Hi guys,
In the pub on Sunday with a couple of devs, we were thinking it might be interesting to discuss some other CMSs with specific regards to how we might be able to "sell" Drupal to people who are already using those systems, and how we would be able implement specific features / see if there are any gaps in Drupal etc.
I can talk about Joomla / component development for Joomla, for example. Would anyone be interested in me going through Joomla so we can tear it apart and look at the carcass? :D I'd like to think that there shouldn't be anything that Joomla can do that Drupal can't, but it might stir some debate...
What does the group think? What sort of format do we think might suit this, a presentation, system breakdown, then we go through feature by feature and see how Drupal does the equivalent?
I personally think we'd gain a lot from looking at other systems...
Comments
A good place to start are
A good place to start are site like http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ but it does rely on those site being up-to-date (one guy had a battle gettign the drupal profile up -to-date).
Personally, with 15,000 modules in place, I wouldn't want to start comparing!
We ave been through several CMS offerings before landing on planet Drupal - maybe a good discussion on what other people have used?
Personally, I'd love to see a
Personally, I'd love to see a comparison with Symfony2 CMF as it seems to have beaten drupal to a few items on our road map.
Comparing systems
Who are you targeting this at? You say "people who are already using those systems" - end users? developers? designers?
Drupal provides a common language in which we can discuss software requirements and involve all stakeholders - designers, developers, end users, clients, business owners, etc. which I am yet to see in any other system.
Well, clearly not end users,
Well, clearly not end users, as they have no idea what is usually driving the system.
I'd probably say site builders at the very least, there is someone I have been doing Joomla work for for the last year that I would love to convert over, but its hard work, he asks me "how would you do X in Drupal" and I struggle.
The point isn't that I am evangelising a competing CMS, the point is that we have people who have used other systems, and sometimes you have to get a perspective on what the competition is doing as a way of reflectively looking at yourself.
Its usually why people fall in love with their second language, not because there is anything special about it, but because it reflects a great deal upon the first one...
I figured it would be useful to have someone come along each week with a different system and we look at how we'd use Drupal to do what that system can do, so if we have people who have developed in a number of systems, we can all learn something...
Agreed
I really have little idea about joomla, wordpress etc etc since i've not used them in years... let alone plone, django, sitecore and whatever else I've never used.
Say I'm talking to a wordpress fanboi I really don't have the words to explain what's up.
On the other hand systems like Django can provide us with interesting designs to implement in our own systems, I believe the theming in django is similar to the proposed Twig theming in drupal 8.
I think a really good place to start would be to look at each of the CMS's mentioned in his denver keynote (the slides are on pages 84-86 from this downloadable pdf: http://buytaert.net/files/state-of-drupal-march-2012.pdf).
Also we may as well continue the original conversation on here, which was "What features do you love in other CMSs which arean't in Drupal"
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
I think this'd be a useful
I think this'd be a useful thing to do (disclaimer: I would say that, having chaired Sunday's round table on this very topic).
Though I'm not an expert user of the system, I'd be happy to do a Sitecore walkthrough at some point. I've identified a couple of Sitecore features that people seemed to think would be really good to bring into Drupal; this must be true of other CMSs too.
If we were going to do this, would it be best to dedicate a whole session to examining different systems, or stagger them over several weeks?
have a look at that pdf, page
have a look at that pdf, page 86... that page lists how well Dries thinks Drupal does at certain aspects of content management.
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Yep, inline editing in
Yep, inline editing in particular is something that has quite a wow factor with clients and would greatly improve the authoring experience for a sizable group of end-users.
I think with Drupal you
I think with Drupal you really forget just how much it is doing for you, by learning about other systems we can appreciate what Drupal does and does not offer.
eg drupal_add_js, the Forms API, all the caching layers and so on
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Well, thats one reason why I
Well, thats one reason why I like the Drupal Javascript system, compared to the mess that is in Joomla...
You really have to see other systems to appreciate what you have...
Sometimes its the software, sometimes its the software ecosystem surrounding the software, sometimes its the community in that ecosystem.
I feel that its healthy to look at other systems, not as the "evil competition" but as other options, where we choose to pick Drupal.
I plan to make heavy use of NodeJS integrated with Drupal, for example...
"Its usually why people fall
"Its usually why people fall in love with their second language, not because there is anything special about it, but because it reflects a great deal upon the first one..."
That's a very interesting observation - probably applicable to not just software but life in general...
Being a bit of a CMS tart (ie
Being a bit of a CMS tart (ie choosing different ones for different jobs) I would be really interested in learning more. Quite new to drupal, so, comparisons are always good.
Are there any CMS's you could
Are there any CMS's you could teach us about?
