Drupal Ramblings

"Of all the monsters that fill the nightmares of our folklore, none terrify more than werewolves, because they transform unexpectedly from the familiar into horrors. For these, one seeks bullets of silver that can magically lay them to rest.

I can't even tell you how happy I am to see the brief wordpress-and-garland contraversy resolve in the way it did. This isn't because I saw them porting 5.0's theme as a threat per se --- but rather because it once again demonstrated why open source's way of doing things is going to kick "the Microsoft-Apple-Adobe everything is mine-mine-mine, and I'll bite you if you try to steal it" 's ass.

Over the past few days, I've observed an isolated thunderstorm in my RSS reader. The first hints began when Don Norman blogged "Simplicity is Highly Overrated". Norman writes:

Hello Drupal world. I have reading material for you. Do browse the now free online version of 37signals' book, Getting real. Here's a taste:

Your app should take sides

Some people argue software should be agnostic. They say it's arrogant for developers to limit features or ignore feature requests. They say software should always be as flexible as possible.

Short attention span version: I'm working for a startup (stealth-mode for now) and am requesting suggestions, feature requests, and ideas on a video module we'll be releasing back to the drupal community. We are also very interested in module ideas, and features that do not necessarily involve video, but that you think would be useful to websites that have a lot of videos. Either comment, or use my contact form to put your ideas, or wishes in my work queue.*

Amazingly, the very fact that you see this post means it works with Drupal's XML-RPC script. Its called "Windows Live Writer". But no gives a rats ass about the vaporbrand "windows live", so its probably just going to be known as Writer. [free download for Windows].. My impressions?

General:

• I love blogging from my desktop. The experience is 10 times smoother.
• TinyMCE WYSIWYG sucks. And while it might suck less than any available alternative it still sucks. It sucks because both javascript and browsers suck. I perfer this interface.
• The desktop enviroment kicks AJAX's ass.
• Why not use a desktop client?

Limitations:

• No support for multiple content types
• No support for categories
• Does not interface with any existing content or files

Pure Speculation

• Writer is probably a proof-of-concept for the next generation of Microsoft Word Products
• Writer will come bundled with Windows in the near future
• Microsoft is full of smart people

Unfortunately, the limitations I listed make the program impractical for drupal users. Sadly, this means I need to continue using tinymce. But seriously, Drupal should not shy away from the opprotunity to fully integrate with this program. Like it or not, I suspect you'll start to hear a lot more about Writer in the future.

We made the decision to move to Drupal a while ago. It was clearly coming along as a robust platform, that met all of our needs. Why did we move from Scoop? Well my issues have long been documented, but mostly they revolve around the fact that the Scoop developer community is extremely small, relatively closed, and overwhelmingly liberal.

For the Drupal geeks: It's Drupal 4.7.3 with some serious modifications in Views and CCK. The Drupal code base is untouched, but we have a custom Redstate module with some assorted functions.

And, at the very least, the redstaters are not idiots like some of the people who "strategize" for Democrats. On numerous occassions, I've tried to talk up drupal to Democract consultants, but they'd always say the same thing: "we're going with scoop!". I'd ask them why. I'd try to pick apart their argument. But they'd bark, "Kaus uses coop!" This apparently is an alpha and omega answer. Open and shut case, Johnson.Well gee. You can't argue with that. I asked them whether they truly believed the Daily Kaus's success was a result of the technology they used. They'd reply, "A good deal of it, yes."Thats when I knew they were idiots. Their argument (if that's what you call it...) is about as naive as it gets. They probably still think websites are magic tricks.

The ever-brilliant US Patent and Trademark Office has apparently granted Blackboard a patent for...well...pretty much anything remotely related to learning management systems. As I read it, Blackboard basically owns the patent on any sort of groupware at all that is used for teaching purposes.

I'd also like to point out that the hearsay I've heard about blackboard's owner was not inspiring. Apparently, he's very happy about being rich and young, and that's basically it. Education isn't his main concern, according to this hearsay. So, be aware.

The title is an oxymoron, and half a joke. However, it seems that at times, websites require a very strict process of development. Typically the flow is development (either the developers localhost, or a communal crap site), to staging (where there's testing) to production. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and declare that drupal handles this kind of enviroment HORRENDOUSLY.

Today, I attempted to briefly map out how the hell one was supposed to manage updating a site's configuration without changing user generated nodes, comments, files, terms, accounts, or any other thing "non-configuration setting". This was my recommendation: