Hi everyone. I'm a noob to the world of Drupal, and so far I am very impressed with the project as a whole. As I am new around here, I have been doing a lot of reading up on how things work and would like to create a website built on Drupal. My question is, should I dive right into 4.7 Beta knowing full well that it's going to be the realease to use in the future or stick with the tried and true 4.6x? From what I've read, things are changing in the way themes are handled, as well as a lot of other things, so do I learn the old school way of doing things or focus on 4.7? I realise 4.7 isn't done until it's done, but obviously that plays a factor also as to when this new site would be able to go live in a production environment. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Josh
Comments
It depends
If you are planning to build a site that needs to be out within lets say a month I would recomment the 4.6 since its stable.
If you are developing a website that may take longer than a month or two, I suggest using 4.7 beta. 4.7 beta has come a long way but may still have undiscovered bug. Ofcourse once the final version is released you will have to upgrade to it and even before the final version there may be more beta releases...
Deepak
see this thread
http://drupal.org/node/43253
Unless you can't find the modules you need in 4.7 yet (and check CVS because many are there that are compatible), I'd suggest 4.7. While there are bugs, it is pretty stable at this point-there will always be little changes, but there are little changes with a stable release often as well. Mostly, there are major core changes in 4.7 to the forms api and introducing some cool ajax stuff. Most developers are developing for 4.7 now so it is getting the cool new goodies. Finally, to keep up you'd have to upgrade your site soon, which can be a pain if you have a fair amount of modules. Bottom line, unless you have a good reason why you can't use 4.7, go for it.
Well I guess I'm not the
Well I guess I'm not the only one with this dilemma :-) Thanks for the link. I just took a browse of the 4.7 Modules and there does seem to be a couple of key modules missing, but perhaps they are already in the CVS.
Modules are key
That's the way to think about it, I believe. As you expore Drupal, you'll quickly discover the modules help you customize the functionality of your Drupal site in HUGE ways.
Since you probably won't know which modules you will want/need until you play around for a month or two, I'd go with 4.6 for now.
Good luck!!
My Drupal Experiment
That definatly seems to be
That definatly seems to be the case, perhaps I will just go with 4.6 for now and upgrade later. I'll keep a close eye on 4.7, hopefully the upgrade process will not be too daunting. Great site by the way!
Thanks..
Josh
About Upgrading 4.7
It's a good idea to have a separate installation which you play with.
I'd also have a duplicate of your production 4.6 website. I've had problems in upgrading with Drupal, so having a duplicate of my production 4.6 saves a lot of heartache if an upgrade goes wrong.
Of course, backup everything, but actually having a running duplicate give me peace of mind in upgrading.
Good luck!
My Drupal Experiment
Several local installations
Yes, having a local installation allows having several Drupals: the "stable" one (local copy of our site), the experimental one, and now the 4.7-evolution one :-D
For corporate use wait
Hi you all. I fully agree. I've been reserching which modules allow to build a "corporate flavor" Drupal, which is my main interest. I've built a pretty nice list for 4.6 but there are key modules missing for 4.7 (well, almost most of them). For "corporate purposes" I'll be 4.6 for a while. For "community purpouses" probably 4.7 (at least last beta 4) looks quite ready, thought waiting also for some modules.
Go with the stable but keep it clean
A beta version is always a beta version. Beta versions are not made for everyone to use but for testing. If you want to built a new site now use the latest stable release. 4.7 beta 4 has problems that can be resolved by correcting the core code. But that is not the ideal solution for you.
I would suggest the latest stable version and this under some conditions if you want to have a smooth upgrade and without worries later : add contents but avoid to use extra modules or make theme changes. Keep your 4.6.x installation as clean as possible.