I'm brand new here, and just read through a topic comparing Drupal to Mambo.
IMHO, I think the chances are fairly slim that Drupal is going to catch up with or overtake Mambo. Regardless of whether or not Drupal might be a superior system, there just doesn't seem to be any chance of that.
And I'm not sure if the developers of Drupal even CARE about the comparison to Mambo.
But I'm not a coder, just a marketing clown.
Having had a great amount of experience with Mambo, I'm a big fan of the CMS. For instance, I suddenly had a real estate client pop out of nowhere - so I threw out the possibility of an integration with Open-Realty, and bam. The solution was already in the works, and I was able to employ it for the project.
So Mambo almost has this "Wal-Mart" sort of thing going for it - you can walk in and find just about anything. And from installation to support, it's almost idiot proof. Being an idiot, I can vouch for that :)
BUT...
Mambo is pretty lame when it comes to Drupal's strong points. Run a Google search for "multi-user blog Mambo" and you're going to arrive here. That's how I got here :)
Anyway, PLEASE feel free to remove this entire thread if I'm just showing my complete ignorance here -
But it looks like, with the "Community Plumbing" monicer, you guys are very aware of Drupal's strengths. And it could just be the idiocy of the lemmings (myself included) that Drupal is even in the same boat with Mambo - as far as "CMS Reviews" and all that.
Being a Mac guy and living in the world of Microsoft, I know that my beloved little computer company has taken beating after beating, producing exceptional software, far superior to the competition - without hardly EVER building on its market share.
But with the break-out of the iPod, it seems like Apple's finally gaining momentum - and hopefully, with the move back to Intel, they'll FINALLY start gaining some share in the PC market.
So I guess what I'm saying is - you can't beat Microsoft. They're too big. And in the CMS world, with the noted exceptions of NOT being completely evil, crushing innovation, deploying crippling software (IE), etc. - Mambo would be Microsoft.
I'd just think that, rather than even concerning myself with Mambo, or the "Content Management System" classification - I'd distance Drupal as FAR as possible from the competition in that arena and bill it out as the world's premiere "Community Plumbing" system :) Forget trying to catch Mambo - that ship's done sailed.
It just seems odd to me that, here in the forums, there are posts lagging in the realm of hours, days, and weeks to various topics, implying that the community is either miniscule or extremely unmotivated...
And being a "Community Plumbling" system, that level of inactivity doesn't quite seem right?
So anyway, I'm about to delve deeper into Drupal here, see what she's got under the hood - but I was almost completely scared off by my initial impression of the community - that it was either dead or dying. Lemmings like myself do NOT wanna hitch on to a dead wagon...
But in the end, Mambo is entirely inappropriate for building a community-based site (believe me - I ran it from every possible angle, not wanting to face the learning curve on a different CMS) - so here I am learning Drupal.
So for what it's worth, there you've got a newbie's impression of Drupal :) I'm sure that absolutely none of that is in the least bit helpful to anyone.
But I do think it's worth noting that the current state of Drupal - from installation to the community to the quirkiness of the system (taxonomies? mounting a prize buck or a dead fish on the wall is the first thing that comes to mind) - scare the living crap out of me :) And given I think I would represent a typical web developer hunting for a CMS, that can't possibly be good?
In a nutshell, if this is the premiere software for developing a community based site, then why is the community here seemingly so inactive (or so it appears to me, ye olde casual observer)? You'd think and expect that the reverse would be true.
End Babble :)
Comments
Inactive?
I don't really see how you could view the Drupal community as inactive. For one thing, the Drupal community just pooled $10,000 in a few hours for new servers.
As for support, I've started to reply to support requests in these forums only to find that 2 or 3 people have already responded by the time I'm finished typing. I would say that the best way to get installation support would be IRC, in the #drupal-support channel, but the forums work too.
As for the state of the system, I don't think you'll find anything easier to install unless it's a Fantastico installer or something similar. Drupal requires you to know how to extract files from a tarball and set up a mySQL database - everything else is pretty self-explanatory. I've seen much worse.
I tried out Mambo a while ago, and while it is very powerful, I did not find it to be as flexible or intuitive as Drupal. But that's just my humble opinion.
And -
tax·on·o·my: Division into ordered groups or categories
tax·i·der·my: The art or operation of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of dead animals for exhibition in a lifelike state.
