I have to switch from Processwire to Drupal

[3fingers]

As 1st of november the company I work for is going to be integrated into an another, bigger, one where Drupal is the main web driver other developers work with.
This is something I have to adapt with, due to the fact that I'm the only one I know, and love, to work with Processwire for web development.
I have plans to diffuse my knowledge with PW and convince to use it for all the sites we are going to develop, but right now I'm not very confident to be successful in the short/mid term.
I've spent the last two days trying to figure out the mechanisms and the paradigms behind Drupal but the more I discover the sadder I get.
Concepts likes regions, blocks and content types don't sound that bad, but bad and alien is their way to act together. Way more intricate and anti-logic as I'm used with PW, where its logic when working with data arises and shines.
Moreover there are template files naming convensions, which you must stick with in order to build site pages and pay a good amount of attention to not reach to an "inception-like" structure, an announced mess.
There is twig as template engine, which I don't know (yet) but that's the easy part I'm not worried about.

Oh...and the design and UX of the backend sucks, IMHO.

So, after this good amount of complaining I'm here to ask if some of you with previous experience with Drupal could give me some advices on how to grasp the basics and learn a workflow as similiar as PW can offer.

Links, tutorials, modules and whatnot are very welcome from you (virtual hugs too ? )

Thanks in advice.

Lorenzo

[pwired]

I have been working with Drupal for a while just to find out if building a website "The Administrative Way" would speed up building websites
compared to building websites "The Technical Way" with html, css, js and php.

The thing with Drupal is that you have to work the Drupal system way with it's content types, articles, fields, blocks, entities, nodes and modules.
With this you can make Drupal Websites without having to write code. Drupal is targeting non coders and with Drupal 9 it has improved
on it's user-friendly interface for non-technical administrators.

Drupal 7 was the most loved Drupal version and many Drupal users are against how Drupal 7 evolved into version 8 and now version 9.
Drupal 8 was less accepted because of worse code readability, incompatible modules, spaghetti of files, far from logical, etc.

What the community now hates to see ist that the Drupal that they have grown to love over the years,
with Drupal 9 it is actually being steered towards "Enterprise".

This is the reason that a group of Drupal coders have branched off from Drupal with the Backdrop cms, a Drupal fork.
https://backdropcms.org/why-fork-drupal

[teppo]

14 hours ago, 3fingers said:

(virtual hugs too ? )

Not a Drupal developer (unless a small course on D6 years ago counts...) so this is the best I can do. You've got this ?

Honestly, my two cents would be to try to embrace Drupal properly before making decisions about whether you like it. In my experience every major platform has ins and outs, some of which may take a while to grasp. I'm sure there's a lot of good in Drupal as well; for an example it sounds like they have solid integrations with many development-oriented tools, from Symfony components to Composer, PHPUnit and Nightwatch for testing, etc.

Silver lining: sounds like an interesting learning opportunity!

As for pushing ProcessWire, that may indeed be hard, especially if they have a good flow with Drupal. In terms of sales Drupal likely has an edge as well: a lot of folks have the impressions that Drupal is the go-to system for "enterprise open-source" content management, which is can make it easier to sell to certain types of clients. Perhaps suggest doing some smaller or in-house projects with PW, and see where it goes?

Pushing anything too hard, especially to other developers, has a tendency to backfire ?

[3fingers]

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

they have solid integrations with many development-oriented tools, from Symfony components to Composer, PHPUnit and Nightwatch for testing, etc.

Drupal is built on top of Symfony, nothing bad about that and also Composer (which I use regurally in Processwire too). PHPUnit and Nightwatch: those two obscure strangers to me?

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

Silver lining: sounds like an interesting learning opportunity!

I've been always keen to learn new technologies, as long as they had something I feel better from the ones I knew at the time and...let me say, Drupal is not even close to an improvement in any way for my tastes. Just a couple of further toughts after some more time spent on it:

1) You have to clear the cache every time (EVERY TIME) you change something to your twig template files. Added a variable? Flush that cache. Added a new file? Flush that cache. Imported something? No problem, but flush that damn cache. You can do it installing a CLI module (Drush) and type a string to do so but....come on....
2) There is no concept of a Blank Site Profile (like my loved PW goto profile). Every site has to have a theme, and 99% of the time it has to extend from another one whom has tens of twig files (that MUST follow a strict naming convention based on regions, blocks and whatnot) to copy from. It's not my way to develop, never was.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

folks have the impressions that Drupal is the go-to system for "enterprise open-source" content management

Yes, you are right and it's totally nonsense.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

Perhaps suggest doing some smaller or in-house projects with PW, and see where it goes?

