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Drupal 6 Social Networking

Posted by samzenpus on from the read-all-about-it dept.

dag writes "Drupal 6 Social Networking is an interesting book about how to build social networks and why Drupal is a good choice as a platform for building communities. Even if you don't have any Drupal experience yet, this book explains what is needed when you start from scratch and looks at the different facets of a social network." Keep reading for the rest of Dag's review. Drupal 6 Social Networking author Michael Peacock pages 312 publisher Packt Publishing rating 8/10 reviewer Dag Wieers ISBN 978-1-847196-10-1 summary Building community websites using Drupal as a content management framework The book starts off with a short introduction about social networks and a list of compelling reasons why one wants to set up her own social network rather than using an existing social network like Facebook or MySpace. It all comes down to what your particular goals are. The first chapter looks into why Drupal is a good fit for building a community website. Its modular design, use of known technologies and ease of installation, as well as the ample availability of modules help in that respect, and also clearly marks where the book is going next. The other half of the first chapter explains in great detail what is needed during the installation of Drupal to have a working setup. If you are already experienced with setting up Drupal you can skim through this chapter to verify that you did not miss anything with earlier installations.

The second chapter prepares the reader for using Drupal specifically targeted for building a community website. To do this the author comes up with his own example (Dino Space) which is used throughout the book. And while the subject may be far-fetched and very different from what you plan to do, it serves its purpose well. Throughout this chapter the author explains many Drupal related concepts and terminology like Nodes, Content Types or Blocks and how to use these to your advantage when designing your site.

So while the first and second chapters explains and prepares the reader, chapter three helps with important decisions regarding user contributed content and all aspects related to it. User Roles, Comments, Polls, Forums and Blogs. One thing that surprised me was how it is possible to write blog entries from Microsoft Word using a standardized API. And while it is not applicable to me (as a Linux user) I can see some benefit for others within the targeted community. Another topic from the book that I had little experience with is collaborating on a Book within your community. I was always amazed by the annotated PHP manual in the past and this possibility reflects that effort a great deal. The chapter also includes attention to how to automatically generate feeds or include feeds from others, something that helps growing the community.

The next chapter goes into how users can maintain their profiles, how profiles can be extended and themed and how profiles can be shared between websites. It also looks into specific modules to help you eg. integrate OpenID or avatars from other websites. Chapter five explains how users can interact and how the User Relationships and User Activity modules allow users to promote their own content and actions on their site. Much like how Facebook becomes a time log of individual actions of our friends. It also looks at Guestbooks, Contact forms and Groups covering more than I was looking for myself.

One thing I recently had to look into myself was how to communicate with your users. Some users register and then loose touch so there is a clear need to regularly update them about what is happening and what new content is available and that's where chapter six explains how to set up Newsletters or connect your social network to online services like Google Groups.

Drupal is mostly respected for its modular design and Drupal's author often states "If it cannot be done from a module, then that's a design bug which needs to be fixed". That said, almost everything is possible from a module, which offers great flexibility to anyone deploying Drupal to customize it to its own needs. Chapter seven explains in some detail how to write your own Drupal modules from accessing the database, interacting with other services as well as making it installable and customizable. The example shows how to interact with Google Maps from a Drupal module. But also points to similar modules for connecting to Facebook.

Another important aspect of any website is its design, chapter eight shows how to install and configure additional themes, but also explains how to modify existing templates and tweak CSS files. It does not go into great detail though, but it sufficiently points out where to look and how to experiment.

The last two chapters are a bit dim, chapter nine explains how to secure your Drupal site from automated spam and lists a few maintenance tasks every admin should know about. Much like chapter nine, chapter ten does not go into a lot of detail about how to promote your website. It mostly lists important aspects and in some cases provides links to experienced websites.

All in all I was surprised by the many items this book covers, especially the chapters about writing modules and modifying themes is something most buyers will not expect in a Drupal book regarding Social Networking. And while I believe there are better books about those topics, in general this book is a good introduction to Drupal and a guide for those who are also interested in the more advanced parts of Drupal.

I was particularly interested in this book as I set up my own family website based on Drupal and I wanted to know what technologies I missed, and what additional modules I could use to make our own family website better. In that regard this book confirmed for a large part that what I did with Drupal was how it was supposed to be, but I did learn some new tricks and new modules I never investigated before. This knowledge undoubtedly will be useful for some future Drupal-based projects as well.

You can purchase Drupal 6 Social Networking from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

122 comments

  1. Why would anyone want to start from scratch? by whitedsepdivine · · Score: 0, Troll

    If I were to make a social application, I would want to build on top of the APIs that all existing social applications have. Why reinvent the wheel, and why would anyone want to switch to yours when the existing structure has so many users.

    1. Re:Why would anyone want to start from scratch? by InlawBiker · · Score: 2, Funny

      That is covered in Chapter 6: "Steal Facebook's Millions of Users and Become Rich."

    2. Re:Why would anyone want to start from scratch? by Chad+Birch · · Score: 2, Funny

      Unfortunately Chapter 5 consists entirely of "???".

      --
      Sturgeon was an optimist.
    3. Re:Why would anyone want to start from scratch? by basotl · · Score: 1

      While these large social networks have their place, niche social networking web sites can help promote businesses, products, projects, and hobbies of any nature.

      --
      HTC EVO 4G LTE w/ CM 10.2 | NookColor w/ CM 10.2 | Samsung Epic 4G w/ CM 10.1
  2. drupal by Spyware23 · · Score: 0

    Drupal, drupal, drupal drupal. Drupal.

    1. Re:drupal by jhoegl · · Score: 3, Funny

      They made you out of clay

  3. Cool Book! by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just need to twitter about it, then update my facebook status about it, then post about it on my blog on blogspot, then adjust my myspace page and/or livejournal.

    And maybe do a sketch of the cover to put on my deviant art.

    (Point is: Do we need more social networking sites? Why would I start my own...)

    1. Re:Cool Book! by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      I mean, what are the compelling list of reasons the book supposedly lists... I guess I have to buy it to find out.

    2. Re:Cool Book! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (Point is: Do we need more social networking sites? Why would I start my own...)

      Well, if you can make it 100 times better than Facebook and get ti advertised well enough, then people will migrate like geese and you can end up making money by selling it for a billion to someone that is willing to offer it.

      But I doubt a book could cover how to make it that much better than the existing ones.

    3. Re:Cool Book! by Anonymusing · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe you want to start a private social network, geared to one specific group of people.

      There's always Ning or Flux... but maybe you want something really custom.

      --
      Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
    4. Re:Cool Book! by gandhi_2 · · Score: 1

      don't forget to make a video for youtube of you talking about it. your vlog will get you all teh rankings!

