Quoting IT: Learning from other projects
Submitted by Bryan on November 15, 2007 - 7:35pm
"While Drupal's growth is impressive, it won't be reaching its potential if it resists incorporating learnings from other systems (e.g. 'this is Drupal, not Wordpress')."
- theneemies, "Chris Messina's Drupal 6 review", Open Source Community,
November 14, 2007
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Wow.
So the author of this quote believes that if it's good for a system that is designed primarily to be a blog tool for low end users, those lessons are CLEARLY superior and usable on all systems.
I find that quote arrogant, short-sighted, and basically an insult to the Drupal community.
To start with, he's taking one thing ("Drupal is not Wordpress") and coming to a completely illogical conclusion ("We'll completely ignore what Wordpress has done and the things learned from it.")
Instead, that quote, which is shorthand for "Drupal is different from Wordpress, and it has a different audience and different uses, therefore certain UI elements that make sense in Wordpress do not neceessarily make sense in Drupal" is being taken basically out of context and used in a way that's meant to attack Drupal developers in a remarkably unflattering way.
Which I find very typical. It is much, much easier to destroy than create, and it's very easy to destructively criticize the efforts of people to create. My answer to that quote, then, is, "If you want Wordpress, go use Wordpress. It's much better at being Wordpress than Drupal is right now." Because, duh.
By the same token, it turns out Wordpress is pretty lousy at being Drupal, too, despite having a slicker UI. I wonder why that is.
Trying to figure out what you mean
Having read of most of the posts involved here I still do not quite get it. While Chris' review is sure disputable, the quote itself is very true.
Drupal should by all means learn from its competitors. This is the easiest way to improve Usability, you don't even need to come up to new ideas. I don't think someone wants to insult developers or the drupal community as a whole.
Learning from competitors
Let me continue to clarify:
it won't be reaching its potential
if it resists incorporating learnings from other systems
The quote above is basically picking at a phrase, "Drupal is not Wordpress" and telling the world that Drupal is basically refusing to learn from the competition; that we're blowing off the "lessons of Wordpress". It's wrong. It's accusatory, and it's arrogant. It's arrogant to say that because it words for Wordpress it must work for Drupal and therefore we must adopt it; and I suspect that people will also take Drupal's relatively slow progress in some UI areas to also assume that we aren't learning, or trying.
Keep in mind, the way this quote is structured, it's a direct statement. There's an if above, but when it points out a particular phrase, that is easily interpreted as "DRUPAL IS IGNORING THE LESSONS OF WORDPRESS".
What I'm saying is that this quote isn't helpful, at all. It doesn't do a single thing to say why any of the points that have been rejected are actually good, it's just complaining that a bunch of points have been rejected. Give a balanced, reasoned argument, and then it's doing the Drupal community some good. But without that, it's just taking an ignorant stance, stirring up muck and making the people who do this work feel attacked.
Also
Note also that I didn't read the original until after I wrote the above; because if what was first taken from the original post was the above quote, not much else matters. This quote is what made it to the Drupal planet where all of us will see it, not the original post.
I'm in between work and
I'm in between work and some appointments, so will need to elaborate further as to why I posted this quote and believe it has merit for consideration. Personally, when I read the original post in which I excerpted the quote I saw the Drupal is not Wordpress as something good to say, not bad, and not attibitued to any individual. I also don't think the author of that post had meant any ill will either but I can only speak of my intentions.
I can understand the concern about how others may take it out of context, but I think most people are smarter than that. Most people know that the core developers on projects such as Drupal are hard workers and making a better effort at it then most. Perhaps the problem though is users are too vocal on their negative criticicms and not vocal enough on the positives. Either way...hopefully I can get something out that talks about where the positives are in that quote as evidently too many negatives are being read into it.
The problem..
As far as I can tell, I think the real problem is that the quote is out of context, and without the context it really sounds like it's saying something it's not really meaning to.
The actual article had some positives and negatives, though in part that article agreed a lot more with Chris Messina than most people with serious Drupal experience do. And that right there is kind of telling. But we've learned that the first 10 minute impressions of somethings are not necessarily the correct impressions, since in the first 10 minutes you don't actually know everything that's impossible. You're bringing in the assumptions you've learned elsewhere.
And good UI design requires catering to those assumptions, it is true, but you have to be careful that doing so does not actually destroy functionality. And that's where "Drupal is not Wordpress" really comes in. There are some places where Drupal is flat out functionally different from Wordpress and the 10 minute impression results in a wrong suggestion.
Another Quote...
I have the perfect quote to summarize what you're saying...
"Drupal's strength is understood not with the first impression it gives users, but with the final impression it leaves users."
-Bryan Ruby, CMS Report, July 2006
Hopefully, any comments from this quote will be wrath-free or I give up!
It is learning... in it's own way
I think drupal is definitely learning but is executing these in it's own way. The drupal way.
Wordpress is primairly for people/users who want a blog. It is build around that and the usability applies to that well. But, drupal isn't like that. You could build a million different types of sites with it. In some cases you might want TinyMCE, in others you might want a different editor, and in some cases you might want none at all. So while, adding a WYSIWYG or a WYSIWYM editor to drupal core would imporve usability to one segement of drupal users it would decrease flexability to another segment.
I think this is because drupal is a content management platform and wordpress is a blog.
