By zandebar on
Hi
I have a question where I would like your opinion.
As a plain user cabn you get the best out of drupal with out the need of having programming knowledge?
As I suppose as an out of the box solution, for your content. or does it require so coding knowledge to customize it right for you
Or
Is it a case to pick and choose your modules and hey presto its full functional
I am new to drupal and would like your help in shaping my approach to the drupal CMS.
Thankyou
Comments
It depends what you mean by
It depends what you mean by "get the best out of drupal". There is a lot you can achieve without being a programmer but with regards to functionality you will need to accept the choices other people have made.
I see what you mean
As a non programmer, I want to get things done, as we all do.
I find that Yoomla gives a lot to those of us that are Non-Programmers, and a lot of thier modules are paid for versions.
Which is a great concept, meaning that those of us that don't programme can get things done and concentrate on content.
After looking at Yoomla and Drupal, I find that Drupal does the CMS (thing) a lot better then Yoomla. Even though for me right now Yoomla is probably a better choice in a practical sense. In regards to the functionality of a site, the modules and addons.
In the long run I don't think that Yoomla is really a good choice, when drupal does things so much better. Its been hard as a new comer to Drupal to find the modules I need to make the site function, whilst flipping between d5 and d6. There is a lot more out for d5 then there is for d6, which is better from a security point of veiw ? this leads to another post of mine :- http://drupal.org/node/302573
I have a learning curve to go through, with my knowledge of programming, I can hack code and get it working but by no means am I a programmer. I just get a sense that Drupal CMS is better suited to a small team of site developers, a programmer, a designer, and content provider. I am able to do the latter two, but I am lacking the right programming skill, to effectively produce.
Which brings me to another point, Yes I could just hire a coder, which would solve this issue, which is the right way to go.
But when I am not making any money from the site am producing, coding fees well arn't an option really, I have to do everything myself. Its like most things, if the site takes off then of cause a programmer would be the route I would take, but thats not a option at the moment.
I am just wondering how all this fits together and is Drupal a good choice from a non programming point of view.
Drupal isn't just a good
Drupal isn't just a good choice, it's a great choice. However, it does come with a learning curve. The very flexibility of drupal (vs the inflexibility of joomla) that you allude to in your post comes at the cost of some complexity-- as is true with most things. That said however, the time and effort spent learning drupal will be more than worth it.
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz
A Lego Race car...
Do you have to understand engineering and mechanics to get the best out of a racing car?
You can drive around the block or make a blog full of cat photos without understanding how the engine works, but if you want to customize a blinged out, high performance ride, someone is certainly going to have to get their hands dirty.
So do you want a reliable factory model that does what it should (and everyone elses does too) or do you think you can create something unique using off-the-shelf parts?
... But the thing about Drupal is that all parts are user-servicable, from commonly available bits. No black boxes.
Drupal is LEGO. Limited only by what you choose to do with it. And you can get a thousand different results just using the bits in the box. Some initiative however is required in choosing the bits and fitting them together.
... otherwise you would be choosing a die-cast product rather than a LEGO set, right?
Not saying you are one, but there are plenty of folk who say they want to 'customize' their thing before they've even learnt to drive. What do you mean by 'customize'?
If I walked in to a group of mechanics with a soldering iron in my hand saying :
I want to 'customize' a car.
... A car I don't have yet
... nah, not sure what make it is
... and I don't know a wrench from a spanner
... but man, I want one like that one I saw on MTV, and those ones are done in less than a week!
... and I've got an allergy to grease, so I've got to do it without getting dirty
... and it's gotta go fast and pick up hot chicks - everyone knows that's the only thing important about cars!
... I've got no money, but it looks like you've got a lot of spare parts you are not using
... just tell me everything I need to know - but no fancy made-up words like 'carburettor'
... that guy at the gas station doesn't seem too smart, so it can't be that hard, right?
... ... why are you looking at me like that?
Sorry zandebar - this REALLY is not directed at you. It's just been a hard week on the helpdesk :-B
.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |
.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards
It's just been a hard week
You can say that again, lol.
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz
No Offence Taken..
I know exactly where you are coming from....
I have only been looking at Drupal for a couple of weeks now and looking for a CMS that can meets my skill level.