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Existing work in this area
There's a lot of work going on in this area for the Drupal 8 Core Usability Initiative:
http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/drupal-core/usability
So is this something that
So is this something that people would be interested in?
I was thinking we could start off, piece by piece, and after each one, discuss options/comparisons in Drupal :
1) Installation
2) User Management
3) Template management
4) External Module management (integration with other systems)
5) Overall System architecture
5) Ecosystem
I think we should limit ourself from talking about anything that isn't a part of the core system, we won't get benefits from talking about custom modules for Joomla etc. But certainly the general stuff...
What do people think?
I think...
I think it's a great idea and would be even greater if it could be connected with similar efforts which are going on around the community in various places right now. There was a similar session at the recent Front End United event in Amsterdam which may be worth checking out the results of.
Any suggestions how we could
Any suggestions how we could do that? I was thinking small scale discussions as a way to build conversation, as opposed to influencing / getting too involved in projects already under way... not that I am discouraging those who wish to get involved to do so...
I was simply thinking to get a few people in if people wanted to volunteer show off a system, then we get together to discuss how we'd do certain parts in Drupal...
DRY
Drupal exists because we don't want to keep reinventing the wheel when writing software.
IMHO what you're doing here is a bit like reinventing the wheel - all I'm saying is we should apply the same principles here.
I would've thought it would be worth at least a little bit of searching to find out.
Excuse any terseness of tone, a little tired at the moment after DrupalCamp Brighton!!
Getting people to speak about
Getting people to speak about other systems isn't 'Reinventing the wheel' - how am I going to learn about sitecore for example unless someone comes and teaches me, particularly someone who speaks 'drupalese' who is able to translate the jargon.
Yes we could all go and read up about 10+ cms's but that would take each of us ages and be of little use. I think getting drupal people in who have experience with other systems is a highly valuable idea. Especially if they can highlight things missing from Drupal or great things in drupal we take for granted.
That link to drupal 8 ux is certainly interesting but not hugely relevant since it doesn't mention any other CMS's.
Imaging how cool it would be to get a Django expert in to wow us with loads of cool stuff we've never thought of, and perhaps show them a thing or two about drupal.
One of the main points here is that if someone says let's use X cms then we actually have no frame of reference to insist on using Drupal, and you know what, sometimes Drupal isn't the best fit and it's a disservice to our clients to tell them it is.
Lets find out what other systems do better, and contribute code to address those weaknesses.
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
All I'm saying...
All I'm saying is that we are not the only people within the wider Drupal community to do this, so teaming up locally of course is great, but also feeding back into the system so we build on the shoulders of others is good too, which is why I make sure we video the sessions at drupalcamps.
You don't know what you don't know, etc.
for example
for example, you may find there are some CMSs which haven't been looked into that much, or certain areas of ones which have been looked into need to be investigated into more so by focusing on those will help the overall process.
Oh, so you are up for it?
Oh, so you are up for it? Sorry must have mis-read your post thinking you weren't interested.
Of course we can document our findings and report back to the community.
So have other drupal folks already done SWOT analyses on other systems?
I'm interested to see what Symfony actually does, and what drupal will potentially 'bring to the table'.
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Absolutely!
Absolutely, and what's more, I'll even look into what others are doing too around this area and find some more relevant links than the first one I found earlier for the D8 UX stuff.
I've made you and Craig both admins on the system - why not one of you set up next Monday's event at theskiff? I can send you the passwords for the twitter account although I think Kev & Guy know them already so perhaps share responsibilities.
Off to http://www.drupalbusiness.org/ to work on the ven & marketing stuff, let me know if you'd like me to take special note of anything on the schedule and I'll do my best to assist.
Back Sunday eve so see you @theskiff Monday eve!
Timely
...for content managers:
http://buytaert.net/announcing-spark-authoring-improvements-for-drupal-7...
Apologies, message was
Apologies, message was supposed to be reply to Steves'...
Who can speak on monday 7th may?
So who is up for a quick intro talk on the CMS of their choice?
Shoseki mentioned Joomla
alxbridge mentioned sitecore
78doog - is there anything you would like to talk to the group about?
I suggest a quick overview, maybe 15-20 mins to demo the system, maybe install a module, or look at how theming works, or anything you like really.
With the main focus on identifying things that are much better or much worse than drupal.
It would be great if we could use these sessions to identify an issue with drupal that we would like to collectively fix... either by figuring out a solution already available through contrib OR writing the code ourselves (or a combination of the two i guess).
The only thing I can really bring to this discussion is that I used to use gallery2 and it was considerably better at it's limited functionality than anything drupal can offer, i've not used gallery 3 but would love to know if anyone has used it, or if it's the role model for Media module :)
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
I've got bank holiday plans
I've got bank holiday plans for the 7th unfortunately, but I'd be happy to cover Sitecore on another date.