      --
      THL phish sticks
    5. Re:Cool Book! by east+coast · · Score: 1

      We have a near-social network intranet where I work. Not a replacement for the real social networks out there but it does allow employees to get the kind of information out there that normal intranet sites normally wouldn't. I guess it makes people who work here seem more personable. Who knows if it has real value but it's there none the less.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    6. Re:Cool Book! by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      a private social network, geared to one specific group of people

      Gee, I think I've heard of something like that ... it's called a BBS.

      (Actually, when you think about it, any social network is really nothing more than a really big BBS with some domain-specific optimizations.)

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    7. Re:Cool Book! by lennier · · Score: 1

      "(Actually, when you think about it, any social network is really nothing more than a really big BBS with some domain-specific optimizations.)"

      Yes!

      I run a Ning site and for me, it's the first time I've felt the simplicity and friendliness on an Internet forum that good old BBSes had back in the 80s. Sorry phpBB, but you just aren't quite the same (though you're a good #2).

      It's only taken 25 years for the Internet to catch up with Fidonet, but never mind.

      Also, tubes sound warmer, darnit. Now take your newfangled 'emo' and give me some good grunge/punk/disco/rock/jazz/Gregorian chant, whatever is older than you.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    8. Re:Cool Book! by KnownIssues · · Score: 1

      Maybe you want to start a private social network, geared to one specific group of people.

      An anti-social social network. I like it!

    9. Re:Cool Book! by jc42 · · Score: 1

      (Point is: Do we need more social networking sites? Why would I start my own...)

      Well, I've recently got ahold of several drupal books, and lots of the online docs, and installed on a handy machine. The reason is that I'm involved in a couple of products where we could really use a local social network/news/blog site over which we have full control. Drupal seemed to have lots of rave reviews, so it was a good candidate.

      Unfortunately, after several weeks of roughly half-time studying the docs and experimenting with the software, I had to admit that "I just don't get it". I wasn't able to make it do anything useful. This was mostly because I found the docs a morass of new jargon, none of which I understand, mostly written by people who apparently don't understand the concept of a "definition", and think that glowing descriptions are the same thing. A few questions on the drupal forum didn't help much. For example, after all that reading, I have no idea what a "node" is or how to recognize one when I see it; I only have many assurances that it's an important concept. At first I thought it was a kind of file, then I thought it might be like what browser users call a "page", and I had several other guesses, but I had to admit that all were probably wrong.

      So I faced the fact that I had to get something working and usable. I collected a mixed bag of more limited tools from elsewhere, started exercising my mad perl skillz, and a few weeks later I have something that impresses the clients enough that they've started using it and burying me under requests for more features.

      Now, I can tell by googling that many of those requests could probably be handled by something in drupal. But unless I can find something that will explain to a dummy like me what buttons to hit on my keyboard and/or mouse/touchpad to get something actually working, I don't think I'll be quite as willing to throw away any more resources on it. I'll just write off the money (and time) I spent on the books as a loss.

      So is this book useful to a dummy who doesn't yet understand the jargon? Can an experienced programmer with no knowledge of drupal's terminology actually use it to produce something useful? And would that programmer understand the results well enough to be able to tweak it the way a client wants? (That's mostly deep stuff like "Can you put that button on the left and make it a bigger font?" ;-) Would money spent on the book pay off, or would I still be unable to get anything to work right?

      I also have some serious security questions, but I suppose this isn't the place to ask them. And unless I can get the nuts-and-bolts stuff to work, they're not too relevant to anything.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    10. Re:Cool Book! by Bozovision · · Score: 1

      I can't answer most of your questions because I haven't read the book, but I can tell you that a node is the smallest unit of addressable content that Drupal deals in. What's that in English, you ask? By addressable, I mean it has a URL, and can be displayed provided you have the rights to view it. By content I mean that it's something that someone entered into Drupal, and it's stored in the database. By smallest I mean that as a reader of the site, while you often view a node by itself, nodes can also be combined to produce a page - for instance by the Views module or the Panels module. Usually this combination is a node itself.

      Nodes can also be differentiated from one another by their Content Type, for instance one node may be a Story or Article node, while another might be a House Listing node. This helps in making lists of nodes, and in searching them.

      From a programming point of view, a node is an interface abstraction - if you write a module for dealing with a new sort of content, and want all the benefits of the framework (for example, making any data held in your new sort of content searchable), then you implement a few well-described interfaces, and voila!, Drupal is able to manipulate your new sort of content. This interface is in the form of hooks that you implement for your new sort of content.

      You are also free to ignore these hooks, putting your data outside of the range of what Drupal considers to be content. An example of a module that does this is Webform - which is used to collect forms that site users fill in. This data does not appear in the Drupal search index, or benefit from any of the automatic rights that nodes enjoy.

      Sorry about the state of the documentation: it's hard to find the right level for everyone. Perhaps it needs more signposting.

    11. Re:Cool Book! by noinoii · · Score: 1

      cheap price http://cheappriced.us/index.php?k=Drupal+6+Social+Networking&c=blended

    12. Re:Cool Book! by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      it's the first time I've felt the simplicity and friendliness on an Internet forum that good old BBSes had back in the 80s.

      You might also enjoy Citadel, which started life as a BBS package and is now popular as a groupware platform. People are still using it to run online communities, too.

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    13. Re:Cool Book! by oatworm · · Score: 1

      O'Reilly's Using Drupal is pretty helpful with the basics. I'm not going to lie to you, there's definitely some opaque terminology in there, but I've noticed that seems to be true with CMSes in general. I still tend to squint a bit when I have to think about vocabularies and taxonomies, so don't feel too bad.

      Once you figure out that just about everything in Drupal is a database object, it all starts to make sense. A "node" is functionally the same as a database table. A "view" is functionally the same as a database query. "Vocabularies" and "taxonomies", meanwhile, can be thought of as related tables that you can use to fine-tune your queries (erm... "Views"). Just as you can have two tables with identical data types but different names, and just as you might do that for organizational purposes (i.e. one table stores shop equipment, the other stores shop inventory), you can use "nodes" with similar data types but different names. In fact, if memory serves, a "Page", "Story", and "Blog Post" all use the same data types, but are given different names so you can treat each one differently if you're so inclined. Similarly, just as you can have a table with a column that stores related information with another table (say, a key that corresponds to a specific manufacturer), you can attach a taxonomy to a class of nodes (Page, Story, Blog, custom, whatever), and even have what amounts to sub-taxonomies ("Vocabularies").