I wasn't meaning to be
I wasn't meaning to be overly critical of Drupal or the community here - I was just offering my "first impressions", for whatever purpose that serves :)
On installation, not trying to hype Mambo - but you create the database, extract, and type in "http://server.com/mambo" and it pretty much takes you through the process. And modules are much simpler - basically one click installations.
Again, not complaining about Drupal - things really don't NEED to be THAT simple - and Drupal is very simple to install - but from a lazy man or newbie's standpoint, Mambo's a piece of cake in comparison. So I was just saying that, unless someone is willing to commit to Drupal and learn the system... Mambo's probably going to have more appeal. And Mambo's SO big now, in my wandering mind, I just thought Drupal might be better off not assuming any direct comparisons, rather focusing on the strengths of the system that are completely lacking in Mambo (and the rest of the CMS crowd.)
When I first arrived at the site, I think on Thursday or Friday, I was checking out the support forum, and the post intervals listed were in the 6+ hour, day, to week range. So it could have just been an off day. Things looked kinda dead. Plus I had a very bad first experience with Drupal (a system crash), I ended up posting into the wrong area on accident...
So my bad - never mind my babbling :)
And sorry about the taxonomy/taxidermy comment - I shouldn't have been flippant about that :) Just the quirkiness of Drupal, which I'm sure I'll grow to love, was a bit off-putting at first glance for me. Very high brow for a low brow guy like me :)
Thanks.
Perhaps the support forums
Perhaps the support forums aren't the best way to take in a wholesome impression of the state of the Drupal system. Try looking at the actual showcases instead ... check out the Handbook for some tips on showcases too.
Some high-profile sites are using Drupal, and how they're doing things is interesting. Of course that doesn't give an impression of ease-of-installation or newbie-ease-of-use, for which forums sometimes can give an indicatior.
Unfortunately, the default Drupal forum-module is less than perfect, and sifting through the various forums is pretty tedious when compared to most other forums.
There are many lurkers around here, some very knowledgeable and intrigued by Drupal. However, it's sometimes easier to enter the marketplace via a niché - and then tend to broader markets - like the "disruptive technologies" strategy. The central taxonomy philosophy is what's attracting the attention for now, so you see, what attracted/scared you is exactly what's intriguing people.
By the way, there's at least one book on the subject:
Addison Wesley, Proven Portals - Best practices for planning, designing and developing Enterprise Portals.
Especially: Part I, Chapter One - Organizing content around taxonomies.
here's a link
nice, it's part of the sample chapter on AW's site:
http://www.awprofessional.com/articles/article.asp?p=102609&seqNum=2
And I'm not sure if the
I am pretty sure that most of us don't.
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
I don't
Mambo has it s good points, Drupal has. frankly I don't really care how and what these points are, as long as drupal does well in those areas I use it. Which is -in fact- any area. Take that back to Mambo: its by far not as flexible. The wall mart has a lot of stuff, but your home made cake, made with the best ingredients always beats the wall mart one.
Which means: Drupal is perfect for a development platform, Mambo is great from out-of-the-box.
---
if you don't like the choices being made for you, you should start making your own.
---
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]
At times
At times, various people find it interesting to see where things are in comparision to others. Then coffee shop discussions break out. The thread you found so interesting was really just that.
As to inactivity in the forums, well it ebbs and flows... Huh? Mybe we're not looking the same thing.
On Mambo, never used it, doubt I ever will. Don't really care if others do. I use Drupal, it suits my needs.
-sp
---------
Test sites and good habits: Drupal Best Practices Guide.
Back Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
One of the most accurate
One of the most accurate summaries of Drupal I have read to date. You couldn't be more correct:
1. Drupal developers don't care about Mambo, or any other CMS for that matter, and the don't need to.
2. This system can be and often is, very intimidating to most. Maybe that is good.
3. This community is not nearly as active as other popular cms'es. No matter how many here want to take exception to that notion (its been brought up many times before) the truth is you often have to wait weeks or months to get an answer to a question.
4. Taxonomies (taxidermies ;-) ) are a hard concept for many, which is probably why they changed the menu item for them to 'categories'.
But! When you get into Drupal enough to 'get it', there is nothing on this planet that even comes close. As an open source project it is beyond almost any other I can think of, cms or other.
I don't recommend this system for most because of the difficulties inherent in getting to work, not to mention getting folks to understand the whole 'taxonomy/taxidermy' thing. As far as I am concerned, if you don't understand the taxonomy concept, go find another cms. The power of taxonomy is almost unlimited. Unfortunately the examples of a good implementation are few and far between.
