By tbcreek on

I've been "romancing" the notion of converting to Drupal for quite some time - having built about 20 sites with Joomla, I've grown irritated with... well, Joomla. Kudos to the Joomla folks, but there's a point where Mickey Mousing everything starts to get in the way.

So I realize I must embrace the inner-geek to embrace Drupal.

But I can't become a full-time geek. I've got other things in my life that are more fun than making money developing websites. I'm not consumed with the web - it makes me a living, good for me. But I'd rather be playing guitar or writing a short story, etc.

So I've found some very cool tutorials - and it looks like I can make the rather sizable jump to Drupal - which I think will help me grow my company considerably, and also offer my clients much more flexibility, and even allow me to pull in clients that would otherwise be "off the charts".

But quite seriously - wtf is up with these updates? Every time I come here, there's a brand new version of Drupal. I mean - hats off to the developers, keeping it real, keeping it bleeding-edge, kicking everyone else's ass, makin' em all look like chumps cuz you are THE bad asses. If Clint Eastwood developed sites, he'd be all about Drupal.

However, if I'm the only guy in the shop, and I'm maintaining 20 odd sites - and I plan to get to like 100 sites and just chill...

Am I just buying trouble jumping on the Drupal bandwagon? Or is it feasible to set up Drupal 5.0 sites and maintain them for 5+ years, without having to upgrade everyone to the latest, greatest version?

If I wanted to stay up-to-date on everything, I might as well have gone to med school and made a shit load more money.

But I'd eventually like for my hobbies to overtake my professional work (as far as time is concerned) - and my greatest fear of Drupal is that it won't sit still long enough for me to get a firm grasp on it.

I've currently been advised to stick to 5.0, though 6.0 is already released - and I'm guessing 7.0 is in the works - it's highly ambitious and I applaud everyone, but hey...

I buy a new Mac every 4 years. And that's about the same grace period I'd want for my CMS of choice.

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

Drupal 5.x is supported until Drupal 7 is released. Core developers work one version ahead and one version behind.

Drupal 6 took a year to complete and once it was released Drupal 4.x was sunset.

may want to read the drop is always moving

If you start with Drupal 6.x now you will get approx. 2 years out of it. Though, you will find very few modules available and/or fully stable for Drupal 6. If you start with Drupal 5 now, you will have plenty of modules to add on and will be supported until the release of Drupal 7, which will be the first version to only be compatible with PHP 5.2 and above as PHP4 has reached its end of life and is no longer being supported.

Drupal 5, minor updates only include bug fixes and security patches. Therefore, upgrading from one minor to another ie: 5.1 - 5.2 ...... so on so forth, is merely removing core files, replacing core files and running update.php afterwards. No major features are introduced and no API changes take place. Staying upto date with minor releases simply means you are doing your clients justice by keeping their sites bug free and secure. Updating a site is far less trouble, then working backwards from a hacked site in a case where one would get lazy and not update when a security exploit is found, patched and subsequently released.

IMHO, you will never see a release of Drupal last 4 years. That kind of time frame would stagnate core and the developers themselves and consequently the growth of Drupal.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

tbcreek’s picture

tbcreek commented

I just posted a comment to the page you referenced.

I'm not a coder. I'm a web designer.

vm’s picture

vm commented

Thats for the heads up.

Just a note to let you know that your comment removed from the handbook page as there was nothing to fold into the documenation. If you must lash out at the drupal developers over your displeasure of the philosophy used to move Drupal forward, feel free to start a new forum thread.

While, you may not agree with the philosophy of the developers and that said, you don't have to use Drupal. There are many designers that use drupal without your harshess toward the philosophy used by Drupal devs.

Also note, PHP does indeed work in the same way. Support for PHP 4 is coming to an end. Drupal like many other scripts will have to work with and only with PHP 5 ; ) thanks for the confirmation.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

tbcreek’s picture

tbcreek commented

From your sig, it appears you appreciate sarcasm?

The page allowed me to post the comment, and the comment was relevant to the page - though it was "dripping with sarcasm".

I have nothing against Drupal developers, and I'm not lashing out.

Tistur’s picture

Tistur commented

Yes...

