By keym on

I’ve read through hours of drupal handbooks, forum posts and articles. I’ve also spent time on other cms’s and a bit of time with other php frameworks.

Drupal seems to offer alot for the developer who wants to churn out quality web applications as easily and reliably as possible.

Despite the ease of using other php based MVC frameworks, some easier to learn than drupal, most are lacking in larger granularity site management building blocks which are integral to serious web development projects.

To name a few:

- user management,
- password/authentication management,
- access control,
- site templating,
- site/menu/article/page/module management,
- log/audit trail management,
- indexing/searching/categorizing,
- content management,
- multi-language support
- development utilities

For example, many MVC frameworks offer sessions, forms, encryption and security management classes, but drupal offers all of those classes already assembled for you (integrated, tested, debugged, and soaked) into a full-blown user and password/authentication management subsystem with access control, and gives you api's into them. Same with site management and content management subsystems.

I see drupal as a "more powerful than most" php development framework.

So, the question just ..begs.. for the asking:

- What projects should a developer NOT use drupal for? (there has to be something, nothing is perfect) ?

Comments

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

drupal ecommerce is weak, but that is changing.

drupal is have backwards compatibility for code, so if you customize extensively you'll need a drupal programmer on staff to deal with upgrades.

cre8d’s picture

cre8d commented

If they're wanting something much simpler - such as a single blog or single forum - there are other specialised tools (e.g. Wordpress, Vanilla). Drupal can be a bit over the top in these cases.

keym’s picture

keym commented

Ok,

So far we have:

- ecommerce apps might not be the best apps to build with drupal because the ecommerce capabilities are currently weaker than some other opensource projects out there (see oscommerce, CRE loaded, Zencart)

- drupal is powerful so if you need something simpler, use that instead (see wordpress, vanilla)

I was wondering, can anyone think of certain "types" of content or certain "types" of workflows which are particularly problematic for drupal (again, from the developers, not users, perspective please)?

Rosamunda’s picture

Rosamunda commented

Now this question is interesting. It is old, but still interesting :)

I´ve recently opened a discussion about Drupal as a framework for creating web apps, and received some insight from Anton.
In simple words, Drupal is an excellent tool, that could create web apps, but has certain limitations indeed.
So, I think I could add to your list:

* Dealing with mathematics. If you want to create an administrative interface to deal with customers and have to do some math (if customers payed less than wht they ought to, and next month you have to charge them with an interest rate). I don´t think it´s the easier stuff.

* You have to adapt to Drupal´s database and the "drupal way of thinking", which isn´t really bad thing.

Rosamunda’s picture

Rosamunda commented

I would like to ask this question out loud:

Could Drupal be used to create something like OpenBravo ERP?
Like Postbooks Accounting Project?
Or maybe like Adaptive Planning Express, that replaces MS Excel in many ways?

Could Drupal be able to create an accounting software?

Please, don´t take me wrong here. I´m a Drupal lover just trying to know Drupal limits for a big project that I´m working on.