      To be honest, the data structure format isn't what drives me slightly insane about Drupal. No, in my case, it's the rather frustrating experience of finding the right combination of modules that actually does something useful. For example, let's say you want a contact form. Naturally, you would use the built-in Contact module, right? Ah, but then you're limited to only having one contact form on the entire site - that's probably not what you want. Let's see if somebody expanded it. Well, there's the Contact Forms module, which lets you split out each contact form category into a separate page. But, what if you want each contact form page to be able to handle a bunch of categories, or what if you want to control the URL it generates? Chances are, if you want a contact form that you can move around, or even have more than one contact form, you need a way to store contact forms as something that Drupal natively moves around so you can treat them like every other object in your system. So, now what? Do we try Contact Form On Node? What if I want it in a block? Shall we give Contact Form Blocks a try? Or do we try Form Block? Or, do we use the Webform module, which gives us forms as nodes? Or, do we just write our own module and be done with it? Then there's the matter of theming...

      Don't get me wrong. If you know what you're doing and you have the time and patience to get through it, you can do some pretty cool stuff with Drupal. That said, if the only CMS you've ever touched in your life was something like Wordpress, you're in for a rough ride.

    14. Re:Cool Book! by Rhaban · · Score: 1

      phpbb is and has always been evil.

    15. Re:Cool Book! by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Don't get me wrong. If you know what you're doing and you have the time and patience to get through it, you can do some pretty cool stuff with Drupal. That said, if the only CMS you've ever touched in your life was something like Wordpress, you're in for a rough ride.

      Yeah; that's the impression I got, which was why I spent some time (and money ;-) trying to learn to use it. I may have to put it off a while longer, since I've been having a lot of success just building my own stuff. But the main problems with drupal are a lot more basic than trying to figure out which modules to use. I'm nowhere near even looking at modules. Thus, a major brick wall has been when I get to the point in several docs saying to use the login page (or node). I've had no success at finding it. I even asked on a drupal forum, and got some interesting replies, but nobody answered the very basic question: How to I get to the login node? I've gotten to dozens of other nodes, but the only instance of "log" in any of them is one that has a link called "Logout".

      A funny part of this is that of course I googled "drupal login", including with a few other likely keywords. I got zillions of hits, apparently all of the form "... after you login to drupal ...". But if google knows of a page that says how to do this, its page rank isn't high enough to get within the first 100 or so hits that I looked at with any of the keywords that I guessed.

      This worries me, actually, The fact that I'm not invited to log in, but I am invited to log out implies that I am in fact already logged in. I'm pretty sure I didn't ever do this. Although I created a couple of new login ids (or at least I think I did), I have never typed those ids or their passwords to anything recognizable as a login procedure. That single "Logout" links tells me that my machine probably has some account logged in permanently, most likely an admin account (since I was allowed to create new logins). I spent some time looking for clues that would verify that this is true or false, but couldn't find anything that I recognized as telling me who I was logged in as. Presumably anyone who knows the default login name and can connect to my machine will have free run of my drupal installation, and I won't have a clue that they're doing anything.

      So until I decide I have enough free time to dig into it again, perhaps I should hunt down everything I can find that's associated with drupal and delete it. OTOH, I'm not confidant I could even do that. If drupal installed something that doesn't have "drupal" anywhere in its name or contents, I probably wouldn't identify it for what it is.

      I was careful to install it on a "test" machine that's hidden behind a firewall. But I'm using it for testing a lot of other stuff, so I'm not sure I want to refomat the disk and do a clean install, just to get rid of drupal. And it took long enough to install that I'm tempted to just keep it around until I have the time again. If only I could verify its logged-in state ...

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    16. Re:Cool Book! by oatworm · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you're probably logged in as the admin user. Drupal seems to keep credentials cached for quite some time; I'm not sure how long it is by default, but I'd wager it's over a week. By default, there isn't a login page or node - instead, logging in is usually set up as a block. That said, if you lose it entirely, just punch in the URL for your Drupal installation and append "?q=user" to the end (e.g. http://www.fabrikam.com/?q=user). If you're logged in, it'll give you some stats regarding your account. If you're not, it'll ask you to log in. That said, don't panic about your user ID - they'd still need your password. Plus, when you installed Drupal, it should have asked you what you wanted to name the administrator ID, so the chances that someone can hit it via a "default" user login are pretty slight.

      If you're really worried about it, though, just delete the database that Drupal is sitting in and delete the files that you had your Drupal installation in. Of course, this assumes that you set up a separate database for your Drupal installation that isn't tied into your existing site (Please tell me you did this...) and assuming that you have a separate directory for all of your Drupal files. Once you do that, Drupal is gone, never to return unless you choose to reinstall it.

    17. Re:Cool Book! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (Actually, when you think about it, any social network is really nothing more than a really big BBS with some domain-specific optimizations.)

      Well, its really just email or Usenet on a Netcom shell account, except served via HTTP with fancy graphics

  4. Social networking is the new fashion by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It'll be coming to a corporate network near you real soon.

    I just want a workflow system that I don't have to write code.

     

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:Social networking is the new fashion by smooc · · Score: 1

      Although I think will right I also think it won't take off in any company. Putting it in a artificial boundary of an organization actually defeats the whole idea of social networking. My social network is not limited to my colleagues so why would I participate on a "platform" which is limiting my social network to those boundaries while I can find all my colleagues and others outside?

      And while I am at it, when will we get that in the end social media is not about the functionality it provides but about the possible depth of the relationships?

      --
      - In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
    2. Re:Social networking is the new fashion by Eskarel · · Score: 2

      Well mostly because it's a natural boundary not an artificial one.

      I don't necessarily want to be friends with my boss, and even in cases where I am, there has to be "friend" boss, and "boss" boss, in order for that to work. Extending that out to colleagues you are not friends with is even worse. My work life and my personal life are and must remain separate, because that's the way life works. Your boss doesn't need to know you got really drunk last night, and your friends don't need to know the confidential details of your most recent work project.

      That said, I personally find that PHP is a bad fit for an enterprise level system, so I'm not a big fan of drupal(or for that matter any of the other miss the boat systems of its ilk). Enterprise social networking however, if done for the right reasons and with the right focus is quite useful.

  5. is a Drupal newbie by jdhodges2 · · Score: 1

    Wow, I must dive in head first.

  6. i hate drupal so much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Drupal is the most pain in the ass framework to work with. It renders vastly differently in multiple browsers. You have to be a CSS NINJA to get drupal to work correctly for you. Honestly, Drupal is just not ready for the mainstream. Its archaic shitty PHP interface. Every time you want to do something it inolved installing about 4-5 modules. Then when you get the f-ing thing installed you have to use all kinds of CSS magic just to get it to work right. F this framework, I hate hate hate hate it.

    1. Re:i hate drupal so much by anderiv · · Score: 2, Informative

      Drupal is just not ready for the mainstream.

      http://www.whitehouse.gov/
      http://www.theonion.com/
      http://www.fastcompany.com/
      http://www.wfp.org/

      ORLY?

      *cough*

      I'll agree - Drupal does have a steep learning curve. With regards to theming/styling, though, it's no different than any other CMS. Designers will have to fight cross-browser css compatibility issues with whatever CMS or template engine they're using.