And I think you should adopt VM's sig line, if that's you're going to write. From the aforementioned page:

However, while each new major release of Drupal contains the means for stable and reliable upgrade paths that preserves your data from previous releases, each new release of Drupal code provides little or no backward compatibility.

So it was decided that we can break people's code, but not people's data.

There is ALWAYS a path for updating your site with Drupal core

Each new major release of Drupal contains many often-radical new improvements in functionality, scalability and usability. Such new improvements are enabled by not having to support previously released code; stable and reliable upgrade paths are included in the goals of each and every new release.

And in answer to your question to to Dries, check out http://buytaert.net/php-is-dead-long-live-php

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

How geeky you need to be depends on where you want to take Drupal. Between core, contributed modules and theming you can do a lot and you do not need to be all that geeky.

As for life span, there is a difference between support and usable. If the site does what you need, is stable and the server is not upgrade to an incompatible version of PHP or mySQL you the site can exist nicely even after offical support has ended for a release.

roopletheme’s picture

roopletheme commented

I know I'm stating the obvious, but all those Drupal 4.x sites didn't stop working the day they released 6.0. With the exception of security patches, you'll usually update an existing site because there's a specific need to update it, not just because there's an update available. And regardless of your choice of platforms, the only ones that are going to remain constant over a period of years are going to be the ones that are left behind. So it all comes down to frequency of updates. And I hate waiting two years for a feature I really need.

But in the end, it is what it is. I'm still real happy with my '98 Mustang, but that's not going to stop Ford from releasing another model.

tbcreek’s picture

tbcreek commented

So if I start building out sites in 5.0, I guess I don't care if Drupal goes to 12.0 -

As long as the changes aren't so radical that I have to revamp interior content or make major revisions to the templates.

So let's say you have a Drupal 4.0 site, and need it upgraded to Drupal 6.0 - my understanding is that you're pretty much f'd because CCK replaced that other module that used to do the same thing?

I'm not building out sites for Wal-Mart here - I'm just sick of spending half the web development process revising my perfect XHTML/CSS to deal with Joomla's ultra-nested tables. This issue has been addressed in 1.5, and the word is that it will be eliminated in 1.6 -

But given the learning curve, I thought I might be better off instead learning PHPTemplate.

The good thing about Joomla is that they're concerned about backwards compatibility - whereas it appears Drupal is all about remaining on the cutting edge.

So not being a geek, and not wishing to spend my entire life updating sites that are working perfectly well - am I just better off sticking with Joomla?

Again, that's based on the assumption that Drupal forgoes backwards compatibility, which I believe is the case?

For instance, it would totally f me over if I designed a ton of sites based on PHPTemplate - then PHPTemplate is completely overhauled, forcing me to recode from scratch?

Does it not make sense to anyone that upgrade paths should be provided that ease the transition, rather than just dropping in a new core to keep things bleeding edge?

For instance, if I had a Drupal 4 site as of this moment, you're saying that there would basically be no way for me to get to Drupal 6 without completely revamping the entire site?

vm’s picture

vm commented

I don't forsee PHPtemplate going anywhere at least any time soon and even if it does its so widely used it will live on as a contributed addon.

The module that replaced Flexinode is CCK. That being said, there is a method for converting flexi nodes to CCK.

Jumping from Drupal 4 - 6, I don't think would work any way. You'd have to go from 4 - 5 - 6 I believe.

as far as revamping the site, Drupal 4.x modules wouldn't work on Drupal 5.x and therefore 6.x and your theme would need to be updated as well. This docuemenation is relased with every version to make upgrading a site easy.

all changes are documented by the developers.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

darumaki’s picture

darumaki commented

I'd say go with 5.7 and no further, it has enough modules to keep your sites running and you should be able to set it up the way you want for the most part. It will be a long time before 6.0 is usable since there are vew modules available. I think future release consideration should go into what makes a functional site, there are certain modules that should always be included with every release that would apply to any functional site. The current core modules only provide limited needs for a basic site.

tbcreek’s picture

tbcreek commented

Sorry, I started a new thread on Pre-Installation about future-proofing, to get some feedback on the issues you guys have brought up here.

I'm not a coder. I want an upgrade script that takes me from version to version. I don't want to go pouring through documentation - because while I respect the core team's ninja skills, I don't know wtf they're talking about most of the time, nor do I have time to learn. It's all greek to me.

