone who is contributing to the community. All evidence looks to me like you are one who is only consuming, which is why I made the comment I did about your perspective. Now, I could be entirely wrong, and I wouldn't even ask you to back it up one way or another, as I don't really care, but I also have a hard time feeling any sympathy for you, particularly when you are essentially biting the hand that feeds me.
Ok, so how can we change this?
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OK, I suppose we have said
OK, I suppose we have said and listened enough unpleasant assumptions and can switch to constructive mood.
"Ok, so how can we change this?"
I suppose the first thing that could be done is to begin monitoring modules state, especially those most popular ones, and suggest people to assist the developers in making stable releases sooner.
There might be many ways to support any given module's cause. Embark on testing/finding problems, providing patches, supporting by donations etc. All the modules that are on top of usage list, but still have no stable versions, should be given more attention.
The same about modules either unported or virtually abandoned. At the moment, for example, I am trying to become a maintainer of Multiping and will perhaps take care of certain other modules afterwards.
Fiinally, if the owner of module project gives a vow to, say, make DN port of the module by the moment when Drupal N is released, this also should be monitored and, if the developer falls too behind the deadline, call for assistance.
I could be, for example, glad to start monitoring of that kind and make the list of modules that definitely requiring support and attention from Drupal users community. That will make situation better.
I have tried Drupal 7 in January 2011 and was mostly disappointed, since both the core and existing modules were not reliable or outright non-existent. Now, more than a year ago, I started several Drupal 7-driven projects, but mostly feel the same, since many useful modules are still missing. And I physically can't implement all of them myself just because I need them.
Thanks.
Specific modules not ported yet?
Given you're off-handendly dissing any evidence that people are providing might it be *specific* modules you're looking for that aren't available? I've got many Drupal 7 sites in production usage, including 10 busy media-rich radio station sites, with 135 contrib modules in use, but you'll probably dismiss that too.
So, pony up, what's your *real* reason for the trolling?
--
Damien McKenna
pony upNice phrase,
Nice phrase, obviously American, I have never heard it in British English.
I build D7 sites and will probably never build another D6 site. It is a fact, not necessarily a criticism, that my own experience tells me not to recommend Drupal to a client without accepting I may need to spend some time debugging at the outset, and possibly at a monthly upgrade time. Low-budget clients who want a simple site with no budget for maintenance get WP + my preferred theme framework for more flexible layout. There are pros and cons with the way the Drupal framework-cum-CMS works.
I am interested to see how the advent of Bluemarine Synergetics will change Drupal.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
Status of contrib modules
I just stumbled on this tonight and thought it would be good to add a pointer here for anyone who wants to skip the drama and just get a snapshot of where popular contrib modules stand in Drupal 7.
http://drupalcontribstatus.com
Thanks for that Michelle. I
Thanks for that Michelle. I read a quarter of this thread wondering if I had just wasted 5 months of my life learning drupal 7. I skipped to the bottom after I realized it wasn't worth reading the rest.
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Oh, most definitely not a waste! Drupal 7 keeps getting better all the time. :)
:)
Agreed. Stick through the learning curve and it's worth it.
I've been coding in D7 almost
I've been coding in D7 almost exclusively for the past few months, and the more I learn about it, the more I think that the back-end of D7 is quite amazing.
Contact me to contract me for D7 -> D10/11 migrations.
Im dissapointed too
Sincerely I have to agree.
I have chosen Drupal 7 to develop a site. And Im very, very dissapointed.
I'm with a serious problem with newsletter - send newsletter is one requirement of my site -, and both Newsletter module and Simplenews module dont work properly.
I think the group with control this versions - and the launch of modules too - should be more criterious and wait a little more to ensure we have a reliable package.
I really don't know how can have a significant number of sites in drupal 7 in production. I have had this problem, problem with traduction - a lot of modules simply dont support it -, an many other small problems.
To choose drupal 7 was a MISTAKE next time I will return to drupal 6.
Sincerly,
Davi Ribeiro
_
I really don't want to open this can of worms again, but with ~14k reported installations of d7 simplenews and ~2k installations of newsletter, it would seem they do in fact work. That's not to say they're bug free, but "work properly" doesn't actually mean anything. Clearly they work properly for thousands of users so if you're having specific issues in your sites it's probably worth checking the issue queues and/or collaborating on bug fixes.
Snake oil.
I remember when the Drupal team had the big pledge to get modules ready for Drupal 7. There seems to be a continuing problem with open source projects just saying "fuck off" to any sensibility regarding forward compatibility. Either your chasing the bleeding edge, or you're feeling left behind. This is not good for the longterm health fo Drupal.
7 is the first step .......
well, i have to put in my bit on this 'can of worms' ::giggle:: . Late to the party I know, as usual. Open Source I think is alive and well and Drupal is one of its finest, an ever growing ever changing community collaboration. Theres always been angst when certain loved modules have fallen by the wayside, when magnificient minds have moved on, and yet here we all are and Drupal rocks on. I remember the panic when acidfree left the drupal world, and when Gallery2/3 stopped working, and when cck was new on the block and panels was called something else and we were all desperatly trying to get phpbb2 integrated cause vanilla drupal forums sucked. I remember dragging sites from 4.7 all the way to 6 and its been a nightmarishly wonderful journey. Over half my sites are still on 6 , but then over half are now on 7, and I cant wait till they all are because 7 is just better.
Kudos to all the developers/minds who got 7 happening and out there. Lots of us are very grateful/inspired , well, I am. i just might have a crack at a 8 module.
Love Drupal , Love Open Source.