By gundee on
Seems pretty thin from my experience thus far. Is there something I am doing wrong, or should I cross Drupal off my short list?
Seems pretty thin from my experience thus far. Is there something I am doing wrong, or should I cross Drupal off my short list?
Comments
Better developer community
Drupal has an excellent developer community, however they don't always do support. I try to respond to a couple support forum questinos a day, but I don't especially have time to do much more than point people in the right direction.
Re: Drupal support community
Dude, you've been a member for one whole day now and have posted five questions and gotten seventeen responses.
I am not sure what you would call responsive but sometimes I do wonder why open source developers continue to do things for free when so few appreciate their efforts.
Perhaps you should "...cross Drupal [your] my short list..." as this community tends to be comprised of givers and not takers. You may not find many who have much in common.
Re: Drupal support community
Dude, I've been a member for a week and have posted three questions and gotten ZERO responses.
I guess I'm going to give up on drupal because I can't figure out how to install it and no one seems to answer any of my questions and i don't know what else to do. I am very frustrated and sad.
Re: Drupal support community
Yeah, if I were you I would quit.....or you could get used to having to endure some frustration, self-doubt, and generally not getting your way when dealing with technical, complex sytems and problems.
Try not to take it personally but if you quit on something like this, what does that say about you as a person?
Quit whining, re-examine how you asked your question(s), think of a different way to make people understand *exactly* what you are asking, re-post. If a communication is not received (and understood), it is generally the fault of the sender.
Or you could stomp your foot and complain about people that are helping you....for free.
well said
bravo. very nicely phrased.
Well, I've only been a member
Well, I've only been a member for a couple of days and I, too, am disappointed at the amount of support. I've asked a couple of questions , one as a tag along post and the other as an original post and I've only received one answer. I know my problem is not unique (at least one other user in the past week have asked the same question but without an answer). I think if you want a product, be it open source or commercial, to do well there should be at least some sort of support...at least for installation....I would really like to give it a try (I also struggled wit postNuke and phpNuke but at least I could find the answer somewhere) but without a good FAQ on installation it looks like a no go for me too.....oh well....
Poor Support
I stopped using Drupal also because of poor support. I was excited and used the code for about a month. But I hit a few walls, painfully got myself some answers, asked detailed, to the point questions, read code, eventually got tired of waiting and moved on. And if you mention the problem, you get dumped on, as you can see in this thread.
Community
A part of building a community around an open source product is the fact that someone has to be first, someone has to struggle though the difficult parts. If you are not the type of person who can handle the struggling and figuring out things for yourself, without calling to others for help, then perhaps it is best that you wait until things get more squared away. Then you might be able to visit the website and, like other products that are more mature, be able to find the instant answers you desire.
Drupal happens to be in the building phase and you will just have to be patient. You have a choice, you can whine about the lack of free support or you you can jump in, accept the bumpy road, and be a part of the solution. Online communities tend to develop a core group of fine people that are willing to endure some pain to get to the solution. This occurs because the project tends to spin off the whiners and you are left with the individuals whose attitudes and character will make it a great community.
My gut tells me that the technology is so compelling that you guys who are claiming that "I am not gonna use Drupal" are in fact sticking around.
not the type of person ...
jxs2151 wrote:
>If you are not the type of person who can handle the struggling and figuring out things for yourself, without calling to others for help,
Hey brother, I got my own stuff to struggle through. Sometimes you just don't have time to struggle through other people's stuff too.
But keep on truckin' and all that sort of stuff, and maybe someday Drupal will have a community more helpful to the non-core Drupal people.
Drupal is very easy to instal
Drupal is very easy to install.
1. Download release to server and unpack
2. Create database and populate using database.mysql file
3. Edit conf.php file
Now, login and configure using the web interface, and potentially download and install some contributed modules.
On any properly configured web host, these steps should be very, very easy, taking no more than 5 minutes. If you are having problems with any of this or get errors you don't understand, you might want to consider getting a more technical fried to install it for you.
I also spend time every day answering questions and giving suggestions here. I tend to skip questions that are answered in the documentation. Good luck with whatever system you all end up choosing.
Well, I've read the instructi
Well, I've read the instructions and have followed those exact instructions. However, the only thing I get is that I can't connect to the mysql database and keep getting the /tmp/socket(2) error. As for not being technical...well...I do have an electrical engineering degree and I've been around computers since the late 1970's so I don't know how you can assume that someone's not technical just because of the lack of good documentation makes it hard to troubleshoot the problem....
did you use phpmyadmin?
It is somewhat true that you cannot get the same support as you do with some other solutions. I have been frustrated so many times as well and had to figure things out myself. There are still some questions I need help with and have posted the questions but there is no answers yet. I just do not want to give up because it is so flexible and powerful in many ways. So just hoping that over time things get better.
For your prpblem:
Did you try phpmyadmin to crete your database? this is what I did using the provided sql file and it was a breeze, as long as you modify your conf.php file correctly.
good luck
kc
MySQL problem
If you get an error referring to the /tmp/socket file, than it is very much out of the scope of Drupal. Your PHP installation is probably not capable of connecting to any MySQL database, since it is trying to use a socket which is not available. Ask your questions at php-general [at] lists.php.net or some other PHP support channel. Please ask questions where they belong. I would not expect PHP installation help from the Drupal community.
mySQL
Check to see that your php install has mySQL support compiled in. If it doesn't then you will have a problem.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Contempt?
That doesn't begin to describe the feelings for the whiny, bad-mouths people who don't appreciate open-source projects...
I've been a member for about 2 minutes, and have seen more people whining about the lack of support, when all I can see are people trying to defend what looks to be a damn fine project.
I haven't even USED it yet, and I've seen more support on this forum then I have on so many others, I might stick around, if not to learn and to help others, then to laugh at the ones not given "Drupal For Dummies"
(And, for the record, I am in no way infringing on the copyrighted material of the "For Dummies" publishers.)
;)~
Well...
maybe instead of defending the product wouldn't it be more practical and productive to just answer the question?? As for whining...I don't think it is considered "whining" when one is asking for, nay, begging for help and all one gets is "well, that's not a < put whatever product you want here > problem". If you don't know the answer then move on...if you do - offer it...or better yet, put it in the FAQ. It's hard to RTFM when there is no FM.
I tend to agree with some...
My experience of Drupal...
It is true that Drupal is very easy to install. The problems come when one tries to use some of the add-on modules.
As for support, I have asked a few questions but have only had one answered. I have never said anything because i'm used to it...
It is also true that some people do not try hard enough to diagnose problems and nor do they search the forum for answers to similar issues.
I always try to search for topics relating to my problem and also try to check my settings as well as read the documentation. Hell I even try to google my error messages.
So after all that, when i finally give in and post for help, it would be nice to have some kind of response to my question.
Recently i posted for assistance with the image_module/node_image
I got no responses at all. now I saw a post from someone who had a similar issue but they did not say whether/how ther got it resolved.
So what I suggest is: Help if/when you can. Just because you find something is easy does not necessarily make it easy for everyone else. Finally, because someone fails to comprehend a very simple thing (to your eyes) does not make them stupid.
Sorry for the long post, this is the first and last time I am going to vent.
Well said!
Well said!