Wow....
Ok, so I went to install the latest release candidate of Joomla. It's freakin' HUGE!!! Not "huge" like "Wow, dude, I just got a perfect score on my SAT" huge, or "Duuuude, I just saved that guy's life" huge....but BIG (in size, that is...if you're not catching my drift)!
The core package is over 21MB...that's 5 times the size of Drupal 6's core package.
Holy smokes...I'm not sure about this whole Joomla thing and I haven't even successfully uploaded all the files yet...
true but...
Joomla is big. But, it has a different philosophy to drupal. With drupal you have to load up a bunch of modules to get the sites you usually build. With joomla they are included. So, compare it to the size of drupal with all the modules you usually load up.
But, yeah.... drupal is still smaller.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
That might be...but...
Well, here's where I ask: "Why are the core developers deciding what modules I'm going to use?" I'm going to bet that, once installed, I probably won't use most of those.
I realize this is a philosophy difference...I'm just pointing out that I don't like this philosophy :)
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
Joomla "big-bundle" value proposition
If your coming at this not as an architect but someone who wants a stable place to live and operate, then I think it could be a rather reassuring alternative.
You will get a one time "monster" download with all (or nearly all) your tools in the one big toolbox. The size brings pain, but is it really preferable to work with a dozen modest size modules to download and install.
With Joomla most of this is being pre-selected for you by well informed implementers who presumably apply established measures of usefulness, performance, quality and compatibility, in the selection process.
That frees up time and energy you might otherwise have to spend on making such determinations yourself. And that time could be spent in pursuit of site content and the organizational changes needed to achieve your site goals.
Mark
Churches have proven to be different...
In the years that I've been building websites for churches, if I've only learned one thing, it's that church websites are unique in their needs and approach.
I can see that this "one big toolbox" approach might work for most people....personal websites, blogs, corporate sites, and more...but churches have unique needs that others don't have. Many of the 'most popular' modules for drupal aren't necessary or optimized for a church website (even some of the core modules) and I can imagine that this is the same for Joomla.
So, while I understand this approach is good for 'typical' CMS newbies who just want a site to 'work' out of the box, I'm not sure it's an approach that's good for churches. I much prefer the 'put together the pieces you actually need' approach that drupal has. Sure, it's more work, but otherwise, I think Churches will attempt to 'be like everyone else' when building their website, as opposed to asking the most important question: "How should our website work to best serve the community that God has created here".
Just my 2 cents...
Great discussion here which can be referenced whenever we get around to a Joomla series...thanks!
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
Don't Try To Be Like The World
I think Rob points out a big thing here. The church is not a Christian version of something in the world. It is different. We can't and shouldn't pick up the same things businesses use for a task and do things the same way. Would you run a church like a business? No, it's a community. If you run it like a business money is the center of things and not God and his people.
This same thing holds true when it comes to using technology. Whether it's how you use tech in a service, how you distribute your budget, or how you build your website. It's not about grabbing a package that does cool stuff. It's about meeting the churches unique needs.
I can't say I'm against large packages. What I don't like one large package to rule them all. Especially when it comes to web design. That's partially why I'm such a big fan of the upcoming drupal distributions. Knowing that everyones needs are different people will be able to build distributes of drupal right on drupal.org. So, different downloads can meet the needs of different requirements.
It would be wonderful if there different Joomla distributions for different needs. A Joomla for churches. Or, as I'd prefer, three or four Joomla distributions for churches depending on the needs of that church.
We need to realize that this is about the needs of the church driving the product and not the tool. There is a danger in a one size fits all mentality to producing a product.
All that being said, Joomla is a good product. But, the dangers of a non-tech savvy person building a church site with them need to be highlighted. We should be in the business of working for the mission of the kingdom. Not making flashy sites that teeter around those needs.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
Joomla! size
Actually, Joomla! 1.5 is mainly big because:
1. It includes a Wysiwyg editor
2. It runs on php 4.3 forward
3. Legacy support for Joomla! 1.0 extensions.
You can run a complete site without adding a thing, but the number of core modules and components is actually quite light and deliberately so. The core components and modules almost all focus on those needed to create and display basic content. If you want to put up a CMS, create some content and show it to the world you have all us need. There are 2500 extensions in the Joomla! extensions directory so that when you are ready to add and extend you can do that just the way you want.
Big because what?
Elin,
Isn't justifying the Joomla! 1.5 download size based on the first two items you listed rather questionable?
That would leave "Legacy support for Joomla! 1.0 extensions" responsible for nearly all the difference between the 3.2MB size of Drupal 6rc2 and the 11.6MB size of Joomla! 1.5rc4.
(NOTE: The 21MB size cited for Joomla at start of this thread was probably based on the amount of space it was consuming in a file system and as such can vary substantially between file storage architectures)
So is it big mainly because it contains legacy support for Mambo/Joomla! 1.0 ?
Mark
Size and Philosophy
Three things to note.
The WYSIWYG editor is big. But, I'm sure it's less than 3 megs is size. The default download of tinymce is only 2.1 megs and that's with everything except a few scripts for things like compression.
Drupal runs on PHP 4 and forward, too. Support for the older php versions does add some to size. But, more than adding to size it causes limits in what you can do. Especially when it comes to object oriented programming. For most things I'd be surprised if this added a lot of size.
The legacy support for extension I'm sure adds a lot of size too Joomla. The internal architecture in Joomla changed from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5. Think of it like running Mac OS 9 applications on OS X. While it's not quite the same it gives you an idea of the kind of jump that happened. This backwards compatibility support does add size and I'm sure has performance implications.
But, from a user perspective this does make things easier and does provide many more extensions to use in Joomla 1.5 right away.