  7. Three things we don't need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This book advocates at least three things we don't need:

    1) Yet ANOTHER social network. The thousands of existing newsgroups, mailing lists, and web sites are enough.

    2) Yet ANOTHER Drupal installation. Drupal needs to be phased out of existence. It is poorly written, full of security holes, and offers horrible performance.

    3) Yet ANOTHER user of PHP and MySQL. Both need to be phased out for the same reasons as Drupal.

    I'll never purchase a book that advocates such things.

    1. Re:Three things we don't need. by Tiger4 · · Score: 1

      Obviously in your own mind you are fully justified in these beliefs. But where is the evidence to back up any of it? I mean, where is it out here in the real world, where the rest of us can see it?

      --
      Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
    2. Re:Three things we don't need. by armanox · · Score: 1

      Can you provide a better alternative for 2 and 3?

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    3. Re:Three things we don't need. by whitedsepdivine · · Score: 0

      C# and SQL Server; But appearently you use linux so you wouldn't know benifits of the development products microsoft actually has done a good job on.

    4. Re:Three things we don't need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      PostgreSQL is clearly a far better database than MySQL for any serious work. For smaller, mostly static sites, SQLite is often a good alternative, too.

      Just about anything is better than PHP. Perl, Python, Ruby, Erlang, Common Lisp, Haskell, Java, and C# are significantly better in many, many ways. They all have fantastic support for web development, and aside from Java and C#, run just about everywhere. They also have pre-build CMS systems that are much better than Drupal.

      I personally prefer the Django-based ones, built using Python.

    5. Re:Three things we don't need. by armanox · · Score: 1

      Or, you could ask before making assumptions. C# is decent (especially compared to Java). SQL Server is an example of a product that sucks up too much resources (like Oracle, or Windows). I'll leave IIS alone - it beats itself up.

      Dayjob - Windows System and Network Admin...

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    6. Re:Three things we don't need. by mweather · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Django and PostgreSQL. Look up Pinax, it's a collection of reusable apps for Django that can be used to make a social networking site.

    7. Re:Three things we don't need. by tolan-b · · Score: 1

      "for any serious work."

      PHP:

      Yahoo
      Flickr
      Facebook
      Digg

      MySQL:

      Youtube
      Facebook
      Flickr
      Wikipedia

      All minor low traffic sites I'm sure you'll agree.

    8. Re:Three things we don't need. by tgeller · · Score: 1

      For the record, you can run Drupal with PostgreSQL right out of the box.

      --
      Tom Geller
    9. Re:Three things we don't need. by MatthewCase · · Score: 1

      Apparently you make assumptions instead of asking and end up looking foolish.

    10. Re:Three things we don't need. by Shados · · Score: 1

      While you're right, you also have to keep in mind that most of the things you mentionned either heavily modified the tools, OR have put crazy amount of work to put something on top to limit their exposure, such as Facebook's extreme reliance on a tuple store, to the point that you could replace MySQL with an Access database and it could ALMOST work.

    11. Re:Three things we don't need. by bobv-pillars-net · · Score: 1

      Somebody told me Facebook runs on Erlang. Is that not true?

      --
      The Web is like Usenet, but
      the elephants are untrained.
    12. Re:Three things we don't need. by bobv-pillars-net · · Score: 1

      For the record, I tried. And it's true, most of the core modules work with Postgres. But most of the non-core modules (which are what makes Drupal such a rich platform) don't. Too many developers code to MySQL and don't know or don't care that they are implementing hacks that won't work anywhere else.

      For about two years I stubbornly stuck to PostgreSQL and submitted a steady flow of patches to the module maintainers. Some of them were accepted; some weren't. Then I upgraded to a bigger VPS with more memory and could afford to run MySQL and I quit fighting City Hall.

      Yeah, it actually takes more RAM to run an optimally-tweaked MySQL server than an optimally-tweaked PostgreSQL server. Go figure.

      --
      The Web is like Usenet, but
      the elephants are untrained.
    13. Re:Three things we don't need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His daily job is IT, not programming. I hate IT. I wish they would all get a real degree

    14. Re:Three things we don't need. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Facebook chat uses Erlang. For the rest of the site, you can glean from that post that it's a combination of C++, Javascript, PHP for the most part, and probably like any shop, other languages too, who knows, Excel macros.

    15. Re:Three things we don't need. by wmac · · Score: 1

      For your information my social network website (with 1 million members, sometimes 7000 concurrent users and 150 million page views per month) runs on 2 servers (dual quad). One is Apache, the other is MySQL. The whole website uses pure PHP (with zend framework) + MySQL and some Javascript (ajax). I consider it a serious job by the way, and I'll never switch to Postgres (last time we tested we would need at least 3 DB servers instead of our current 1 server to handle the same load).

    16. Re:Three things we don't need. by oatworm · · Score: 1

      Hey, I work in IT and I have a BS in Computer Science, you insensitive clod!

      Honestly, after doing lots and lots of programming in college, I realized that I really didn't want to make a career out of doing that for 50+ hours a week. Sometimes, it's just nice to stare at a log file for a while, y'know?

    17. Re:Three things we don't need. by eiapoce · · Score: 1

      2 - JOOMLA - Much Much Much easier.

    18. Re:Three things we don't need. by nidarus · · Score: 1

      Pinax is cool, but honestly, did you use it for a real project? It's still in early beta, the docs are nearly non-existant, and it covers maybe 10% (optimistically) of what Drupal modules can do right now.

    19. Re:Three things we don't need. by mweather · · Score: 1

      It's not meant to replace all the drupal modules. It's just a collection of apps. There are plenty more out there. And yes, I have used quite a few pinax apps in actual projects.

    20. Re:Three things we don't need. by zariok · · Score: 1

      Get someone to tune PostgreSQL next time.

      --
      -zariok-
    21. Re:Three things we don't need. by wmac · · Score: 1

      Oh really?! I did not know databases can be adjusted! You are very wise man! I wish I was a bit wise like you.

  8. Re:what does it say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...that people are stupid?

  9. Re:what does it say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol, you mad

    Also, it's hilarious that your website is in Joomla. You're clearly a CMS expert and we should all bow down and listen to the mighty man with the Joomla homepage.

    Grow up, and realize that WordPress is a blogging platform, not a social/CMS platform.

  10. Re:what does it say... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2, Informative

    It means you like to be hacked and crashed

    Tens of thousands of Web sites, many of them small sites running the WordPress blogging software, have been broken, returning a "fatal error" message in recent weeks. According to security experts those messages are actually generated by some buggy malicious code sneaked onto them by Gumblar's authors.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  11. Elgg by PerfectionLost · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been a fan of this open source social network for a bit. http://www.elgg.org/

  12. Re:what does it say... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    Wordpress is a blog, not a CMS. Apples and oranges. PS what the heck does Wordpress have to do with a Drupal story anyhow?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  13. more than just social networking by interglossa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Drupal is a general CMS, not just social networking, a facet they just teased out for this particular book.

