By unundindur on

Hi. I am about to start creating a website that will primarily have the following features:

*Newspaper-style article library (Home/Articles/Hardware/Computers/Dell/Article0243 etc.)
*A platform for playing games against each other over the internett (.jsp based)
*A vast expandable database of information, much like the article library above.
*A web-shop that automatically mails certain details to the provider when payment is resceived, and adds the attachment of the reply to a database when the provider replies to the same mail (with an attachment). I was told this was kind of tricky.

Customer<------------>Website<------------>Provider

I have been looking at joomla now, and it seems like it can do the job, but at the same time it feels anti-logical in terms of how it is built up (sections/cathegories/menus/modules).

I have n o programming skills, but hopefully I won't do to much of the actual coding. Is drupal easy to manage and expand once it is up and running?

And is it easy/easier for programmers to work with?

-Rasmus

Comments

nonprofit’s picture

nonprofit commented

Hi Rasmus, I am not a programmer and I use Drupal every day. The more coding you know, the less dependent you are on existing modules, though. There is a long and heated debate regarding Drupal vs. Joomla! and suffice to say, more people who frequent this site prefer the former :). However, the Drupal learning curve is not always an easy one. I'd recommend start with a simple site and see how it goes for you. You will at times, no doubt, bang your head against the wall. However, if you can successfully launch a simple site, you probably have what it takes to begin this more complex one. Check out the Views and CCK modules, they are key. Blessings! -NP

unundindur’s picture

unundindur commented

Thanks for the reply. I had a friend over w ho is moderately proficient at php and who have just started using drupal, and now I am doing so too.

So far I find the two pretty much equal, although I can already see functions in drupal that I really missed in Joomla :)

TrinitySEM’s picture

TrinitySEM commented

Drupal has a very steep learning curve and your first project will probably take much longer than you anticipate. You may even scrap a few attempts before you get the module mix right. However, every day you'll find and be amazed with the things that D can do that others can't. I'm currently working on several D sites (some with Ubercart) as well as a Joomla/Virtuemart site and I've built J/VM sites in the past (we're eCommerce centric). In using both systems on a daily basis my analysis (opinion) is that D is the best choice. I'm biased through experience. While I find J to be fairly stable, the VM module has presently, and in the past, proven to be quite buggy. We've worked with a large number of CMS and shopping cart from open source to commercial and if asked to build a J site now we simply won't do it.

It's tempting to use J because there are so many cool, inexpensive templates available. If you're not going for a custom design, then this is a tempting benefit. However, the time savings achieved with the template will be eaten up with debugging. J itself seems to be stable but VM needs some work.
Don't get me wrong. You may encounter a bug or several in your installation and modules but I find that when a bug occurs it's typically not something rudimentary. For example, Ubercart payment module works. Setup isn't easier, it just works. We spent a number of hours (I'm embarrassed to say how many ;-) tracking down a bug in VM's payment module to get it to work.

Someone once explained the difference between J and D. I don't recall the author and I'm paraphrasing but it goes something like this:

Joomla was built for designers,
Drupal was built by developers.

I think that if you can get through the learning curve you'll find the user controls, actions, and the stability of D to be ideal for your application.

As NonProfit points out, you'll probably hear the opposing view on the J forums. ;-)

gnr2311’s picture

gnr2311 commented

Drupal is probably the easiest CMs Software out there. I have zero programmings skills and I managed to set up this site in 10 days. www.itcrack.net . You will also find a lot of Drupal Tutorials right here http://itcrack.net/node/854 they will help you to set up your site and cofigure ist. Images, Videos, disolaying Information and a lot about CKK. have fun

juan_g’s picture

juan_g commented

There is a lot of online documentation, fast-clicking screencasts, long forums, blogs, distributions with selected modules, etc. They can take weeks or months of research to learn Drupal, since -for newcomers' eyes- docs are mostly written by computer geeks in Klingon language.

But a quick way to start with Drupal in days, sometimes in hours, is to read one or a few Drupal books, which are reviewed by publishers before printing to make sure they are understandable in plain English. Some well-known are:

Basic (for beginners): "Building powerful and robust websites with Drupal 6"
Intermediate (for webmasters): "Using Drupal"
Advanced (for programmers): "Pro Drupal Development"

There are also specialized Drupal books on security, theming, projects done right, education, multimedia, module development, e-commerce, jQuery, business sites, social networking, etc.

However, if you are going to read just one book, then "Using Drupal" seems suitable for the needs of most people.

juan_g’s picture

juan_g commented

An useful detail for those in a hurry is that, in addition to the printed versions, online stores and publishers also sell versions (PDF and others) of Drupal books (for example "Using Drupal", etc.) for immediate download.