I run many sites and three of them are Drupal based. The others include postnuke, Mambo, Media Wiki, and others. If I could, I would convert them all to Drupal. But for various reasons, some inherent in the current state of Drupal, I won't be converting them any time soon.
Perhaps it will be groups like CivicSpace that will deliver the more user friendly version of Drupal, while the core developers here keep the product on the cutting edge of CMS technology. Who knows? It definitely fun to watch it all develop (pun?)
Don't feel the rebuff from others means your perceptions were in anyway seriously flawed. You are right on the money for the most part, and I for one wish I could have articulated them as well as you did. We need as many folks sharing their perceptions of the software and the processes used to create and support it.
a story very few know
About to share a story with you very few know.
Right after World War II, several hundred peace loving and scientists, physicists, engineers and chemists with high humanity orientated beliefs fled Germany. They spread to various other countries across the globe based on a lottery conducted by an ancient secret group of humanitarians. After they were all settled they realized they needed to devise a tool for communication that would allow them to communicate with the other elite research and development groups across the globe, in a structured format. Hence the first version of community driven software was invented. Being the elite of the elite they all had computers based on tube technology of course. As you all know the internet wasn’t even a dream yet, so they used these tube based computers over the telegraph lines as their main form of communication between the different research groups. It was at first cumbersome and only able to pass text in the form of dots and dashes. And backups were done on phonographic records. As the smoke from World War II began to clear and there wasn’t an “us and them” view point, just pure research, other groups of scientists, physicists, engineers and chemists from around the globe began to link into the community driven communication data stream. Slowly over time the system grew and was named, Drupal, which stands for Deep Research Union of Private Alliances. The system was slow and had many faults and challenges, but the many benefits of sharing knowledge in a structure format across the globe with ones piers far out weighted these issues. As time went on, the groups in the true from of human nature began to splinter off and devise their own software for their specific groups, the South African nuclear scientists were the first to break away and create their own software program, which today is known a Php Nuke. The Spanish scientists were next and spun off a software package and group called Mambo. Civic Space CMS is a group of Macedonian scientists operating from a space lab orbiting the fifth planet. As of today there are 36 splinter groups and CMS software packages, with new ones still popping up. For more information, don’t look at Wikipedia or United Nations, you won’t find anything there. You’ll have to subscribe to the newsletter at aSaltyDogStory at ThereIsNothingRealAboutThis dot dash.
Absoluterly Amazing!
Who'd of thought that CMS pedigrees are so old and prestigious? I heard a rumour that some newly discovered Davinci writings were not only written backwards (normal for him) but also contained tags very similar to XML!
This computer stuff is just Amazing!
But in the end, Mambo is
Your post has been really helpful. I myself started at Mambo, ran into a wall with the lack of community-based editing and got extremely frustrated by the lack of templating (actually, the lack of flexibility and templating made me write a simple CMS from scratch, just to serve a client's needs, in a fraction of the time it would have taken to build their requirements into a "hard-coded" mambo module.
I'm also here to learn more about Drupal. So far, the API superceeds Mambo's API by far. I still think Mambo is great of mocking up your own personal website (or even one for your own company), but Drupal simply kicks @ss when it comes to collaboration websites.
I agree that Mambo will remain more popular, because there are more people looking for something like Mambo - to create an "average" to "semi-specialized" website. When it somes to Drupal, you can really create something far more spectacular, if it suits the requirements.
Hey, not everyone can (or needs to) drive a Mercedes Benz - Most guys have Volkswagens around here ;-) As a php developer, Drupal is the Benz in this analogy - from a php developer's point of view, the Drupal API is simply paradise, compared to Mambo's API (I have read about some upcoming changes in Mambo though, but just like your Windows analogy, they too are smothered with backward-compatibility issues). Learing the Drupal API is a good way to get down and dirty with php, to review, sharpen and extend your skills.
What it boils down to, in the end (and, of course in my own opinion) is that there is a tool for every job. Just like I hate working on my $%&# XP box, it still pays my bills, so does Windows software development (yea, yuck!). The average customer's need is simply greater in that area. What makes it all worthwhile is the chance to boot up one of my Linux boxes to appreciate a decent system that I can easily extend, that obeys my commands in the way that I expect it to. In this analogy, the same can be said when you get a chance to work with Drupal after spending hours trying to bend Mambo. Drupal is simply a well-oiled machine.