  14. Re:what does it say... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Actually no.

    There are something like 10x the modules for CMSing wordpress as there are drupal.

    http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=wordpress+as+a+cms&aq=0&aqi=g10&oq=wordpress+as+a&fp=94f5bc3d92523f1a

    This motherfucker here is in wordpress...seems to be working pretty well. Although I think Kenpo is a waste of time.

    --
    THL phish sticks
  15. I love Drupal by gabereiser · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use Drupal 6 on a multi-site setup, it's awesome. One codebase, many web sites. I wouldn't have a job without it.

    1. Re:I love Drupal by endianx · · Score: 1

      Would you be willing to explain a little more about this? Are you saying you have one database and one install of the web application, but are able to run multiple web sites off of that?

      If so, can users log in to the different sites with the same log in? Can they communicate with each other in any way?

      Or do you just mean that you are running multiple installs of drupal for various websites.

    2. Re:I love Drupal by ahankinson · · Score: 1

      It's called "multisite" with Drupal. You can run several independent websites (or dependent, with a little hacking) with separate databases but off the same Drupal core. It's quite handy.

    3. Re:I love Drupal by endianx · · Score: 1

      I see. Thanks. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

      What I really want is the ability to customize a site for users based on a group of some sort. So say that group was by city. I want Baltimore users to see the Baltimore page, Atlanta users to see the Atlanta page, etc. They would sort of have their own site, which news and such specific to their group (city). But they would also be able to communicate with other users in limited ways. Does anybody think this is possible with Drupal?

    4. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, you can do that with Drupal if you want. Depending how you want to go about it:

      A - share specific DB tables and add your own custom logic (wrapped in a module of course)

      B - look at the Domain module for a newspaper-syndication approach.

      C - look at the Virtual Site module for a simpler URL-based version

      D - roll your own using taxonomy, Taxonomy Access (or TAC Lite) and whatever else seems appropriate.

      E - as above, but look at the Organic Groups module.

    5. Re:I love Drupal by sirlatrom · · Score: 2, Informative

      Check out the Organic Groups module.

    6. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Use Drupal with Organic Groups module or Domain Access module.

    7. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes it is. That's called "multi-site single-login" within drupal-speak. There's some good docs on it too. Let google be your guide.

    8. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, just add the Organic Groups module.

    9. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes

    10. Re:I love Drupal by richie2000 · · Score: 1

      Yes it is. There's even a module for it: http://drupal.org/project/og

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    11. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, it is possible - look for organic groups

    12. Re:I love Drupal by ID000001 · · Score: 1

      Drupal have multiple website capability since a while ago. They login to each site and sign up to them individually, but having the login works for all of them is an option. They are intended to be completely separated with their own database, just sharing the same code. However they can communicates if you really need them to. It is on installation, but many websites.

    13. Re:I love Drupal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes.

  16. Drupal is for coders by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you speak PHP, then Drupal is for you. Hack it to your heart's content. If you are a mere human looking for a turnkey FOSS CMS, Drupal kind of sucks. The main problem is the modules. Sure, Drupal is modular, but unless you can take apart code, you're going to be out of luck when your calendar module affects your classified ads module for some bizarre and unexplainable reason. Or, when you have to perform a critical security update that breaks (in various unpredictable and subtle ways) the functionality of various modules. Stock Drupal is rather pointless unless you've got a couple dozen modules installed. Let's see, what else...oh yeah the forum sucks donkey balls. My users repeatedly complained about it, and when I said something about it on drupal.org, I was told that I my users' comments were not welcome, the developer appeared shocked that anyone might have a had different experience than he did, and my comment was deleted. I managed to cobble together a working site...barely. I've solved so many different problems that I'm afraid to add more functionality for fear I'll break something (again). But if you can code in PHP, then Drupal is great to invest a lot of time in fixing its problems. You'll end up with a spiffy looking website that does everything you want it to - you wouldn't even know it was Drupal except for the distinctive URLs. On non-coder websites like mine, a glance tells you it's Drupal, even if you change the theme. Yeah sure, I'm supposed to hire a developer to work on it for me. If I had money coming out of my ears, I wouldn't have chosen a FOSS CMS. I'm mostly satisfied with my site, but if I had known ahead of time how much effort and hair-pulling it was going to be, I would have chosen something else or just bitten the bullet and paid $$$$ for closed-source software.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Drupal is for coders by Falc0n · · Score: 0

      While some of your points (forum module) are valid, the part of needing PHP or that $$$$ is better spent on a closed source alternative is BS. If you want to create a simple family website, you can goto Acquia.com, download acquia drupal, which has all the modules you need for a simple family site, blog, image site, etc. There are tons of howtos, videos, etc that will teach you how to create the site without touching one line of code.

      Most large shops are going drupal because they'd rather spend their $$$$ on developing custom cool things for the site instead of spending it on the closed-source CMS. And, once the site is deployed, the shop has a very large community to draw from for upgrades, changes, bug fixes, etc. They can even goto a different dev team who speaks drupal and not be tied into the company that originally built the site.

      The White House, Sony, Lifetime, The Onion, Popular Science, Harvard, etc have PLENTY of money and all choose to use Drupal.

    2. Re:Drupal is for coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have heard *very* good things about Expression Engine...I think you can ask for a full version, free developer's license if you're a working web developer.

    3. Re:Drupal is for coders by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Exactly what I said - Drupal is a great base to start hacking from, if you don't mind investing your time or money (and time is money). Me, I wanted a fully-featured CMS but I had no idea about the modules, or that so many of them break each other. There are just a vast number of modules and there are far too many combinations to test all of them. When you add a spam blocker (lots of robots know Drupal, an unfortunate drawback of popularity) your TinyMCE module breaks. Or when you add MIME capabilities and now for some unexplainable reason the front page won't render correctly. Never heard of that aquia fork or whatever, that's another "problem" with Drupal, there are so many forks, add-ons, and total conversions that you have no idea which ones are worth it, and the only way to find out is to invest hours of frustrating effort finding out. It's even something that they address on their website: How will Acquia keep up with the rapid evolution of Drupal core and modules? because their potential customers are suspicious and have been burned before.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Drupal is for coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Drupal is practically closed source in the sense that the second you 'hack core' you're no longer 'in' with the drupal community.
      I agree though, it's great and horrible all at once.

    5. Re:Drupal is for coders by zeroduck · · Score: 2, Informative

      Acquia's distribution was originally started to give customers a professionally supported version of Drupal (it is, near exactly, the same Drupal you download at drupal.org with the exception of the non-core modules it ships with). What they offer is mainly support like so many Linux companies do.

