By vincentc on

(I'm not sure this post doesn't belong to the support forum, but I'll try it here.)

I've just discovered Drupal and its community very recently and I like what I've seen so far. My job is to buid websites and up until now, I've been "hand-coding" PHP/MySQL websites. I'm now considering to build all my future websites using Drupal.

As some of these websites will require heavy customisation, I'll have to figure out the inner workings of Drupal and ways to "tweak" the code. But I'm not sure which version of Drupal I should start working with. Here's how I see it:

Version 4.6.5:

  • PRO: stability
  • PRO: numerous modules and themes available
  • CON: short lifespan (as it will be replaced by 4.7.x)
  • CON: lacks features (like free tagging) that I need for my projects

Advantages of 4.7.x:

  • PRO: better than 4.6.5 (code, core features...)
  • PRO: it's the future, spending time on it now will prove useful in the months/years to come
  • PRO: I've just finished reading the book "Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress" (excellent reading btw, see my other post about it) and it seems the Drupal version Robert T. Douglass is speaking about in the book is 4.7.x
  • CON: still in beta, may be unstable
  • CON: lacks modules (like image, image_assist...) that I need for my projects

My question:

Which Drupal version do you think I should start working with? In other words, when do you think a stable 4.7.x version will be released? And in the meantime, is it worth it to invest time and efforts in 4.6.5? (I've no idea how different 4.7.x and 4.6.5 are - I mean from a developer's viewpoint, not from an end user's viewpoint.)

Thank you for your help.

Comments

pol’s picture

pol
Location Brussels
commented

4.7.0 is still beta but it only go better and better ...

It depends for wich kind of website you need that!

-Pol-

-Pol-
https://not-a-number.io/

vizechef’s picture

vizechef commented

I agree to Pol.
I'm new to Drupal and don't know too much about the 4.6.5 version, but my 4.7.0-beta-site is gone live and works fine. It's not that unstable as you might expect.
Regarding the modules you are right. I can't hardly wait until the modules I need are available. But this is only a question of time and I have the impression, the Drupal community is very active.
So - use the beta !!

vincentc’s picture

vincentc commented

I didn't mention it in my initial post, but I also have a preference to go for the 4.7-beta. Thanks for your input guys.

John Hwang’s picture

John Hwang commented

From a developer's viewpoint, 4.7 is definately the way to go.

1) You have specific features of 4.7 for your development
2) Although it's beta right now, the final will be released in few months. (well that depends on how much we all contribute/help out)
3) You will learn so much about drupal by working and coding against the latest version
4) Core developers and #drupal people prefer that you work on 4.7. They will be more likely to help you if you're working with the latest code.
5) You can help drupal by updating the various modules, given that you have a need for some of them. At the least you can help them beta test it.
6) I wouldn't characterize 4.7 as unstable... it needs a lot of developer's to contribute and help out with testing and submitting but it's very usable right now.

Hope that helps. Welcome to the drupal community. :^)

John Hwang

vincentc’s picture

vincentc commented

Hi John,
Thanks for your nice message and valuable insight. I think I'll pick the beta version indeed.
(Btw, by "unstable" I simply meant the fact that beta versions are typically less stable than standard releases. I still haven't tested the 4.7 version and I was using the term as a general idea rather than a defining characteristic of 4.7).

Abilnet’s picture

Abilnet commented

I've build several sites with Drupal 4.6X and changed to build the NEW sites with 4.7 when the Beta 3 was out... it seems to be a good desicion and there are not any problems even it's called "beta" (I'll upgrade my old 4.6X sites to 4.7 when the final is out)

Also, you have your background as "hand-coding PHP/MySQL websites" ..that's one more reason 4.7 probably is the way to go.

Best of luck!

vincentc’s picture

vincentc commented

Now it seems I have no choice but to use 4.7 ;-).
Thanks for your message !

linulo’s picture

linulo commented

The tag "beta" has a tradition of understatement in the open source community. 4.7beta4 gave me no problems so far and since I did not even bother trying older versions I do not know what problems I may have run into trying to implement specific site features with 4.6.

Some modules are not yet 4.7-ready, true. But many are updated as we speak and for every useful module there is a high chance somebody will update it someday soon. I did it with taxonomy_menu and so can many.

The more people use 4.7 the faster it will mature. As far as I can judge it already is ready for use.

vincentc’s picture

vincentc commented

Hello,

Just to follow-up on this, I started to work with Drupal about 2 weeks ago and I chose 4.7.0-beta4. You were right indeed: it's very stable already and I can enjoy all the latest features that don't exist in the previous versions (CCK, new form API...).

Vincent