I'm working on it. There is one site (a digital report) for a mid/large company I've made some time ago (http://novacoop.info) that has to be updated every year with new content and design. I will push to not change stack and do my best to expose PW potential then.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

Pushing anything too hard, especially to other developers, has a tendency to backfire ?

I know, dammit! :)

[3fingers]

On 10/15/2022 at 11:33 PM, pwired said:

The thing with Drupal is that you have to work the Drupal system way with it's content types, articles, fields, blocks, entities, nodes and modules.
With this you can make Drupal Websites without having to write code. Drupal is targeting non coders and with Drupal 9 it has improved
on it's user-friendly interface for non-technical administrators.

@pwired Now change "Drupal" with "Wordpress" and it's still remaining a valid sentence. :)

[szabesz]

16 hours ago, 3fingers said:

You have to clear the cache every time (EVERY TIME) you change something to your twig template files.

Relying on the frontend cache all the time is the telltale sign of the system's request process being very slow most of the time. Usually it is the result of over-engineering and "enterprise developers" are soo keen on that.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

system for "enterprise open-source"

In my coding vocabulary:

$enterprise === $overEngineering // > true

 

16 hours ago, 3fingers said:

I'm working on it. There is one site...

Also tell them that Ryan developed ProcessWire because working with Drupal took so much extra time that even developing his own system was a lot better choice, therefore more profitable.

On 10/16/2022 at 11:21 AM, teppo said:

PHPUnit

Probably Nette's Tester can do the trick when they complain, see: 

 

[bernhard]

2 hours ago, szabesz said:

Also tell them that Ryan developed ProcessWire because working with Drupal took so much extra time that even developing his own system was a lot better choice, therefore more profitable.

Do you have a reference for that statement? ? 

[szabesz]

1 hour ago, bernhard said:

Do you have a reference for that statement? ? 

As for direct statement about financial advantages I cannot provide anything (thought I remember reading something related to it) but I do infer such a thing from this comment, for example:

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/2043-drupal-vs-processwire/?do=findComment&comment=19084

Quote: "The problems with Drupal have certainly been a motivation in making ProcessWire happen. Out of the box, ProcessWire is going to be a lot better at the large scale than Drupal. ProcessWire's architecture, foundation and API are far better than Drupal (captain obvious)."

Well, while writing this, I actually remember reading somewhere that he wrote that his previous way of doing business (when still using Drupal perhaps) was more profitable than the current one based on ProcessWire, but that is not just about working with PW vs Drupal but as business as general.

Maybe we should ask @ryan itself?

Anyway, as an addition to the actual topic:

This might also help @3fingers when explaining the benefits: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/4426-pushing-pw-in-web-design-agencies/ 

 

[3fingers]

On 10/18/2022 at 12:06 PM, szabesz said:

This might also help @3fingers when explaining the benefits: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/4426-pushing-pw-in-web-design-agencies/ 

Thanks @szabesz, I followed that thread long time ago, there are some very good points I can bring to the table eventually.

[flydev]

Bro, I feel very sad for you in term of having fun while developing (working). I feel lucky to be one of those guys who can refuse tasks that should be done on these pieces of software mentioned above, even more when you worked with ProcessWire. However, it is true that you have to take into account an "architecture" already in place. Bosses are "afraid" of change that concerns the backbone of their business, especially when it works as is.

What I would do personally, - it also depends on the "size" of the internal architecture and context - would be to rewrite the mess under processwire in your spare time and give them a demonstration of why and how it's better, with arguments about the added value in terms of maintaining and possible future hiring of developer(s). I think it's easier and safer to hire "pure" developers rather than "closed and trained" developers on a given CMS (multi-skilled). I mean there, a pure PHP developer can jump on ProcessWire, where like a guy like me, can't take the other the opposite way.

"courage brother"..