I like the fact that you compared drupal to lego, I am just trying to come to a conclusion as to which direction I should take.
The drupal way or another CMS way, also taking into account my skill level, as you said "... otherwise you would be choosing a die-cast product rather than a LEGO set, right?"
As I am new: I have to make sense of what other people have written and hope it can meet my needs, find something near or a good work around. I am not a Pro, I am just wanting to cobble something together and "COBBLE" is the word.
I am just trying to make sense of something new to me and reach an objective. Maybe am better off looking at somethig different or maybe not. We all have to start somewhere and part of starting somewhere is asking "DUMB" questions, its only by asking dumb questions is where we start to learn. I know as far as CMS is concerned I have a big learning curve, I am not a pro, I have not studied in a place of education for websign. All I know is that I have an objective and a goal, in something new to me within this area and I am looking for the best way to achieve that goal.
A hard week
But its only Monday.........
I suggest by Friday that you remove any sharp or dangerous object out of your office......lol hehehe :-P
All I think I can recommend
All I think I can recommend is get familiar with the things you CAN do, and the ways available to you (there's a thousand modules out there) before you charge in with pre-conceived ideas about how it SHOULD work.
Safe advice.
I was just reacting to the "I want to customize" line before you'd even gone 'round the block ;-)
.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |
.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards
Thanks for your comments.....
I have to say, that the comments you made were called for and hearing your point of view is very helpful.
"I was just reacting to the "I want to customize" line before you'd even gone 'round the block ;-)"
And so you should lol, As I said I am new and I don't know Drupal as well as you guys. I want to put a site together and I don't want to spend all day working out which CMS I should use. Drupal I know will do what I need it to do, as you put it its Lego, therefore like a women: when I change my mind the site can too, LOL as u say it is very configurable.
My downside is my lack of programming knowledge, I would love to study PHP and the like but, I would be side tracking of where I want to go. I might have to in the end, I see this as out sourcing but until I can do that I will need to "COBBLE" I hate using that word. With what other people have done, like you say get familar with what you can do.
pre-conceived idea's, I am just trying to find out if drupal is right for me, there are lots of modules, a few of them don't have versions for 6.4, and there are plenty for 5.10. As 5.10 support is been dropped next year, I think its fair to opt for the current stable version. The issue of what I am finding is between versions.
You must be meeting different women that I do!
But your comments on the module/versions show you've been doing your homework :-B
Even now, for getting your hands dirty I'd say give 5 a go. Everything there just works, and has heaps of docs. Build one, planning to throw it away later ;-)
There always is a migration path for your data and even settings when you go to 6, so you won't be left behind.
But with 5 you won't hit any unfair cul-de-sacs, or disappointments from following the instructions in the hundreds of site recipes out there.
Like I did yesterday, with a 6.x site 70% done .... and then found the video module wasn't there :-(
.dan.
if you are asking a question you think should be documented, please provide a link to the handbook where you think the answer should be found.
| http://www.coders.co.nz/ |
.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards
Yeah am thinking that....
Yeah am starting to think that I'll be better off on 5 then six for that reason you have mentioned. It just the migration when it time to upgrade and people start saying "wake up an smell the coffee". Then I have to make sure that the modules that have been for 5 will have an updated version for 6.x.
Your point is illustrated even further when you look at D6 has 1796 modules where as D5 has 4026 modules, thats 2320 reasons why you should use D5. So I am slowly coming round to the D5 option, it a shame that the drupal community doesn't have a paid for modules like Yoomla does in their culture. Then more modules will be made for the newer versions, and the code would be stable (not knocking code been produced here, just that if people are making money from something it has to be done right).
Its just finding the modules I need, what I want to do is simple, have content, have video and mp3 and maybe take some money off people for special content. But I would prefere the site to be free and adbased funded, hey a Banner rotar there another one. Am sure there are things I need which I haven't even considered yet, and the need to be flexible is a must in my book.
This site is coming from nowhere on limited funds and limited knowledge, my learning curve is great and my goal is: can I make money on the internet coz I see others are doing just that. Am just finding my platform from which to stand, and I am a little confused in curtain aspects. So from time to time I will ask dumb question, we all have to learn at somepoint don't we
it a shame that the drupal
actually, that's one of the things i prefer about drupal (and disliked about joomla).
