The Power of the Dark Side: Lessons Learned From Doing Drupal and WordPress at the Same Time

Transcript

1. THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE

   Lessons learned from doing Drupal and WordPress at the same time.
   MATT JOHNSON
   @xmatt | matt@alleyinteractive.com
   

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2. vs
   

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3. Who am I?
   • Matt Johnson, co-founder, Alley Interactive
   
   • Worked with Drupal since 2007
   
   • Worked with WordPress since 2011
   
   • Retired from Internet flamewars in 1999
   

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4. THE GOOD OL’ DAYS
   Part 1
   

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5. Some History
   • 1996: My first website (middle school
   computer club)
   
   • 2006: My first Drupal site
   
   • 2007: First NY Observer Drupal site
   
   • 2008-10: Major Drupal adoption in media,
   higher ed and enterprise: NBCU, Viacom,
   Zagat, Sony BMG, Economist, UC Berkeley, …
   

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6. Meanwhile…
   • 2003: WordPress forked from b2
   
   • Thought of as “blog software” until about
   2010
   
   • Became popular with journos, bloggers,
   and smaller sites
   
   • Editorial backend won hearts and minds
   

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7. More History
   • 2010: Alley founded, still servicing NY
   Observer Drupal site
   
   • 2011: Alley now servicing lots of other
   Drupal sites; NY Observer asks Alley to
   move its site to WordPress
   

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8. Wait… WordPress?
   You mean that blogging
   platform?!?
   

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9. A DRUPALER’S VIEW OF WORDPRESS
   Part 2
   

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10. Ok…so I can’t just use hook_form_alter to
    mess around with this? Nodes are called posts?
    Modules are called plugins?
    

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11. Getting Used to WordPress
    • Admin and front-end pages are two completely
    different systems.
    
    • No central registry of site URLs.
    
    • Most templates expect the context of a “loop”
    over one or more “posts”, all managed in globals.
    
    • Creating new DB tables not kosher; no custom
    entities except by repurposing posts, users, terms.
    

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12. Losing Your Toys
    • No forms API.
    
    • No fields (in core, anyway).
    
    • No (simple) way to respond to specific
    URLs.
    
    • There are custom content types (“post
    types”), but there’s no UI for them.
    

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13. Giving In to the Dark Side
    • WP’s greatest selling point is its editing
    tools (which, remember, a lot of your
    editorial folks already know and love)
    
    • Its other major selling point is its media
    management.
    

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14. BUT BACK TO DRUPAL
    Part 3
    

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15. Does Drupal Have Problems?
    • Yes.
    
    • You probably already know what they are.
    
    • So let’s talk about what using WordPress
    made us miss about Drupal, and when we
    tend to recommend Drupal.
    

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16. Sites With Complex Data
    • CCK for D5 released in 2006 (when WP
    first introduced user roles)
    
    • CCK complete household name by D6
    
    • Core in D7 (programmable with Features
    etc)
    
    • Use case = whatever you can think of.
    

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17. (BTW: We Built CCK for WordPress)
    

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18. Sites With Custom Form Workflows
    • Drupal forms API: with us since D5, and
    we all know and love it.
    
    • In WP, form data has to be passed back
    and forth with $_POST and $_GET.
    
    • In Drupal, validation and sanitization built-
    in, in WP you’re on your own.
    

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19. WP Lessons for Drupal Sites
    • Avoid defining fields, content types, views,
    etc. in your database. Do it in code.
    
    • Drupal entities are great, but consider if
    repurposing a node, user, or term will do.
    

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20. WHERE ARE WE NOW?
    Part 4
    

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21. Matt Mullenweg’s
    personal site:
    March, 2013
    

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22. Is there a Drupal vs. WP clash?
    Drupal folks say…
    • WordPress is a kids’ toy
    
    • WordPress is just for
    blogging
    
    • The backend is built for
    tiny sites only
    WordPress folks say…
    • Drupal is a byzantine
    nightmare
    
    • All the configuration is in
    the database
    
    • The backend is alienating
    to non-technical folks
    

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23. We don’t think so.
    • Life’s too short for
    holy wars about CMS
    platforms.
    
    • Both Drupal and
    WordPress have
    awesome features.
    

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24. A Client’s Perspective
    • Our clients aren’t typically experts in this
    area; that’s what they need from us.
    
    • They’ve heard from partisans on both
    sides; they want to know what’s best for
    them.
    

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25. The Bottom Line
    • Specific use cases suggest Drupal (complex
    form workflows, wide arrays of content types)
    
    • Others suggest WP (lots of media
    management, challenging editorial culture)
    
    • Speaking from authority on both platforms can
    be incredibly powerful for both sales and
    strategy.
    

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26. Questions?
    

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