4 ms·

I have been developing PHP applications commercially since the start of 2008, using Symfony1 then Symfony2. My current job is using Drupal 7 for the past year

by thejosh 14y ago

I have been developing PHP applications commercially since the start of 2008, using Symfony1 then Symfony2. My current job is using Drupal 7 for the past year or so, and I have found it to be the biggest clusterfuck I have ever dealt with. Very steep learning curve, horrible admin interface (currently designing a new one for our clients), horrible bootstrap time. There are a few saving graces for Drupal 7 such as Drush that make developing a bit easier... but I see Drupal 7 as a CMF as a horrible decision for almost any webapp/intranet app/anything.

rorrr 14y ago
I've been developing PHP for many years, and the best frameworks are always the lightweight ones. Good Drupal developers, who actually understand the framework, are rare. If you can hire one, finding a second one of the same level is like winning a lottery. When I worked on a fairly large Drupal website our Drupal devs would disagree on how to develop some pretty straightforward things. It's a huge clusterfuck of a framework.
- blindhippo 14y ago
  As a "good drupal developer" (I hope!) I can back this statement up big time. My company has 2 developers who know Drupal fairly well but we need to scale up to 4-6 developers at our skill level. They simply do not exist. We get loads of useless "site builders" applying or your prototypical PHP Developer (seperation of layers? why?). Very, very hard to find competent people who are willing to work with Drupal. If you're just starting out and are shopping for a development platform, stay away from Drupal. You'll take more time to develop your MVP, but in the long run you'll save a huge amount of time and money.
level09 14y ago
I have been developing web systems since 2000, I believe I have made at least $150k out of developing Drupal websites, most my clients are small to mid-size companies who only use a few pages and have a few hundred visits/day. hence, I think it is a pretty good system.
- hilko 14y ago
  This is an honest question: if it's mostly a bunch of pages, wouldn't setting up a baseline Ruby on Rails (or similar) site, or using a Ruby on Rails CMS (Locomotive, etc.) be more cost-effective and faster? At worst, you spend a day setting up the basic system that you can then just copy for every new project. I've long used Drupal, building sites ranging from full-blown content providers to the kinds of sites you speak of, but I still find that setting things up, even when 'copying', and clicking around the interface, and so on, take more time than just copying a base rails app and changing some lines of config and code, or branching an existing project at a point where it has most/all the features I need. I might still use Drupal, and I've invested considerable amount of time in understanding it, so I'd really like to know the best reasons why I still would.
  - thejosh 14y ago
    Thing is that most clients want PHP because it runs on everything. They can take their entire site, package up the code + database and move it pretty much anywhere.
    - level09 14y ago
      that is actually one good point, I find deploying PHP systems a lot easier than python ones (ex Django) no need to write any services/complex deployment scripts, just push the files and your website is updated ..
      - thejosh 14y ago
        We host client websites, however sometimes a client may want to take their website and go elsewhere, so it's easier for them to not worry about where their site can run as pretty much any admin can get PHP working. Sure I would love to expand work into other languages, but for the short term it's PHP (symfony2/drupal) for us. :-(
    - hilko 14y ago
      good point. I do run into this issue at times, just haven't had a need to start from scratch with clients in a year. I either support existing wordpress/drupal installs, or work with existing rails apps.

by thejosh 14y ago

rorrr 14y ago

I've been developing PHP for many years, and the best frameworks are always the lightweight ones. Good Drupal developers, who actually understand the framework, are rare. If you can hire one, finding a second one of the same level is like winning a lottery. When I worked on a fairly large Drupal website our Drupal devs would disagree on how to develop some pretty straightforward things. It's a huge clusterfuck of a framework.

blindhippo 14y ago
As a "good drupal developer" (I hope!) I can back this statement up big time. My company has 2 developers who know Drupal fairly well but we need to scale up to 4-6 developers at our skill level. They simply do not exist. We get loads of useless "site builders" applying or your prototypical PHP Developer (seperation of layers? why?). Very, very hard to find competent people who are willing to work with Drupal. If you're just starting out and are shopping for a development platform, stay away from Drupal. You'll take more time to develop your MVP, but in the long run you'll save a huge amount of time and money.

level09 14y ago

I have been developing web systems since 2000, I believe I have made at least $150k out of developing Drupal websites, most my clients are small to mid-size companies who only use a few pages and have a few hundred visits/day. hence, I think it is a pretty good system.

hilko 14y ago
This is an honest question: if it's mostly a bunch of pages, wouldn't setting up a baseline Ruby on Rails (or similar) site, or using a Ruby on Rails CMS (Locomotive, etc.) be more cost-effective and faster? At worst, you spend a day setting up the basic system that you can then just copy for every new project. I've long used Drupal, building sites ranging from full-blown content providers to the kinds of sites you speak of, but I still find that setting things up, even when 'copying', and clicking around the interface, and so on, take more time than just copying a base rails app and changing some lines of config and code, or branching an existing project at a point where it has most/all the features I need. I might still use Drupal, and I've invested considerable amount of time in understanding it, so I'd really like to know the best reasons why I still would.
- thejosh 14y ago
  Thing is that most clients want PHP because it runs on everything. They can take their entire site, package up the code + database and move it pretty much anywhere.
  - level09 14y ago
    that is actually one good point, I find deploying PHP systems a lot easier than python ones (ex Django) no need to write any services/complex deployment scripts, just push the files and your website is updated ..
    - thejosh 14y ago
      We host client websites, however sometimes a client may want to take their website and go elsewhere, so it's easier for them to not worry about where their site can run as pretty much any admin can get PHP working. Sure I would love to expand work into other languages, but for the short term it's PHP (symfony2/drupal) for us. :-(
  - hilko 14y ago
    good point. I do run into this issue at times, just haven't had a need to start from scratch with clients in a year. I either support existing wordpress/drupal installs, or work with existing rails apps.