In defense of small Drupal

In Dries' keynote at Drupalcon Baltimore, he said "Drupal is for ambitious digital experiences" and maybe it's not for the smaller, less ambitious sites that people used it for in the past. The implication is that maybe SaaS-based solutions like Wix or Squarespace or Wordpress.com would be better solutions in those cases.

Dries articulated (in a particularly diplomatic way ;-)) something that others have been saying or feeling for a while now, in a couple of different (and sometimes contradictory ways): "Drupal is for bigger sites. For the enterprise. Not for the little guy. Not for me anymore."

However, I'd like to argue in defense of small Drupal!

There isn't anything really inherent in the technology that makes Drupal 8, that prevents it from being used for less ambitious sites like it was in the past. But there are some needless technological hurdles that we'd need to solve.

But I believe the benefits of solving those issues would help to revitalize Drupal 8 with the same energy that got Drupal here in the first place!

In this core conversation, I'd like to talk about why I think this is important, describe some of the problems, and then open up discussion on the premise, as well as dig into solving some of those problems with the community.

Transcript

1. In Defense of Small Drupal A Core Conversation
2. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. David Snopek • I’m dsnopek on Drupal.org • (Co-)Maintainer of 20+ projects on Drupal.org • Member of the Drupal Security Team • Co-Organizer of the Drupal414 meetup • Co-Founder of myDropWizard • … but most importantly ... 2
3. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. I’m Tata! 3 S a s z a & E w
4. This is a Core Conversation!
5. “Small” Drupal! Ok… So, what’s that?
6. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Hobbyist Drupal • Freelance Drupal • Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Drupal • Non-techie Drupal • One-person Drupal In other words... 6
7. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Is Drupal only for The Enterprise now? • Dries: “ambitious digital experiences” • Some people are asking: “Is Drupal not for me anymore?” • Are we losing something with Drupal 8? Why are we talking about this? 7
8. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. If we traveled back in time to 2013… 8
9. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. … and asked: What is Drupal? 9
10. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • A flexible framework for building web applications • You can build anything with it: • Blog or marketing site • E-commerce • Social media or community site • What ever you want to do, “there’s a module for that” • It’s all about the legos • You can build amazingly powerful things without writing ANY code, just point and click What is Drupal (circa 2013)? 10
11. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. Other web frameworks... 11 D e v e l o p e r U s e r s S it e b u il d e r
12. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. In Drupal, “site builders” are thing! 12 D e v e l o p e r U s e r s S it e b u il d e r
13. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. Drupal has never been easy... 13
14. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • The “bar” for getting into Drupal stayed roughly the same for a long time • And where that bar was set, allowed the Drupal community to grow into what it is • We moved the bar a little higher with Drupal 8 But... 14
15. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Can download and extract ZIP files • Can work an FTP application to upload stuff • Some rudimentary knowledge of HTML The Key: With limited knowledge, you can get started, and be very dangerous very quickly! Qualif i cations for being a “site builder”? 15
16. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Learns to apply a patch • Learns to copy-paste PHP snippets into… places • Learns to modify templates in the theme The Key: The more you dig in, the more you learn, the more you can accomplish! As a site builder levels up... 16
17. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Really learning PHP and writing proper modules • Really learning HTML, CSS and theming and stuff • Using the CLI (Git, Drush, Drupal console, composer, etc) The Key: Maybe you’d have never gotten here without the earlier stages? Some will move on to advanced stuff! 17
18. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • How many people here started out as professional web developers? • Lots of BIG people in our community started out as site builders • Maybe they’d never have gotten here without the “on ramp”? Ode to the Accidental Drupalist 18
19. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Yeah, I think so • I suspect site builders make up the majority of contributors to the community • Who are we if put up extra hurdles (however small) to the people who got us here in the first place? Are we losing something by raising the bar? 19
20. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Some people are kind of retconning this into a conscious decision • “Hey, making Drupal into serious software is really better anyway” • I don’t think anyone really strategically decided to raise the bar… it just kinda happened • Maybe it doesn’t hurt you but pretending like we did it on purpose doesn’t really help Or maybe it’s better this way? 20
21. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Keep “Classic Drupalers” in the fold • Revitalize/energize the community • Grow Drupal adoption We have a lot to gain by solving this! 21
22. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • So, hey, let’s do that! • It won’t be easy • We have a kind of technical debt These problems are not UNsolvable 22
23. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • So, hey, let’s do that! • It won’t be easy • We have a kind of technical complexity debt These problems are not UNsolvable 23
24. What are the problems? Or: What new “qualif i cations” must a Drupal 8 site builder have?
25. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Local development environment (or multiple environments) • Drupal-specific hosting • ★ Composer ★ • Git • Probably the command-line (see previous two points) • More serious PHP • Harder to copy-paste your way to victory • Updates are a little harder • … what else? New site builder “qualif i cations” 25
26. Current initiatives that may help!
27. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Composer Support in Core initiative • https://www.drupal.org/project/ideas/issues/2958021 • Site Builder Tool/Project Browser initiative • https://www.drupal.org/project/ideas/issues/2940733 • Automatic Updates initiative • https://www.drupal.org/project/ideas/issues/2940731 • … and more! Some of this is already underway! 27
28. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Making Drupal 8 more robust to badly behaving modules • aka. let’s fail a little more gracefully • Making Drupal 8 more performant on cheap, crappy hosting • … probably more? Somethings that aren’t addressed... 28
29. Some “solutions” Other than f i xing everything...
30. Some “solutions” Other than f i xing everything… aka. What can we do… without doing anything?
31. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • There’s two primary narratives in the community… • You have to upgrade / build new sites on Drupal 8! • Drupal 8 is lame - I’m out! • Drupal 7 is just as good as it always was! • By NOT saying it’s OK to build on Drupal 7, we’re pushing people out of Drupal! • Our experience with D6LTS, is that most people are not upgrading to Drupal 7/8 • But if we’re gonna lower the bar back down, we need to keep people in Drupal until we do • … and that means building on Drupal 7 “It’s OK to build new sites on Drupal 7” 31
32. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • … because it kind of still is for old school site builders! • So whatchya gonna do until it’s ready? • Not build web sites? • Try another platform? • If Drupal 8 doesn’t work for you, sticking with Drupal 7 is better for the community than the alternatives • So, we only hurt ourselves by not keeping Drupal 7 on the table as an option Imagine Drupal 8 is still under development... 32
33. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • This is the #1 question at the myDropWizard booth here at Drupalcon • “My biggest concern with Drupal right now, is what’s going to happen with the Drupal 7 End-of-Life” • We should probably do something other than EOL it when Drupal 9 comes out • So, let’s decide and announce that sooooooon! What about Drupal 7 LTS? 33
34. w w w. m yd ro p wi za rd. • Just saying, “Sorry! We didn’t mean to leave you behind” • We’re coming back to get to pick you up • … I just gotta drop these “ambitious digital experiences” off first • And giving them something to do while they wait • No code - just words; the code can come later Messaging to the people “left behind” 34
35. Conversation time! Let’s jam