Bank Holiday
Ah, I forgot it was bank holiday on Monday!
I see from http://www.theskiff.org/Bookings there's no-one booked in for Monday 14th so we could reschedule the meeting for then, just need to email bookings@theskiff.org and let them know.
Bank Holiday
{removed double-post}
Ah, yeah no point meeting on
Ah, yeah no point meeting on bank holiday... 14th suits me
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Im good with the 14th - 3rd
Im good with the 14th - 3rd monday meet leave as is?
Kev
Plone or Symfony?
If there's interest in Plone or Symfony, I'm happy to give an overview...
Rod
kev: 3rd monday meet leave as
kev: 3rd monday meet leave as is? yeah i think so, means we get 2 in a row but at least it's less confusing.. well i think it is.
rodtatham: Would really love to see a symfony demo, and i'd quite like to see a plone demo
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Its quite funny time that you
Its quite funny time that you have suggestion about Joomla :D
Anyway its also enjoying moment to have fun to hear debates of others
Does anyone have experience
Does anyone have experience using Magento and also Drupal Commerce? or perhaps 2 people with experience of 1 of them.
That would be an interesting one to examine.
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Guy has played with it a bit
Guy has played with it a bit now and we have got one live shop so have some experience - happy to chip in what we've learned and whats possible currently. Commerce is being actively updated now with lots of contribs coming online...
Built quite a few Magento
Built quite a few Magento sites and 1 Drupal commerce. Would prefer to watch a few first to get a lie of the land so to speak.... being a noob n all.
What are some of Magento's
What are some of Magento's killer features, and some things that you dislike?
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
Monday 14th?
So... what's the decision, are we having a meeting on Monday for this? If so, let me know as we'll need to book theskiff, post the event details, etc. etc. Unless you want to leave it for the next 1st of the month which will be Monday 4th.
I may not be able to make either as my father is visiting next week and mother on 1st.
This Monday...
I'll have to skip this one too, I'm afraid...
I'd be interested.
So how come I've managed to miss almost all of this conversation? My subscription has been dropped down the back of some CMS or other...
Yes. I'd be interested in this discussion. Splendid.
cms comparison
Yeah gdo subs suck... hopefully the current efforts to move to commons succeed!
I believe if you leave then rejoin the group that will fix it but I can't as I started the group.
I found a suitable group for this comparison
http://groups.drupal.org/cms-feature-reviews
Is there anywhere on there we can help add some more info?
Yeah - I rejoined and it
Yeah - I rejoined and it seems to be behaving now.
So...
So... its Friday, if you want to hold this meeting on Monday someone will need to mail theskiff bookings, post the event on this group, tweet out if want to, etc.
I won't be around and don't have a skiff key any more so that'll need to be sorted too... and I have a mountain load of work to get through so don't really have time to organise a meeting I'm not going to :D
Craig? Matt? I've added you all as admins to the group...
So...
So... its Friday, if you want to hold this meeting on Monday someone will need to mail theskiff bookings, post the event on this group, tweet out if want to, etc.
I won't be around and don't have a skiff key any more so that'll need to be sorted too... and I have a mountain load of work to get through so don't really have time to organise a meeting I'm not going to :D
Craig? Matt? I've added you all as admins to the group...
I think it's a little late
I think it's a little late for Mondays' session, plus it is the pub version, so perhaps go to the pub this Monday and think about making the next one a proper session?
next monday
there isn't an 'official' meeting this monday, last one didn't happen cos of bank holiday, so next one is a week on monday, 21st.
Pub
Pub monday sounds good to me
Might be useful to go through the highs and lows of the drupal weekender. What worked, what didn't (if anything)... and discuss plans for these CMS sessions.
The link that Steve posted looks excellent, lots of in depth analysis of other cms's
Steve, email the details for the twitter account and i'll get the tweets out
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
21st
we should keep it to the original schedule then and meet on 21st in the pub... I'm not around this monday and I don't want to miss the drupalcamp chats
Lets do both. Monday 14th:
Lets do both.
Monday 14th: The unofficial beer drinking drupal renegade
Monday 21st: The official pub meet [and beer drinking]
Drupal Developer : Brighton UK
ok
ok can you set them up on the system then please? trying to pass on responsibilities for when I disappear off traveling again :D
I'll send you the twitter deets
Compromise
OK, so as a compromise, why don't we still do pub on Monday but just be sure not to talk about the DrupalCamp (so Steve doesn't miss out) and as Matt says, plan for the proposed CMS sessions and whatever else. Plus that way we'll be back on target for 2 meetups a month.
Unofficial beer drinking Drupal renegade session
Read: Dan & Matt just want to go to the pub and nobody is going to stop them.