I can respect that I'd need to go from 4 to 5 to 6 - but I think it's perfectly reasonable to at least HOPE that the core team would provide an upgrade script from version to version.

If I have to go back through 20-30 odd sites, hunting and picking through the various templates to make adjustments, altering content, upgrading databases, whatever to adjust for a newer version - I literally don't have that kind of time.

So if the "drop" is always on the move or whatever - hey, cool deal. Props to the dev team.

But if "the drop" is always on the move, I'll just make up my own BS and turn the tables to make the point:

Drupal 4 is alskfjdaslkfdajs.
To upgrate to Drupal 5, you'll need to alkdsfjaf, then alskjfdlak, after which alksjfdasf and alskdjf must be alskdfjslfk to alksjfalskfdj the lakdjslkfj of the aklsjfdasf, depending on alskdjfa the alskdjfa...
Upgrading to Drupal 6, we've switched to a DVORAK layout (cuz it's much better for typing), so you'll need to learn to type the above on a DVORAK keyboard before even attempting to proceed further.

Do you get the logic of where I'm going with this?

I praise the Drupal team - but I don't feel obligated to become as proficient as them in order to use their system.

vm’s picture

vm commented

:sigh:

minor updates ie: from 5.x to 5.x are only a matter of
removing core files and folder except the files and sites folder:
uploading the new files and folders without the sites folder
running update.php (if necessary)
done

major upgrade from 5.x - 6.x are as simple as:

disabling all contrib modules
setting your theme to a default theme
removing the core files and folders
uploading the new core files and folders
and running update.php

it is a script

Read the UPGRADE.txt file

you don't have to be proficient but if you have no time nor desire to do any reading or understanding, especially when it comes to upgrading and updating then it is quite possible drupal isn't for you.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

ausvalue’s picture

ausvalue commented

The concerns of tbcreek are concerns of mine and probably should be concerns of any potential Drupal user. There is an appearance with Drupal development in regards to backward incompatibility issues that it is badly managed or not managed at all.

There doesn’t appear to be an appropriate evaluation of the worth of changes versus the pain they cause. There doesn’t appear to be appropriate comparison and evaluation of alternative methods that don’t force backward incompatibility.

There is an appearance that the designers consider backward incompatibility of zero consequence. The appearance is that there is a couldn’t care less attitude towards creating backward incompatibility. The appearance that backward incompatibility is done for the most trivial reasons and in many cases of such debatable worth that other people may actual consider the original to be better.

Things like changing the name of interface parameters because someone thinks (and arguably at that) that another name is better, and then using the original name for something else. Doing that to interface parameters when those changes create backward incompatibility to possibly many users is just crazy. It is far too trivial for the pain.

This appearance is giving Drupal a bad name. It reduces the number of people that use Drupal and a consequence of the lower user base is that Drupal will not advance as much as would with a bigger user base.

Having appropriate management of these issues, both in reality and in a way that is obvious to users, will actually help Drupal be the leading CMS, not hinder it. It needs to be seen to be being done as well as being done.

Some suggestions to help are as follows:

1) Some major revisions, at least each alternate major revision, should be specified as a revision that is 100 per cent backward compatible. Note: It is a lot easier to make 2 changes at once than it is to make 1 change at one time and then within a short period later to have to make another.

2) I presume that there are already special rules relating to development for any development that will result in backward incompatibility. Special rules such as that each such change requires a written justification and evaluation etc along with a comment period, polls etc. If not, there needs to be. Further, this control/management of backward incompatibility needs to be seen to be being done. I would suggest that the current area in the forum on drupal.org for discussion of Development (working groups) split the Drupal.core section into two parts. One part for discussion of proposed changes that could create backward incompatibility and one for the remainder of Drupal.core development.

Please note: I am not suggesting that there is to be no backward incompatibility. Sometimes this is needed. Sometimes you need to throw out old interfaces in order to stay bleeding edge. I am simply stating that this special area needs a proper evaluation methodology and proper management and users and potential users need to be able to see that this is occurring.

I don’t like spamming my views into multiple threads, but since the original question has ended up in 3 threads I don’t seem to have an alternative.