Migrating to Wordpress
The rumors are true. I've gone over to the dark side. While this site -- jeff.viapositiva.net -- is still running Drupal until I can migrate all the content, I'll be moving over to a new streamlined blog over the next few weeks. That blog will be running WordPress.
Why? Have I abandoned Drupal? Of course not. I spend a lot of time working with Drupal -- building sites with it, helping clients figure out solutions to esoteric problems, writing new tools for other developers... It's easy, though, to get tunnel vision. When I joined the Drupal community a little over four years ago, I was an outsider. I'd been working on Windows software for years, and had spent time with tools like DotNetNuke, Rainbow, Xoops, Movable Type, and TikiWiki. Drupal's approach to solving problems like organizing content was a breath of fresh air. After some time juggling multiple CMS platforms, I made the 100% switch and never looked back.
During the first couple of years of my involvement in the project, I drilled deeper and deeper, submitting patches for modules and then Drupal core itself. Eventually I was rewriting key pieces of the core software itself and working closely with the Drupal ninjas who'd started the project. It's pretty thrilling to get involved, become knowledgable, and have an actual hand in shaping a tool that you love to use.
So, why the switch on my blog? Two reasons. Simply put, the Drupal community's biggest weakness is its insularity. The folks who are most knowledgable about Drupal, and spend the most time building and enhancing it, are the least involved in other projects, the least likely to be getting first-hand experience working with other tools like Wordpress, Django, Joomla!, Ning, and so on. There are exceptions to that, of course, and even a degree of tunnel vision isn't unique to Drupal. Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress fame isn't spending his days cruising the CCK issue queue, after all.
But as we look to build and improve Drupal, it's critically important that we keep our field of vision wide. When we talk about improving the Drupal administrative user experience, are we carefully studying other tools' solutions to the same problems? Are we just skimming screenshots and feature lists, or are we using those tools and becoming familiar with how they work in addition to how they look?
Beyond the goal of improving Drupal, there's a second reason. It's easy to allow my familiarity with the platform to blind me to better solutions; after all, I'm the guy who cloned Twitter in Drupal just to show it could be done. The fact that a Drupal expert can do something with Drupal doesn't mean that they should, however. Forcing Drupal into tasks it's not well suited for is like using a Swiss Army Knife to cook breakfast -- it demonstrates flexibility, yes, but it's also pretty frustrating. If my goal is to blog, quickly and simply, why not use WordPress? It's designed specifically for that task, and it does a great job.
Over the next few weeks, as I embark on my migration, I'll be posting more about my thoughts and experiences with the new platform. It should be quite the adventure!
I see what you did there.
I see what you did there. >_>
hope it's a joke like this:
hope it's a joke like this: http://blamcast.net/articles/drupalmodules-com-migrating-to-wordpress
is this an april fools' day
is this an april fools' day joke or not? migrating to wordpress?
I can understand
I can understand that after 4 years you would want a change, nobody would blame you. But let's all hope now that D7 can get you to switch back, right :)
Noooo..
My last comment was an april fools joke too ...! *damnit!*
Doh!
You totally had me going! Happy April Fool's Day!!
Two Responses
If this is an April Fool's Joke
You should really stop and consider the points you've made in jest. I run a freelance design/development shop, and despite the fact that I would recommend Drupal to the vast majority of my clients, I still blog with Wordpress (http://www.brandonmorrison.com), and would recommend it to anybody who wants to do a blog. Why? At the moment, it's the better tool for blogging. It has a well thought out interface that's tailored specifically to blogging, and it does it well. Sure, I could set up Drupal to do the exact same functionality and a whole lot more, but Wordpress is well suited to my needs at the moment, and those needs aren't likely to change anytime soon.
If this is not an April Fools Joke
You picked a lousy day to announce this. ;-)
Bravo
I applaud your open mindedness, and I hope this is sincere despite today's date.
The comments in this thread -- the fact that people are appalled that you would want to expand your breadth of knowledge and forsake their precious -- prove your point to a tee.
Be aware of why other products are popular
Migrating to Joomla would have been a better prank!
I agree with other posters that spending more time with WordPress and other CMS and blogging platforms is a good idea; there is a lot to be learned from how they have implemented features and provide good usability. There are many good reasons why WP is so popular. As a coder, I often dwell more on technical possibilities than the experience of non-technical users. We owe it to the community to know more about how other products are making things easier for people to use communication tools. BTW, one of my favorite consumer interfaces is Tivo, darned easy to use.
April First will now be known
April First will now be known as international WordPress Migration Day!
Typo3
Good.
Please try Typo3 instead of WP. :D Drupal could certainly use the theming and page elements capabilities it offers for years now.
duplicate
April Fool's Joke fail
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A prudent man
Finally, Jeff! Who needs all these crazy features in Drupal anyway. My head is still aching from the one time I tried it...
And the really important ones will be ported over to WP in a minute. Go, chap!
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[...] Admin placed an interesting blog post on Migrating to Wordpress | via positivaHere’s a brief overviewI spend a lot of time working with Drupal — building sites with it, helping clients figure out solutions to esoteric problems, writing new tools for other developers… It’s easy, though, to get tunnel vision. …. The ampersands of Linux — Taking an idea from Use the Best Available Ampersand and a list of pre-installed fonts from the Complete Guide to Pre-Installed Fonts in Linux, Mac, and Windows, Mark Pilgrim presents a complete list of the ampersand characters … [...]
I firmly believe that Drupal
I firmly believe that Drupal could learn a lot from WordPress, so many a true word HAS been spoken in jest. Still wondering if you were serious though...
I read this 2 days late on my
I read this 2 days late on my RSS feed. I thought, OMG the world really is coming to an end. Ass.
Enough of the "Is this/is
Enough of the "Is this/is this not an April Fool's joke?" musings. The only matter of substance is what O'Reilly animal will your Using WordPress book introduce?
It's still a good point
All April Fool's stuff aside I still think Jeff brings up a valid point. I use mostly Drupal for customer work, but still insist on using WP for some personal blogging. Using WP for a simple blog is a real eye opener in ease of use point of view. WP is not even nearly perfect, but it works out of the box and has a nice iPhone app for mobile blogging.
Clearing it up...
To clarify a bit, I actually am rolling out my own Wordpress blog for a couple of topically-focused sites. So beneath the April Fools silly, I'm actually going through with it for the very reasons I talked about in the post.
I already touched on some of the pros and cons of this approach in my Drupalcon session about "composing" Drupal sites using external tools like Delicious, Flickr, and (gasp!) Wordpress.
As with all things bloggy, it's slow going but I'm learning a lot and discovering interesting things. Hooray!
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