Project D

If you have been using drupal for some time then you will understand what I mean by staying alive in the jungle of drupal modules.

Sure people will keep saying that drupal has lots of free as beer module available for you to use as a building block for you kick ass website.

But do they ever REALLY told you what does the phrases “tons of modules available” means in practical terms?.

IMHO the phrases means “HEADACHE” why?? first of all you will need to check every options available to you. for example you wanted a good slideshow module for your soon to come kick ass drupal site, and found out there are lots of module that serve the same purpose but with DIFFERENT way of doing it.

While you think, hell how hard can it be trying several different module? then your mind still in “wordpress stage” state of mind, in drupal trying module means… losing time…. headache…. frustration…. you name it!.

Why??? why??? why??? Its as simple as .. There is almost NO INSTRUCTION of how to use the module. REALLY! after you download the module, extract and upload the module to your server then…. comes the silent time where you are left in the dark… keep looking for the right link or way to configure your module properly.

lets speed up things a bit, after hours of setting the module.. you find that you are facing a road block that you cannot solve… next station is…….

googling yourself to death to find a drupal guide of the particular module guide… A more fastforward in time….

“when you can’t find help googling try the drupal forum” some might say… in reality? you got the same chance as playing roulette in hoping to get a reply from drupal.org forum.

Now can you see my point why less is better?

The main point why I am writting this is.. why in the hell can’t drupal uses somewhat like a moderated or controlled project that forces the module developer to develop a DECENT how to for using their module or the product is for sure is going to be deleted from the cvs?

Secondly, drupal suggest that people join up to develop one module from 2 similar project. Seriously what is the odd of success in trying to get 2 developer in voluntarily joining up? IMHO drupal.org should GOVERN the developer to join up. thus a TEAM of developer can build a BETTER module. a scheme like tag team where drupal.org can say “hey from now own a module must have at least 2 developer, one for the bloody coding and the other is for the documentation, modules with less developer will have lower rating in the search system”.

Thirdly, A better paid service for module, If you look from the developer point of view, they might say “hell I am not getting paid from this so why should I care to develop a class A module? “A just work” module should be fine!”, so maybe IMHO a better reward system is needed in drupal to help boost the developer morale?, Perhaps where drupal.org lets the author of the module to put a google adsense in the module page? or where user can put out small amount of donation such as 10 cents if they like the module? surely its not against the open source way to get appreciated by receiving user donation?

well enough of my rumbling about drupal, I still uses it and loving it… heck I am a gentoo zealot by nature so drupal is like a sister of gentoo in terms of migrain.

anyway in this “wiki” page you can post in your experience and review of a drupal module, or maybe a guide of how to set it properly..

cheers

duckz

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