I began using Drupal right about the time that D5 launched. Though at the time there were relatively few modules available, I decided it was better from the start to choose the newer version and expect that the contributed module base would develop quickly. I'm glad I made that choice: D5 did develop quickly and D4 modules almost as quickly were left behind.
Some months ago, D6 was released. I've been running a local test site on D6, but nothing more so far. From what I have observed, contrib module development for D6 has been much slower than it was for D5. (Part of this perception, though, may be that I'm a more experienced Drupal user now and want the modules I've been using to hurry up and catch up.
One thing I have not been able to accomplish is a good upgrade of a D5 site to D6, so I am hesitant to expect an upgrade will be possible. I'm expecting instead to limit my use of D6 to new sites, or manually transfer content from a D5 to a D6 site.
I am about to begin production on a student newspaper site and must quickly choose between D5 and D6. Now that CCK and Views are ready for D6, I am leaning toward the D6 option. But Panels2, which I use extensively in my current D5 sites, seems a long way off on the horizon. ((I'm as big an advocate of Panels as Steve's recent post indicates he is. - http://groups.drupal.org/node/14041)
My question to the group now: D5 or D6? Which would you choose for a site launching this month, and why?
Comments
Depends
I think the choice of D5/D6 depends primarily on (1) your and the website owners' will to experiment, and (2) if you can make the site you want with the existing D6 modules. These are interconnected - many modules are available in beta or alpha releases, and using these for a site only ok if you are willing to experiment.
If I was to launch a site this month, and some downtime is acceptable, I'd try to do it with D6. There are clear advantages of D6 over D5 - not so much functionality as performance, security and not least usability - and using D6 also promotes the development of D6 modules. But odds are that the modules will force you to choose D5.
There's a related post in this group with the title Drupal base - v6 or v5.
Good luck!
//Johan Falk, Sweden
Thanks, Johan, both for the
Thanks, Johan, both for the advice and for the link to the previous thread (which somehow I missed while I was on vacation). I guess the big sticking point for me right now is images. I've never been pleased with images in D5 and hoping it's better with D6, but toying with the modules I see that the imagefield/imagecache combination I've been using in D5 doesn't seem to be ready yet. Will have to play around more with D6 this week and then make my decision. The saving grace (perhaps) is that we are planning in any case on launching a beta version of our site, so using D6 may be okay for that...
What if you have a 6-22 month horizon?
This is a great discussion, and it's something we're discussing at length on my team.
Our "Printcasting" service -- a Knight News Challenge project -- will be built in Drupal using existing and custom modules. It launches first in one city (Bakersfield) next March, but about a year later it will be used by at least five other sites, many likely newspapers. Maybe some of you reading this thread will be among them.
There are a lot of things we want to do that can be accomplished by using modules that are readily available in Drupal 5. However, all of our work must be open-sourced at the end of the project and we may even do some of that earlier. The Knight Foundation wants as many people as possible to use the tools and concepts they fund.
If you had something that would first launch in 6 months, and be modified for 15 months after that, would you go with Drupal 5 or 6? I'm thinking 6. The problem is that there are a lot of modules that won't work now in 6 so it could set us back a bit.
Well, it's hard to make a
Well, it's hard to make a general statement about whether you should still go for D5 rather than D6. You mention that there are "a lot of modules that won't work now in 6" but that really doesn't matter unless it's the modules that are crucial to your project (Printcasting) that aren't yet available for D6 and won't be anytime soon -- and there's CCK, Views 2, soon Views Datasource for xml exports and a host of options that are already available for D6, so I don't know if that's the case.
Another consideration for a project of your size that intends to contribute back to the community (which the average student newspaper won't because they hardly ever have the resources for sustained custom development) is that when you'll eventually want to upgrade to D6, you'll be doing some double work as upgrades to the custom modules you've made for D5 won't write themselves. This will offset some of the waiting time you might experience if you go with D6 right now. Waiting time that can be spent usefully by helping with ports of D5 modules you need in D6, perhaps? ;-)
For our project...
For our latest project at Morris, which has an October deadline, we're using Drupal 5 ... for the time being. As much as we'd prefer to use D6, we found ourselves too often reaching for modules that either weren't there, or weren't in release condition. We'll upgrade when we can.
So long as you don't paint yourself into a corner by hacking core modules, changing the database structure, or something similarly inappropriate, upgrades are pretty simple and straightforward.
All in the timing
In your original post, you say:
For a site launching this month, I'd go with D5. That is a very short time frame -- going with D5 is safe, and whenever you are confronted with a tight development schedule, being safe is a good thing.
FunnyMonkey
Tools for Teachers
FunnyMonkey
Thanks, everyone. I
Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the advice. I've decided it will be best to stick with D5 for now, but to design our site with only the "must have" modules (CCK, Views, Panels, and so on). Hopefully that will make our wait for D6 shorter and also make the transition easier when the modules are all available.
CCK, Views, Panels, and so on
CCK, Views, Panels all work reasonably well on D6 so the questions is "and so on".
CCK, Views, Panels are all significantly developed in D6.
With that policy, you may as well take the plunge.
The two big sticking points
The two big sticking points for me are Panels2 and images for CCK version 6. Regarding Panels, from looking at the module page and discussion in issues and the Panels group it sounded to me like it is not yet ready for production on a D6 site, and no word on when it might be ready. Is this incorrect? I would be curious to hear who is working with Panels for D6 and whether you think it's ready for a live site.
Regarding CCK images, in Drupal 5 I am using Imagefield plus Imagecache. Looking at the D6 versions, it seems there is now an additional module required for this combo (imageapi?) and, according to what I saw on the relevant sites, one or more of these modules is still in alpha or beta state and may undergo complete rewrites, so use at your own risk. Again, if anyone is using these and can offer advice, it would be appreciated.
Sorry about the imprecision in my report above on the state of these modules. I'm doing this in a rush, and from memory based on searches I did last week.