I realise that with any system there will always be challenges and new things to learn. The “Drupal Way” is very different from the “Tao of Textpattern”. Even today, I struggle to get the underlying concepts for how things are done in Drupal.

I have always stood by the adage of using the “right tool for the right job”, and it is clear to me that in this case, Drupal was not the right tool for this site. It was however the right tool for me; using Drupal as the underlying CMS for this site has been a great learning experience. By great, I mean, I’ve learned a lot of valuable things, although it hasn’t been 100% enjoyable (I’ll clarify in a later post).

However, how far does the rabbit-hole go from here? Do I stick with Drupal and only master a small part of its functionality? Part of me is thinking that I should just move to another CMS like ExpressionEngine (or go back to Textpattern). A very small part of me feels that I should just roll my own Django or unamed-webframework-based site. I look at stuff that Jason Santa-Maria is doing with his recent art-directed pages and I don’t think it is possible with Drupal—the system is too rigid (and my CSS is absolutely horrifying — no help from the Zen Theme).

To be honest, I don’t even like composing content in Drupal at all. I’m using a text editor to do that—the interface is just so horrid to use. I find it a distraction. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about a CMS user interface before. Why do I feel this way? Is it because the admin interface (arguably a massive set of hierarchically randomized links) just plain sucks? Shouldn’t it be a joy to use?

Software should be a joy to use. Textpattern is a joy simply because it is expedient. The user experience is lean; a “no-fat” beast that excels at posting text content. I can’t say the same about Drupal and neither does independent usability testing. Its out-of-the-box experience is abysmal. Granted, they are working to correct some of that in the D7 release. I hope they will be successful. What I find troubling is that they have hired Mark Boulten Design to redesign the Drupal.org homepage, but haven’t spent the money to redesign the product.

Presuming that they are going to use Drupal to power the site, I think it is akin of putting “lipstick on a pig”. A user will see this wonderfully designed site and install Drupal on their development environment only to be greeted with Garland. There will be this great dissonance (a “WTF?!” moment if you will) and only those brave will be able to get over the introduction and explore some of the great things that the Drupal-platform has to offer.

I think a worthwhile use of the Acquia money would be to hire some professional help to redesign the product’s user interface. This would cause an uproar and erode community goodwill, but I think that type of leadership would provide a good base for user contributions.

I’m a bit burnt out with drupal at the moment. I think once my portfolio is up and running, I’ll let it stew for a couple of months and see how the greater conscience of the Internet treats my site.