But, these lessones are being learned. For example, drupal is moving towards distributions. These would be drupal core packaged with some contributed modules and pre-configure. So, you could have a blog distribution with a WYSIWYG editor, tagging setup, and a number of other things configured so that as a blog it can compete out of the box with wordpress from a usability angle.
Yet, this doesn't take away from drupal in other instances.
I think the lessons are being learned. It's just a matter of figuring out how to execute them in a way that doesn't take away from the power and flexability that has made drupal great.
OK. Took me awhile, but, now I get it...
OK, now everything is starting to make more sense.
This part is a good quote:
"While Drupal's growth is impressive, it won't be reaching its potential
if it resists incorporating learnings from other systems."
I can see why Bryan lifted that quote - it's a good message for all open source projects! And, that has been Bryan's attitude - very open minded - welcoming - let's learn from each other. I appreciate that attitude very much!
This part of the quote we could have done without
and I didn't immediately get it was quoting someone. I'm guessing it was the same for Bryan:
(e.g. 'this is Drupal, not Wordpress')."
How do things get so out of control sometimes? Keep up the good work, Bryan. I've learned so much from you and I appreciate it, very much!
Amy
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org
this presumes something which is again not true
"if it resists incorporating learnings from other systems" -- we are not resisting. Period. We are always looking at what's good in other systems http://buytaert.net/dabbledb-cck-views-twelve-duvels
This quote indicates that the lack of such learning is our main bottleneck. No. Our biggest bottleneck is, honestly, the lack of reviewers which even non coders can do, either the original author or the one who emphasized this terrible quote. Where is your contribution? Where is your help in constructively discussing our UI issues? Mockups? Ideas? Anything? Put up or shut up. I am sick of this whole thread, seven times over.
Without reference to your
Without reference to your quote the words simply point out the importance of learning from one another. It is as true and fitting for Joomla!, the community I contribute to, as it is for Drupal.
We have to incorporate learnings from other systems. Joomla!, too! I saw your comment on your site on learning from WordPress's XML-RPC. That would be good for Joomla!, too. We (Joomla!) will not reach our potential without learning from Drupal and WordPress and XOOPS and ...
I'm not happy with the thread, either. I will now apologize here, as I have on my blog, and as I have on your blog, for the unfortunate quote and offered to have it removed from my blog. I did not say this, nor would I ever say such a thing, but it was said on OpenSourceCommunity, a mistake easily repaired on your command.
Kind regards,
Amy :)
http://OpenSourceCommunity.org
Drupal, Dichotomy, and Strength of Weak Ties
Some days just saying "hello" can cause debate in the blogging world. It looks like we're all having one of those days.
When I post IT related quotes on my site, I usually do so without adding my own comments. I learned early on that stating whether I agree or disagree with the quote distracted others from coming to their own conclusion. Well, judging from the reaction I and others have received it looks like I'm in the odd position of defending placing the post on my blog tagged for Planet Drupal.
Let me say up front, until I saw an email from Chx in my e-mail box...I didn't know that the quote in the quote ("this is Drupal, not Wordpress") was attributed to a particular individual. Instead, I had a mental picture of past discussions many of us have had in comparisons between Drupal and Wordpress. Knowing what I know now, I can understand why some developers that maintain the core were concened how the full quote could be misinterpreted if the reader doesn't have the proper background. This was not my intention and I apologize if it was construed otherwise.
I may be the odd person out here, but I do think the original author of the blog post didn't intend so much ill will but I'll let others decide for themselves. Either way, I hope that it is realized by all that spin is everything and a simple changes in some key words could have delivered a more positive message and stepped on fewer toes. Enough of me second guessing others, let me tell you what was going through my head when I saw the post and why I posted this quote.
I think the fact that Drupal is not Wordpress or any other content management system is Drupal's biggest strength. I once took a law class where the professor was fascinated with looking at everything as a dichotomy. In this case, the dichotomy between Drupal and Wordpress would look something like this:
Now what this dichotomy says is that while you may be able to incorporate some Wordpress features into your Drupal CMS or some Drupal features into your Wordpress Blog/CMS...you'll never have nor should you have all the features the other CMS delivers. In other words, if you make Drupal into another Wordpress, the dichotomy breaks and Drupal loses its own identity as a unique CMS. Not only that, you are also likely to get about a zillion Wordpress users complaining that Drupal stoled the best of what made Wordpress unique.
However, there is still the need and challenge to look at what the "other" is doing as ideas are being considered for your own project (and indeed is what Drupal developers are actually doing). This is where I had hoped the discussion would lead where the quote started and possibly fell short in discussing further.
It is very difficult to innovate or develop new ideas only by listening to the members of your group, organization, or project. While those in the inner circle may be the most capable (and sometimes only) people to get the real work done, the fresh or new ideas usually originate from their relationship with others outside the circle. I'm already long winded so for further discussion on the benefits of weak ties see a previous post by me and McAfee's post about the Strength of Weak Ties.
My point is that if the Drupal community didn't already understand this to be true, Drupal's project leaders wouldn't have invited Chris Messina in the first place to provide his own thoughts on Drupal 6 . The Drupal developers also wouldn't be discussing both quietly and publicly what can be learned by the critique. I think Chx's post on the subject speaks for itself on this subject. I also think Matt Farina's comment is the one comment in this thread that explains better than others how and why Drupal is incorporating good ideas from others yet is keeping its own identity.