News @ Gameslate

Views 2 reaching its second beta release for Drupal 6 is promising. =)

I may revoke my decision to just move along without it. I'm still torn over whether I should add another delay to my schedule. I'd need at least Views and Organic Groups in stable and upgradeable condition for Drupal 6.

Despite my little frustration rant being mistook, I do have enthusiasm for Drupal still. There's no question over whether I'll stick with it, but whether I continue to upgrade and keep pace is completely dependent on the migration issues eventually getting resolved, which I'm feeling pretty cynical about.

A CMS in particular is something that I want to run smoothly and not have to spend a great deal of time and energy maintaining. To be clear, this is my point of frustration: Drupal doesn't upgrade or migrate easily, if it did then waiting for modules wouldn't be an issue. Views & CCK make it even more difficult, data could be stored and presented in so many different ways.

The big question for myself and the lurkers that I know are following this, is whether I just go ahead with Drupal 5 or wait some more for the key modules I need for Drupal 6, because I'm going to feel pretty stuck to one or the other.

In many ways, it's easier to wait. I can certainly occupy my time elsewhere (my gf is moving in, trust me I have lots to do, plus Age of Conan is coming soon *grin*), but I'm not a mañana person, I like to get things done and wrapped up so I can move on. I think here though, frustrations with delays need to give into the wisdom of patience. =)

Following the holidays pause, I've been a bit stalled (the past two months, eeep) on my server backend work because of the pending release of Drupal 6. The current-at-the-time Drupal 5 was lacking some features in 6 that I really wanted.

As of today, Drupal 6 has been released.

Now however, the new pause is the wait for modules to catch up. Most notably Views and Organic Groups, both of which have been pretty integral to my site designs so far. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long for these modules to rework new versions for Drupal 6.

I'm currently wrapping my head around concepts with Views and CCK, two external modules for Drupal which among the heavy-weight developers are considered must-haves. I understand why they aren't in the core though, they require a different paradigm. This is the power-user stuff.

It's a step past just knowing how to use Drupal. It's learning how to manipulate Drupal to suit my needs. Drupal is meant to be a CMS (Content Management System), but with Views and CCK, it becomes more like a Framework or a Web Development Platform.

Comparing Wordpress, which works exceptionally well as a blogging CMS-- Imagine any CMS as a Fisher Price Little People set, like the old barn set with the animals or maybe the main street set. Great to get as a Christmas gift when you're a kid, it's fun and you can play different ways with it right out of the box.

Drupal (with Views & CCK) is more like getting a set of Lego instead. You can build so much more, but out of the box it's just a pile of coloured bricks. I can make something simple right away, but if I figure out all of the creative ways the pieces fit together I can build things that are much more interesting and elaborate.

My initial interest in Drupal was to get something up and running quickly, then modify using what I already know on the PHP + MySQL coding end. But as I progress with it, I can see the usefulness of learning it thoroughly. Once I do, I should be able to work quicker.

Right now though, the curve feels pretty steep.