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Drupal's Dries Buytaert On Drupal 7

Posted by Soulskill on from the on-the-horizon dept.

itwbennett writes "The Drupal community has been working on Drupal 7 for two years, and there are 'hundreds of changes' to show for it, says Drupal creator Dries Buytaert in an interview with ITworld's Esther Schindler on the occasion of Drupal 7 going into Alpha test this week. Most notable for end users are 'some massive usability improvements,' says Buytaert, while site builders will see the greatest changes in the Drupal Content Construction Kit (CCK), which has been moved into the Drupal core. But one thing that hasn't changed is the not-so-easy upgrade path. 'The upgrade path for a Drupal site has never been really easy, to be honest,' Buytaert says. 'We do break backwards compatibility. It's a little bit painful because it requires all of the contributed modules — and there's 4,000-5,000 of them — to make changes.' But Buytaert doesn't think that's all bad. 'Innovation is key. Backwards compatibility limits innovation,' Buytaert contends. 'The rule we have is: We'll break the API if it makes a better API, and if it allows good innovation and progress to be made. Also: The second rule is that we'll never break people's data. We'll always provide an upgrade path for the data.'"

5 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Drupal Dries Buytaert... by f1vlad · · Score: 3, Informative

    He is from Belgium.

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    o_O
  2. Headline change by jeffmeden · · Score: 2, Informative

    Was: "Drupal Creator Dries Buytaert on Drupal 7"

    Is: "Drupal's Dries Buytaert On Drupal 7"

    THANK YOU.

    Now, what's this about a Drupal?

  3. Auto-update feature in Drupal 7 by Lord+Satri · · Score: 3, Informative

    I find strange that the article talks about the upgrade path, but doesn't mention that Drupal 7 includes a modules and themes auto-update feature: "Update Manager: Building on Drupal 6's Update module, which keeps site administrators informed when new module and theme releases are available, the new Update Manager module can also install and upgrade modules and themes."

    There's also an interesting link not included to TFS named Top Ten Changes That Make Drupal 7 the Best Version.

    I have an interest in Drupal, since I'll be moving Slashgeo.org from Slashcode to Drupal in the coming weeks (here's why).

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    Animoog.org
    1. Re:Auto-update feature in Drupal 7 by Lord+Satri · · Score: 2, Informative

      Updating a Drupal site within the same major revision (ie, 6.x) is extremely easy, thanks to the auto-update features you mention.

      Wrong - the auto-update feature is new to 7.x, so actual sites running 6.x (or earlier) doesn't benefit from it. Also, the new feature will only install and update modules and themes, not 'core', so I'm guessing updating core from 7.0 to 7.1 is probably going to require about as many manipulation steps as you need to go from 6.14 to 6.15. I don't have a lot of experience, but I would not say it's "extremely easy": the stable 6.x version requires you to do a lot of file and configuration manipulation just to go from 6.14 to 6.15 (if you follow all the recommended steps, which I did for my test site recently). It's not hard, it's just not automated.

      You are right that the most difficult upgrade path is for major revisions, e.g. 5.x to 6.x, but I personally have no experience with this (yet!).

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      Animoog.org
  4. Re:Unreadable headline by AndrewNeo · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's still misleading. Why did the interview with a developer dry a Buytaert?