I’ve recently decided to get back into updating and advancing my blog. For the last few years, my site has run on Drupal. I have been (was) really active on the local community boards and really pushing the use of Drupal with many projects. Drupal is a great platform for building robust online applications with a lot of content and many users.
The last full on project I developed with Drupal was DrupalRealEstate.com. It is an example of how flexible and powerful the core Drupal system is matched with great user contributed modules. It is also an example of how intricate and time consuming Drupal can become. The overhead of maintaining a site like DRE is extemely costly. I compare it to supporting a mini operating system. There is the core system and then a large amount of “programs” or modules in the case of Drupal. Each piece has it’s own development cycle, patch cycle and security fixes. Building out a powerful app not only takes a lot of front end time but also a lot of support and maintenance time.
I don’t want to make this a Drupal vs WordPress article (you can find that here and here). I think both applications are great at what they do. At this stage in the game, I’m finding WordPress more geared to what I need to accomplish. Having an iPhone app is also a plus!
Getting the new MatthewM.org up and running as fast as possible was a must for
me. This also meant a lack of “real” design. I’m using the Thesis theme which allows me to control the column layouts, colors, and some other minor theme properties. I didn’t want to start creating something from scratch. It takes too much time and I’m not a designer. Moreover, I’m never satisfied with anything I design. Like any great blog, it’s about the content, not the flashy graphics. I want to focus on building *useful* content for readers.
More to come!
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