Hi everybody,
I am new to Drupal. I have been doing some research and study for weeks. I am planning to build a social networking site with Drupal. I found that Organic Group meets my needs very well. However, most of the modules are not ready for Drupal 6 yet. It made me wonder that should I build my site with Drupal 5 first? Or should I build it with Drupal 6, and try to convert OG modules to work for Drupal 6 by myslef? I am a web designer/front-end developer. I only have small knowledge about PHP/MySQL. I mostly code ActionScript, HTML and CSS. I love to learn PHP/MySQL. But I am not sure how long it'll take me to pick them up. But I really wish that I can build my dream site with Drupal. I used Joomla and Wordpress all the time before. But the more I study Drupal, the more I found that Drupal is really a powerful and compact CMS package. Thanks everybody who have ever contributed to this great CMS. I am a foreigner. I am sorry if I didn't express my question very well. But I do hope anybody can give me some advices and lead me a good start.
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Start with Drupal 5
Hi Erlin,
You can start with Drupal 5 and later upgrade to Drupal 6 (when all modules are ready and not in beta).
I chose Drupal 5
I had the same issue, but chose Drupal 5, due to the wealth of modules and alternative themes available. I suggest you first decide what modules you need - if they are all available for version 6, then there's no real reason to start with version 5, other than that because v6 is newer it may be more buggy or have yet undiscovered security issues. But those points wouldn't worry me too much - the Drupal team have good quality control procedures.
Version 6 is, naturally, more advanced than version 5. Apparently there have been some significant improvements in performance - time to display a page is significantly less. Apparently also multi-language support is improved - an area where Drupal 5 leaves a lot to be desired IMO.
Thank you for your suggestion
Thank you, ironico and netgenius. I think your suggestions totally make sense. I think I will start with Drupal 5. Try to get the website done and function first. And maybe upgrade to 6 later.
47 out of about 60 modules
47 out of about 60 modules for me that are ported to 6, It's still hard for me to believe I need so many modules. With wordpress I only needed around 20 plugins.
Lots of modules
I agree the number of modules required for "basic" functionality seems high - many of them are "tweaks" rather than really adding new functionality.
If I were answering the original question today, I'd be more inclined to say go straight to Drupal 6. Something I see happening is that Module developers who switch to 6 are then stopping ongoing development of the 5.x version - it makes sense, too much work otherwise.
Because the upgrade from Drupal 5 to 6 is complex, I suspect many Drupal 5 sites will not upgrade.
All the better reason to
All the better reason to have one ( 1 ) version at a time, ok two, one fully functional and one in the oven for future upgrade. It would be good for users and good for the developers.
I fail to see the logic in having so many versions, looks like race to see who can come up with the most versions at one time. If drupal were smart they would trash version 7 idea and focus on getting 6 smoking hot so everyone can upgrade.
Real compatibility would solve the problem
I agree, though it's not really the number of versions that's the problem but the lack of direct compatibility between them. You can still run most ten or even twenty year old DOS programs under Windows Vista. That's compatibility! (not that I'm a Windows fan, but I am a compatibility fan!)
Bi-Annual Releases?
Upgrading is such a hassle that many sites only do it 2-3 years anyway. There might also be fewer abandoned modules if the cycle were longer. There's talk that D6 might be an orphaned release, with most upgrading from D5 to D7.
Just a (off-topic) thought.
Version decisions
On-topic I would say, the original question being "which version to use?", and I think it's relevant information for anyone making that decision. Well, hearsay rather than information, but again thinking in terms of module development, I can see why a developer would not not bother spending time converting a module from 5 to 6 - might just as well go straight to 7.