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz
I do see your point, but everything can't be free, is that fair
When you write code a lot of effort goes into making the util/prog/mod, and we can't always have things for free.
If someone has spent a lot of time developing an addon, look here at this guy, http://drupal.org/node/262370
The person deserve some reward for thier efforts, weather its a donation or a fee of lets say $50, it just helps the developer of that module continue to develope it. I have seen so many mods on here where the developement have ceased, where in fact I thought they had a useful module. A lot of modules come from commercial projects, where they have been commissioned on behalf of a client. They have then been injected into the Drupal community for use by other people. Which is great; many of these end up in other commercial projects where a fee is taken, or money is obtained by site users. In this case I think in my opinion that a fee/donation should be made to the developer, if other users of the module find it useful for there commerial site. I know you could say it give and take, I am not a programmer and would like to give something back to a person who created a great mod that I have or will find useful.
At the moment I am working on a site that won't be making any revenue, so from this point of view, I can have some functions at no cost. If you read back I have very little money to spend on this project, I don't have the money to have bespoke coding produced. But I don't mind paying $50 or so to save me a headache and help someone to continue to develope agreat addon.
Its like themes I would pay $30 for a theme but not $500, when I will be hacking the code anyway.
Just think a good few years ago a lot of things on the net were free, many are now paid services for the good stuff i.e. Google, DNSSTUFF
I think free is great not a way forward meaning a way of helping a Mod/theme ect to progress is more important, then just been dumped on the community, because its useful for one version of Drupal and then never looked at again. Because the client got what he wanted first time round. For people who are developing addons for cleints, it would be a benefit if when the version changed, they updated it and they got a kick back for doing it. When otherwise it would have been forgotton about. I think if they got $10 - 30 from a couple of hundred people using the addon it would be more beneficial for them to make the update, a reward for the effort and time taken to produce the update. Just think how many addons have been produced for people using drupal, which don't make it to the commuity, people are holding them back. If a developer can say to a client, you have produced a great addon and if I release this to the community it could pay for the develpement, or a reduction on fees from the developer. This may help more modules been released on to the community to benefit us all.
I think modules would be better looked after this way, and more modules will be produced. This in the end would help people like myself who don't program, but need fuctionallity. I don't mean that making a module and charge a few hundred buck for it, but a modest production fee, to help developement and maintain. I think this would help the community rather then hinder it, and be beneficial for all of us.
you proceed from a faulty
you proceed from a faulty assumption-- that my objection is merely that I don't wish to pay. This topic has come up dozens of times on this site so I'll be brief. for a while joomla's economy was a violation of the gpl-- a fact which they realized themselves and eventually corrected.
I have no problem paying for items of worth nor problems with developers earning money from code. The simple fact is, in a GPL world, earning money from code, rather than services, is a very risky business model fraught with difficulty if one is to obey the terms of the license.
What i object to is that license being violated or people whining about the terms of the license. No one forces developers to develop GPL code-- they choose to do it. In so doing they are bound by the terms of the license, period. If one doesn't like the terms of the license one is free to develop code for other non-gpl projects. What is abhorrent to me is when someone wants to leverage hundreds of thousands of man hours of a gpl project for private gain in violation of the gpl.
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz
One thing i forgot to
One thing i forgot to mention. The very proliferation of drupal's contributed code base is a direct result of its non-financial nature. Many many people contribute patches, improvements, and code of all kinds to the contributed modules. The community works as a whole to improve whatever modules they use. Do you think this would happen if non professional developer contributions would result in monetary profit for the maintainers and not the contributors? How many would be willing to work on patches and improvements for free knowing the maintainer would make profits from their free work?
===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz
faulty assumption: it was just a response
You have made some very intresting points, and the GPL issue for developers.
I wasn't assuming that you wanted everything for free.
I just think that a halfway house would be more beneficial, where people are rewarded for there efforts.
Its hard in this GPL enviroment I know, Hell!, I think there should be a fee for Dupal its surely worthy of it.
its great that drupal have this enviroment, I agree when you say:
we don't need these type of people, just a halfway house to help developement, I think a lot more can be achieve this way.
Awesome
That is an awesome extension of the Lego analogy! That should be in a handbook page. :)
Michelle
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