      I don't know what you mean by Drupal forks. As far as I know, there is only one 'fork' of Drupal, PressFlow. PressFlow keeps current on the major Drupal releases, but it brings in additional performance patches which have additional requirements (the 6.x version requires mySQL and PHP 5.2, whereas Drupal itself supports Postgres and older versions of PHP). There are distributions of Drupal, like OpenAtrium, which include Drupal core, contrib modules, and an install profile. As far as I know, these don't modify core so I'd hardly call them a fork.

      To be honest, Drupal has a steep learning curve. Installing it and expecting your ideal site out of the box just isn't going to happen. It takes experience to know the "drupal way" to do get things done. It takes some study to know which modules are worth installing. I'd challenge you to find any CMS, open or closed source, that can make the variety of sites Drupal does and does it right out of the box.

    6. Re:Drupal is for coders by Falc0n · · Score: 1, Informative

      Acquia is not a fork, its a distribution of drupal core + the most popular contrib modules
      Drupal core can be thought similar to the Linux Kernel, whereas modules represent the packages that make up a distribution of drupal.

      Mollom and TinyMCE work great together

      With ultimate flexibility comes an interesting learning curve. But thats what documentation is for.

      Wonder if a module is used in drupal? you can look at its usage statistics. Want to do something in drupal? if you google it, usually someone else has already done it and in many cases have a screencast to go along with it.

      "How will Acquia keep up with the rapid evolution of Drupal core and modules?"
      This question addresses the upgrade path for a site. Like linux (or windows), modules are constantly evolving. Its hard for corporate customers to know if the new version will break things. By using a distribution like Acquia drupal, they do the testing to make sure everything works together.

      From your comments, it sounds like your experience with drupal is somewhat new. Spend some time on IRC, going to drupal meetups, drupalcon, or take a lullabot course.

    7. Re:Drupal is for coders by zeroduck · · Score: 1

      You can maintain your own patch, and apply it for each Drupal release. . . but you risk breaking other things in core, as well as contrib.

      I'd like to know what you're hacking in core, and why you can't implement it as a module.

    8. Re:Drupal is for coders by operator_error · · Score: 1

      I agree with all you've written above. I'd also like to add something of an explanation for why things are the way they are. Sort of.

      Drupal 'evolved' to be the way it is now. And during each iteration, the core-developers shed whatever old for the new. There has always been a documented upgrade path for sites, but yeah, you had to follow the directions. And Drupal full-version upgrades are not anything like a double-click affair.

      So really, Drupal's success has been along Darwinian models. Like linux too. Old modules became unused in favor of whatever works better. if you make sites for a living, there's a process for managing sites, that is well written in BOOKS that are SOLD, or just peruse the user-docs from drupal.org.

      But along those darwinian models... take the module upgrade status report page for example. Where did that come from(?), and you'd be amazed at where that community organization and project management is going! Not unlike Linux, but for online publishing using (mostly) LAMP, on widely available hosting packages.

    9. Re:Drupal is for coders by mugnyte · · Score: 1

      Your statements seem to conflict:

      Drupal has a steep learning curve. Installing it and expecting your ideal site out of the box just isn't going to happen

      I'd challenge you to find any CMS, ..that can make the variety of sites Drupal does and does it right out of the box.

      Which "box" are you speaking of? The one that has 6 months of testing, reading forums for module opinions, and 2 consultants?

      When I think of "right out of the box" I think..within a day, maybe a week. While the "box" is still on my desk, not shredded in anger about a steep learning curve.

    10. Re:Drupal is for coders by zeroduck · · Score: 1

      Which "box" are you speaking of? The one that has 6 months of testing, reading forums for module opinions, and 2 consultants?

      I'm saying there is going to be a learning curve no matter which CMS you choose.

    11. Re:Drupal is for coders by Eskarel · · Score: 1

      I accept your challenge and answer it with Microsoft Office Sharepoint.

      It's expensive, and it's not perfect, but if you know how to use Office you can use it right out of the box. That's why it's expensive.

    12. Re:Drupal is for coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better off just learning MySQL and PHP and doing my own site from scratch? Least I'd learn languages and not just a CMS

    13. Re:Drupal is for coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Drupal does suck for forums, so we integrated ours with PHPbb3

    14. Re:Drupal is for coders by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The biggest problem with Drupal is module developers. Well, that and that they outright lie. The coding standards allegedly demand comments and documentation but some of the highest-profile modules have NEITHER, for example the fucking voting API module. This is a seriously core contrib module (I realize the contradiction, but come on, it's a heavily referenced module and it's the de facto way to handle voting/scoring) and yet there are neither comments (any comments in the code, mind you, there are NONE) nor any documentation (again, literally none; you're told to read the [uncommented] code.)

      Drupal needs to move more contrib modules into core, or perhaps have a better-supported tier of modules which are depended on by many other modules, to stop the problem you mention, and it is real.

      With all this said, you CAN do an awful lot with Drupal if you stick to a well-vetted set of modules. Check out CivicSpace.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:Drupal is for coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got one!

      I want comments to be anonymous, but only logged in users may comment.

      I also want forums.

      The forum module depends on the core comment module.

    16. Re:Drupal is for coders by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 1

      I had similar problems. I switched to SimpleMachines Forum and Tinyportal. Sure, it's not a full CMS, but it works well and doesn't waste my time with debugging.

      --
      Not a sentence!
  17. Re:what does it say... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    What the heck does Wordpress have to do with a Drupal story anyhow?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  18. Good timing on the review by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1

    The review is well timed. The book was from the beginning of the year, but since then the US Whitehouse has gone back to FOSS on its web site. It's using drupal. It's good to see more discussion of these tools. Everyone has heard of Drupal and plone and respect the capabilities. They are the heavy hitters like Apache2 for httpd.

    What new FOSS CMS tools are corresponding to Lighttpd and nginx, ready and useful but not as visible as they could be?

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    1. Re:Good timing on the review by veranikon · · Score: 1

      Drupal, as would most any other PHP app like Joomla or Wordpress, works fine under lighttp and nginx. The effort goes intro translating whatever apache-centric config for the tool into lighttp or nginx config, and this effort would be required regardless of whether you use Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, etc.

      Indeed, I run a Drupal portal under nginx + fastcgi-php + sqlite to get fast page loads.

  19. Better than Joomla by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 2, Informative

    I tested both Joomla and Drupal side by side, and for all its issues, drupal beat joomla for one very major reason. Simplicity. Joomla has more documentation, and seems to be technically more capable, but when it comes to added functionality, Joomla is horrendous at ease of use. Drupal was pretty simple to add modules and get going with some non-standard settings. So for Opem CMS, Drupal get the award of lesser of two evils.

