http://www.silverstripe.org/home/ http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9729 i tried my hand on Drupal and Joomla, both are confusing, i really liked the silverstripe has laid out, its very user friendly, intiuative and Easy to manage. you dont need CCK un Strip, it like making Lots of layers to achive simple things. Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:29:26 +1200 sye nayab http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9729 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9707 As someone who has limited programming background, I have to say that I found SilverStripe's lack of Duck Programming one of its best features. If I wanted a new feature for a website I had to do a bit of work to build the PHP code, but I found that much easier and more satisfying than the Drupal/Joomla approach: "Learn our (very complex) tools and/or find a module that someone else has written."
Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:09:16 +1200 Bruce Bowden http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9707 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9654 Yes, part of not trying to be everything to everyone means accepting that, for some use-cases, other tools are going to be a better choice.

It's better to have a small group of users love your product than to have everyone think it's okay. ;-) Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:02:14 +1200 Sam http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9654 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9653 As someone who has come from drupal to silverstripe then back into drupal again I can say that I really like the current path Silverstripe has chosen.

As already stated neither system is wrong in their approach - just different.

From a developers perspective
I much prefer Silverstripe. I feel I have much more visibility and control over what I'm building and deployment workflows much easier to manage. As I dive deeper into the code I feel it provides me with a better understanding architecture and design patterns. This knoweledge is easily transferable to other languages like java, C#, Ruby etc. This is priceless to me.

Drupal feels like it tries to lock you into its way of thinking and working. In the end I find my knowledge base of Drupal less transferable. It feels more like a 'wizard' approach rather than DIY.


From a Business perspective:
For a publishing based business I would say Drupal is a better choice currently - everything else I prefer to go with Silverstripe.

Drupal's history, and the way it works is much suited to this specific type of business. You don't necessarily need a developer to run a Drupal site. You don't neccessarily need a programming background to work out how CCK and views work so a publishing business can manage themselves quite easily. Where I currently work they have managed to get by without a developer for a long time and have full understanding of creating views and content types. A wizard approach works really well for admins.

If you're a nuts and bolts type of developer Silverstripe is a good choice.
If you prefer point and click drupal is a good choice.

Neither approach is wrong.

As a developer, Silverstripe has many benefits Druapl cannot provide me.
For publishing, Drupal has many benefits Silverstripe cannot provide business cost effectively ;) Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:27:58 +1200 Brett http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9653 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9652 Hey UncleCheese,

Congratulations on getting the module out! I think that you're "CLI? What happened?" comments on leftandmain.com mirror the challenges that we have.

What you've built in SilverSmith reminds me a lot of the Rails scaffolding CLI tools. It provides a jump-start for the programmer, rather than trying to get the programmer out of the equation. I think that's a great approach.

In my mind, my idea for "the perfect SilverSmith UI" would be one that actually reads and rewrites the PHP files (e.g., modifying just the $db and other variables at the top), such that a developer could still come and make modifications to those files, and see those changes reflected in the UI. It would be substantially more difficult (you would need to parse PHP and make non-destructive modifications to it) but it would mean that the application is useful throughout the lifetime of a project, rather than just at the beginning before a programmer has made changes to the PHP file.

Thanks,
Sam Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:13:39 +1200 Sam http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9652 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9651 Wow, the timing couldn't be more uncanny. The day I release SilverSmith alpha, SilverStripe publishes a post denouncing duck programming. I love it!

I agree with a lot of these points, and I don't believe in creating opaque programming proxies like CCK, but I do believe strongly in lowering the bar. Programmers love SilverStripe because it's so developer friendly, but designers and frontend developers are intolerant of having to call upon a programmer just to add a text field to their page. That to me is inexcusable, and should be looked at as a shortcoming of the product.

I believe both design patterns can coexist in harmony. SilverSmith was highly influenced by Symfony's CLI tools, which do rapid code generation but never box you out of making your own changes. You can't get more programmer-oriented than Symfony, so if they're doing it, there must be some threshold of tolerable and appropriate duck programming.

Let's face it, 80% of SilverStripe sites are the same. It behooves us to get that 80% done as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as possible so that you can apply your programming resources to the things that matter.

Funny story -- I had lunch with Dries from Drupal at the CMS Expo, and I told him about SilverSmith (it was a brand new idea at the time).

He responded, "Oh, so it's like CCK?"

I nodded, but I didn't know what I was nodding to. Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:51:12 +1200 Uncle Cheese http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9651 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9645 Hi Sam,

Yeah, fair enough. I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to have this sort of functionality in SilverStripe, but sometimes it's hella useful and a real timesaver.

It's worth thinking of Views really as not being designed to be used by CMS users as such - but as being designed to be used by a Drupal developer, who understands programming but chooses to 'program' a particular piece of functionality via a web front end rather than via text editor.

Horse for courses and all that.

All the best. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:08:44 +1200 Dan http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9645 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9642 Hey Dan,

"Is not having to write a line of code a good thing or a bad thing? Neither, it's just 'a thing'. Drupal and SilverStripe (CMS & Framework) are both great bits of software, but use different paradigms for solving similar problems - which one is right for any given project depends on resources, time and expectations."

Yes - I'd definitely agree with that. Some people will prefer to use Drupal and that's fine. The main point of the blog post was to explain why we have chosen to go in this direction.

"Oh, and to imply duck programming (i.e. using Views) inherently increases risk is a little disingenous - any serious Drupal shop knows the potential pitfalls of using Views and has processes in place to mitigate these risks."

I can only speak from my experience; after all, there's a reason that we've decided to stay away from it when developing SilverStripe. You're right in that the risks around duck programming can be managed. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:44:35 +1200 Sam http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9642 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9641 Interesting article.

Views/CCK are great tools especially once you start using Views relationships, contexts and arguments, but they have a very steep learning curve and aren't really designed to be used directly by novice or even intermediate site editors.

You generally don't need to write a single line of code to do some very funky things with your data using Views, but to build something useful you do need to understand programming concepts at the very least.

Is not having to write a line of code a good thing or a bad thing? Neither, it's just 'a thing'. Drupal and SilverStripe (CMS & Framework) are both great bits of software, but use different paradigms for solving similar problems - which one is right for any given project depends on resources, time and expectations.

Oh, and to imply duck programming (i.e. using Views) inherently increases risk is a little disingenous - any serious Drupal shop knows the potential pitfalls of using Views and has processes in place to mitigate these risks. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:38:07 +1200 Dan http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9641 http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9640 I totally agree. I see complex back-ends for systems joomla, and magento, and think "the client will never use or need any of that".

Duck programming requires people to learn a whole new interface, which I'm guessing will either be the developer or the client. These learned "skills" are only specific to that CMS/interface.

This is one reason I like SilverStripe, as it only focuses on functionality relevant to the client. The developer gets involved when they can't do something.

The hard part can be finding where to draw the (blurry) line. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:29:02 +1200 Jeremy http://www.silverstripe.org/duck-programming/#PageComment_9640