Thanks for checking in and thanks for the compliments on the Drupal videos. Drupal 6 is getting better everyday. Views and CCK were just recently upgraded to D6. Those modules were ones that many people were waiting for. I think that the actual full release of version 7 is still many months away. If I were starting a site now I would go with Drupal 6. If you already have a site on Drupal 5 I don’t think there’s any need to move to 6 unless there’s some feature in D6 you really want. You’ll notice that when there are security releases for D6 that they include upgrades for D5 too.

I can’t recall what I said on menus to be honest. You can find a list of my older Drupal videos at http://learn.awakenedvoice.com/tag/drupal/. You can find newer ones at my new Drupal-focused site at http://www.learnbythedrop.com.

Thanks for your support and good luck.

Rob Safuto

1)I’m concerned that there’s already talk of version 7, and 6 doesn’t seems like it’s anywhere near 5 for modules, etc. That worries me… will there every be a point where a version catches up the the previous, or will new versions come out faster all the time, making it REALLY hard to know what version to run… thus making it easier and easier to jump ship… I hope not, as I do really like Drupal

2)I think you mentioned in your cck and views video, that there was more info on menus in another video?? (what video is that?)

3)do you have a complete list of your videos, and what they discuss?

Thanks again!… Fred Johnston (will donate shortly)

Drupal 6 is catching up with 5 but there are still plenty of unported modules. I don’t know how recently you’ve checked but both views and CCK have release candidates for Drupal 6. I’ve been using the views beta for several weeks now on a D6 site and it has worked fine for me.

Core is very lean and while this is a good thing there are definitely modules that many Drupallers would like to see in core. I think that CCK, Views and Pathauto would be high on the list. We’re definitely going to see more core modules in Drupal 7.

Help is up to both the developers and the community. A lot of modules get a bad rap when it comes to help, but many have sufficient instructions in the Read Me file. Always read the Read Me file! This is an issue with all open source platforms. D6 has a promising module called Advanced Help that allows module developers to include much more comprehensive help from within the admin interface.

Finally, I believe you can build a simple site with Drupal core plus a couple of contrib modules. That’s what I’ve done with http://www.awakenedvoice.com.

The keys to developing with Drupal (or any open source platform) are taking the time to learn and engaging with the community. Non-developers like myself who invest the time can reap great rewards.

Here is my problem: we are on Drupal 5. We cannot move to Drupal 6 yet unless we give up some functionality for a few plugins we use. Like ‘views’ for instance.

Drupal seems to have a lean core and not much of what I consider basic functionality (found in the contrib code) seems likely to head for the core.

When I surf the sites for the plugins some have not even got a beta for 6.0 sorted. This makes it hard for the future.

I was interested in Chris Pirillo’s comments abiout an out of the box solution. (I was interested to note his earlier post about Inteligent developers . .) It is nearly impossible to make a simple site with Drupal out of the box, and it is quite a minefield getting a basic suite of modules - then you find they are not updated.

I also notice help is still sparse. A case in point is the tagadelic plugin. (There is a module that should be in the core).

The we install a module and find it needs another which needs another . . (The joys of OS)

I’m just about do delve in to see how you vote on all this stuff - find out how does a contrib get included in the core etc.

in my opnion, Drupal will only get better but what it needs is what Joomla has… better theming and good usable presentations on using Drupal. Once the web designers like myself start using Drupal, and the theming improves…. Drupal will be taken to a new level. Drupal has the programmers and developers… It needs the Designers!

paul

I started a site to help people who do not understand the basics of Drupal and what it can do. I am focusing more on videos than anything else to help people.

http://www.drupaldude.com

Hope you like it!
Dan (the Drupal Dude)

Drupal is not friendly for people like myself, and there seem to be few Drupal devs who really understand people like me.

Also worth checking out is Dries’ recent post on hiring Drupal talent. http://buytaert.net/on-hiring-drupal-talent-2