    --
    "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
    1. Re:Better than Joomla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ironically, I know many other proponents of Drupal beside myself who agree on the opposite: We admit that the user interface is more complex and harder to figure out than Joomla's, but prefer it because it flies circles around Joomla on technical power and functionality.

  20. Re:what does it say... by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

    In my experience, Wordpress "themes" are piles of spaghetti code (with tons of logic in the presentation layer), and you have to hack core to do any non-trivial custom stuff.

    It might be great for blogging, but it's a lousy platform for adding custom functionality IMHO. Would love to find out I'm wrong though, anyone had better experiences doing custom dev with Wordpress?

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  21. Security! by 1s44c · · Score: 1

    Noone else has said it so I will. Drupal does let you make very pretty websites with tons of functionality quickly but it has endless security issues. Many of the modules don't seem to be written in any kind of secure way so need endless updates. The core has more than its share of security issues too.

    Personally I prefer software I can install and forget about not software I have to constantly worry about.

    1. Re:Security! by Falc0n · · Score: 1

      As opposed to building your own website, or using RoR/Plone to build a site, which cannot be easily checked for security updates? no thanks.

      Drupal has a dedicated security team which is proactive on maintaining secure code. One reason the white house gave for using drupal is because of its diligence to security.

      Drupal also encourages and has best practices that -most- modules (especially the most popular ones) will weed out the most obvious security issues such as input sanitization, SQL injection, etc. While its not perfect, its -much- more secure than your own implementation.

      When your code is exposed to the web, you always must be on watch. No code is perfectly secure, and to think otherwise is naive.

    2. Re:Security! by zeroduck · · Score: 1

      Many of the modules don't seem to be written in any kind of secure way so need endless updates. The core has more than its share of security issues too

      [citation needed]

    3. Re:Security! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally I prefer software I can install and forget about not software I have to constantly worry about.

      You're going to be looking for such software for a long time. Be happy that Drupal security updates are issued quickly and consistently.

    4. Re:Security! by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      As opposed to building your own website, or using RoR/Plone to build a site, which cannot be easily checked for security updates? no thanks.

      Drupal has a dedicated security team which is proactive on maintaining secure code. One reason the white house gave for using drupal is because of its diligence to security.

      The white house uses windows too, windows has a dedicated security team. None of that makes it secure, you can't tack on security later.

      I don't mean to say that drupal is worse than many other ways to do the same thing because I honestly don't know. I've only used ROR likely and drupal to develop a few websites.

    5. Re:Security! by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Many of the modules don't seem to be written in any kind of secure way so need endless updates. The core has more than its share of security issues too

      [citation needed]

      There were the 8 security alerts on the security mailing list this very morning. Great on them for updating this stuff but it would be better if things like that didn't happen in the first place.

    6. Re:Security! by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Personally I prefer software I can install and forget about not software I have to constantly worry about.

      You're going to be looking for such software for a long time. Be happy that Drupal security updates are issued quickly and consistently.

      You didn't have to post that as AC because you are totally right. Yes I rarely see software I'd be happy to use and yes I am forced to make compromises for the sake of getting software that does what I want.

      Insecure software is a constant source of worry and better than windows is rarely good enough. Not all software is so insecure though. OpenBSD for instance just does its job day in day out without problems until the hardware fails. Correctly setup Linux systems are pretty good too. Complex frameworks ( like drupal ) are always a nightmare.

    7. Re:Security! by Xest · · Score: 1

      The fundamental mistake with your argument is assuming the version of Windows they use isn't secure.

      No seriously, don't laugh, Windows server has come along leaps and bounds in the past two or three releases, it's really a pretty solid server OS nowadays.

      The assumption that all Windows versions are like the Windows versions of old is a false assumption to make, it's really not what it used to be in terms of security weakness.

      This is generally why when sites get hacked nowadays it's not the OS that gets hit anymore- it's often not even the web server, but things like exposed database servers, unpatched SSH implementations, weak admin passwords, or the web applications themselves.

  22. sounds too much like RuPaul by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    he/she should sue for trademark protection purposes.

    --
    Nullius in verba
  23. Drupal 6 Social Networking, the short version by jalefkowit · · Score: 1

    Don't.

    --

    Read my blog.

  24. Deanspace, think about it by operator_error · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Folks, have you heard of Deanspace? As in Howard Dean's web-enabled CRM that was widely reported as a successful fund-raising tool, that propelled Dean ahead toward's a democratic presidential victory, until John Kerry pulled ahead?

    The folks that came together and collaborated on Deanspace open-sourced it. It was based on Drupal, and their powerful CRM back-end was spun-off and is now a very successful project called www.civicrm.org. These days, it makes sense to integrate both with transparently, which is well-documented. This is one single nice recipe, for example.

    Think of it like Drupal as a client-facing front-end. Clients (the public?) can register with the site, lose their password and reset it, change newsletter subscriptions, that sort of thing. CiviCRM is the all-knowing powerful back-end. AFAIK CiviCRM is _well_ financed by political parties of all sorts, and they do a great job, I think. You can add Ubercart as an e-commerce transaction engine as well, which ties in nicely with your CRM engine.

    Imagine folks, you COULD make your own facebook or myspace or youtube or flickr easily using Drupal, and even manage transactions. There's nothing stopping you, as a professional, if this is what you want to do. Drupal has a huge and enthusiastic community of developers. Drupal sites can easily become the 'front-end' developers use to create facebook applications.

    It is worth checking out the live demo on their site, if for no other reason than to see exactly what it is capable of, and what political parties want to keep track of, (stock out of the box). Like: who is related to who. And, 'what is this person's most important issue?' with choices like gun rights, pro-life/choice, etc.

  25. For online learning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    htttp://www.omnium.net.au - these guys are building up one for higher education.

  26. Re:what does it say... by bobv-pillars-net · · Score: 1

    Yup. I've installed lots of CMS/blogging/shopping-cart apps, and Drupal is the first one where I looked at the code and didn't go "EEEEWWWWWW!!!!"

    --
    The Web is like Usenet, but
    the elephants are untrained.
  27. CMS != Social Networking by Demogoblin · · Score: 1

    Drupal is CMS with social networking tacked on.

    If you want a real social networking framework to start from, check out elgg. They've thought about many of the problems when considering a social graph

    www.elgg.org

    1. Re:CMS != Social Networking by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Drupal is CMS with social networking tacked on.

      What is a CMS? it is a framework. What is PHP? Yes, a framework. Drupal provides a layer of abstraction. There is nothing inherently superior about building your social networking right on PHP (or whatever) as opposed to building it on Drupal. Everything drupal does is based on modules (some of them are in core, and some are marked required, and that's the only difference between a core module and a contrib module besides who supports them) so your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  28. On social networks, workflow and performance by Mathieu+Lu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Where I work, we have recently finished doing a huge redesign of the website for an organization which was having different systems for their forums, member management, blogs, etc. Most of those components had become completely deprecated and unusable. It was a good opportunity to migrate to a new platform which had less redundancy, more potential to link the systems to generate new info, access levels, etc. They have more than 20k paying members, 100k "guest" accounts, and growing quickly.

    You can do neat social networking stuff without trying to reinvent Facebook. For example, the organization wanted to grant access to certain areas, working groups, forums, only to paying members (as a way to encourage membership, but also a bit filter out noise, a bit more privacy). Also, they wanted to have sub-groups, but also have part of that data re-aggregate into the main feed and present a global view (ex: calendar of events, local calendars). Finally, since it was aimed to professionals of a certain field, it encouraged people to link (friends list) as a way to keep contact, encourage networking. You can use specialized systems for each of those tasks, but putting glue code between the system tends to not scale very well.

    With Drupal, you can get some modules to do a huge part of the work for you. They tend to work well, but you have to keep in mind that if a module has 80% chance of working, if your task requires two modules to be combined, your total odds are probably more towards 64%. We had to use about 100 modules. Combining modules such as og, mailhandler, advanced_forums, specific access control mechanisms, CiviCRM, etc. *and* having to do maintenance security updates of those modules can be a big challenge (especially when module maintainers push in new features with a security update...).

    The other thing to consider is that the performance of Drupal for connected users is not wonderful. It has good caching mechanisms for anonymous users (core/views/panels cache, boost/pressflow), but not much for connected users. I'm surprised to see that the table of contents of the book shows that there is only one page dedicated to performance.

    Except for chapters 5, 6 and 10, the other chapters seem like any typical "how to install Drupal, base config, create a module, create a theme". I guess that's great if you are new to Drupal and you're about to create a social networking site as your first medium-size project. Although I guess for 30$ it's a good reference for good practices and a first step towards building a social networking site, but you might get stuck half way (when performance, bugs/complexity and complaining users with bike-shed opinions kick in).

    All things said, we tend to end up buying most of these books anyway. We usually find small anecdotes or descriptions of best practices which are well summarized, useful references for when you want to disconnect a bit and brainstorm about your project. Maybe I'll change mind when I read it, but I was a bit disappointed from the table of contents. :)

  29. Resume Building by KalvinB · · Score: 2

    If you're an amature looking to turn professional then doing impressive projects (even if they're not widely used) is a good way to beef up your resume. There are plenty of companies looking for Drupal people so if you want to learn Drupal doing a social networking site is a good way to do that. Put it on your resume and list a link so potential employers can see what you're capable of.

    Even if you're a professional doing things on your own time is a good way to learn new things that can be brought back into your workplace to help move you up in the company.

    I've historically listed several projects I've done on my own time on my resume and at every interview I get asked about them. Showing an initiative to use your own time to learn a skill is a quality companies are looking for.

    --
    Work Safe Porn
  30. Flux You Ning Twit Face Tube Book by syousef · · Score: 1

    Maybe you want to start a private social network, geared to one specific group of people.

    There's always Ning or Flux... but maybe you want something really custom.

    I've got it! We can call it "Flux You Ning Twit Face Tube Book". I'm going to be rich I tells ya!

    Imagine if instead of one world wide web we had such fragmentation.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  31. It is the metadata and database stupid! by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    It is surprising how Luddite some old timers are.

    Social networks, as their name implies (duh!) allow you to use relationships between people to improve the service you provide.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  32. Examples please. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Every time a Drupal discussion comes in /. several people claim this.

    It is getting really tiring, so I would like to see some proof of this.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Examples please. by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Ok, the following hit the security list this morning:

      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-102 - PHPList Integration Module - Cross Site Request Forgery
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-103 - Strongarm - Cross Site Scripting
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-104 - Feed Element Mapper - Cross Site Scripting
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-105 - Subgroups for Organic Groups - Cross Site Scripting
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-106 - Agreement - Cross Site Scripting
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-107 - Ubercart - Access bypass, Cross site request forgery
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-108 - Gallery Assist - Cross Site Scripting
      [Security-news] SA-CONTRIB-2009-109 - Printfriendly - Cross Site Scripting

      That's 8 alerts in one morning and that happens every two weeks or so. It's great they are fixing this stuff but it would be better if they had less security related bugs in the first place.

      I love the way it's dead easy to setup complex and pretty sites with drupal but I can't help worrying about the security implications of using it.

    2. Re:Examples please. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      That's 8 alerts in one morning and that happens every two weeks or so. It's great they are fixing this stuff but it would be better if they had less security related bugs in the first place.

      You are committing a logical fallacy, you are basing your opinion of a product's security on reported security vulnerabilities. But since vulnerabilities aren't only announced when an exploit is discovered, but simply when a vulnerability is patched, you're confusing exploits with vulnerabilities. The difference between Drupal and any other system may well be the rate at which vulnerabilities are reported; it could be indicative of greater code review, and is almost certainly [at least partially] a factor of the very large number of contributed modules. Finally, I have over thirty contrib modules on my drupal site and yet have none of the above modules; the only one many people are likely to use is print friendly, which is unnecessary when the site developer/designer understands CSS. I use legal, not agreement, for example. In the end, complaining about drupal because you got notifications of vulnerabilities in contributed modules (they're not in core!) seems unusually pathetic.

      I love the way it's dead easy to setup complex and pretty sites with drupal but I can't help worrying about the security implications of using it.

      complexity, security, they have a relationship that you are ignoring.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Examples please. by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      You are committing a logical fallacy, you are basing your opinion of a product's security on reported security vulnerabilities. But since vulnerabilities aren't only announced when an exploit is discovered, but simply when a vulnerability is patched, you're confusing exploits with vulnerabilities.

      You are saying that it's OK for your site to have vulnerabilities as long as you don't believe they have been exploited yet.

      The way I see it vulnerabilities are things that either should not happen or should be fixed immediately regardless of whatever else I had planned for my day. Nobody needs problems like that.

      In the end, complaining about drupal because you got notifications of vulnerabilities in contributed modules (they're not in core!) seems unusually pathetic.

      Why don't you try telling your boss he is being pathetic when he complains that a third party module has leaked half your database? These things have access to everything drupal core does. Drupal isn't much use without a few extra modules.

      complexity, security, they have a relationship that you are ignoring.

      It's dead easy to setup a default install of OpenBSD and connect it to the Internet. It's easy but that doesn't make it insecure.

  33. Different song... by VValdo · · Score: 1

    FWIW it was a reference to this song

    There have been cover versions as well.

    W

    --
    -------------------
    This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  34. Does it come with a noose? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every time I have to play with a PHP framework like Drupal or Magento I want to hang myself. Not quite OO, not quite MVC, not quite thought out, and never fully documented.

    In the end the promised simplicity just means increased complexity whenever one needs custom functionality.