All this being said, I don't think the size is that much of an issue. Part of the size goes with what we talked about here. Part of the difference with drupal is that drupal is actually pretty small for what it does. Joomla looks large in comparison.
I don't think the size should deter a church from using Joomla. It might be annoying to upload via ftp. But, if you rarely do it than it's not that big of a deal.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
Starting to understand why your comment on religious wars!
Rob -
I understand, now, why you told me last week that these types of conversations quickly turn into religious battles. I hate to say this, but your words about Joomla! tend to be provocative and misleading. There are facts mixed in, but often, the conclusion you draw is illogical and tends towards inflammatory. I hope you are not somehow mislead into believing these approaches help Drupal.
What makes Drupal rock are the people who contribute. Over the years, this has resulted in an outstanding code base. The positive way that the community works together, shares information and encourages one other supports innovation. They are enthusiastic and friendly and more than willing to build partnerships inside and *outside* of the community.
That is what makes Drupal rock.
Those relationships extend even to those of us in the Joomla! community. Strong friendship have formed. We are sharing information between communities, as well, learning from one another, and applying that knowledge within our own settings.
Last time we talked, made the statement there are 20 Joomla! developers and Drupal has hundreds, evidence offered to the initial poster that Drupal was better. That is completely misleading information!
Now, you say Joomla! v 1.5 is five times the size of Drupal 6's core package. OK. Facts are facts. Now, what is your considered conclusion to this size difference? Here's your quote: Holy smokes...I'm not sure about this whole Joomla thing and I haven't even successfully uploaded all the files yet...
You see, I understand now, why these types of conversations quickly turn into religious battles --> for you! Most of us don't have that problem because we try to be fair about what we say and respectful of all contributors in open source, not just those who are members of our immediate communities.
Now, Rob, think about these questions. When you build a Drupal website, do you need a WYSIWYG editor? How about a Feedback form? Do you use a control panel to manage your site? Do you offer site visitors printer friendly pages? Have you ever built a Drupal website without using CCK or Views? Do you think new Drupal users might benefit from sample content?
Those are simply a few examples of normal types of modules that people in Drupal typically add on for across the board "average" sites. With Joomla! (right or wrong), you can build a complete site easily, using nothing more than core functionality. Do you think there might be at least a few churches who do not hire IT staff who might benefit from that?
Consider this: when people talk about making Drupal easier, what is one of the very, very first suggestions most people make? Distributions! Yes, distributions package normally used functions so people don't have to locate and individually download each module that they always get each time they build a site.
You made a comment later in this thread about how unique churches are and could therefore not share the same distribution as another entity. I would venture to guess that the 80/20 rule will eventually be applied to Drupal Distributions, once distributions start to mature in the community. People will discover the commonly used modules, and the truly unique. Simple community maturation.
Now, to be fair, let's hop over to the other project. In Joomla!, it is not unusual for people to say - Hey! I don't want the entire Javascript library with my install. I don't want web links or polls or whatever. So, eventually in Joomla!, a framework will be available that is lean and pluggable, but unusable on it's own.
Now, which is better? You see, Rob, that is a ridiculous question. It serves no one to even answer it. In Joomla!, it will be important to those who want only a framework to join together and make that happen. In Drupal, those who want a distribution do not care is someone thinks it's better to have a 21 mg download because they want a fuller environment right from the start.
That's the benefit of open source and communities. The GPL, in particular, liberates us to make personal choices. We can also find others, of like mind, and share the benefit of each other's efforts, learning from one another's differences and improving our own projects at the same time. This sharing and embracing of differences in each of our communities helps us better serve people.
Rob - let's explore these communities with respect and logic. Let's look honestly at the differences and begin analysis with stone cold facts facts and a curiosity that makes it fun to explore why. From a healthy comparison and contrast, we will find benefit in varied approaches. Those conclusions are what will help us develop better software, which in turn, help churches, and schools, and the people of the world communicate more effectively. Good comes from that.
Thanks. I'll be back. ;-)
Amy :)
taking a note
You make a lot of very good points here. The idea of choosing one is something I recently blogged about here... http://www.innovatingtomorrow....
I'm going to take a page from the leads of the drupal project and say that Joomla and drupal aren't really in competition with each other. It's a mutual respect, they learn from each other, and are growing together.
I'll, also, take a page from Dries, the drupal project lead. He said that the CMS of choice in the future will be about average people being able to pick it up and make a site with it. It won't be about how good the framework is, but yet that will play a part.
For this to happen it has to be simple enough to use, yet extend to all the different uses out there. It has to be good to develop on. Yet, easy to navigate. The CMS of the future is forming now but none of them is it. They either don't quite meet the need of the thousands of specialized projects or aren't that easy to put together for them. I'd say that Joomla and Drupal will converge in similar feature sets some day. What will set them apart is how they handle these situations.
You asked and interesting question about WYSIWYG editors. And, we avoid them where ever possible. It's not because of the size or anything like that. When people usually use them they make the content look ugly. If I gave my churches leaders the ability to choose fonts they would use dozens of them. The site is a designed site. I want them to use the fonts the designer choose for them.
If anything we give them the ability to use bold, italics, lists, and easily create links. Other than this is can easily destroy that look a designer worked so hard to achieve and quickly make a site unreadable.
I think an upcoming episode of the podcast will have to do with making the choice of an open source product like a CMS.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
I have no idea where this came from!
Hey Amy...
Thanks for your point of view....but I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. I was simply stating that Joomla was a large install and that I wasn't crazy about the way they pre-package everything into it that I may not need (no, I don't need a WYSIWYG or some of the other things you've mentioned).
I was just stating my preference....I'm not sure why it appears you took such offense to that. Joomla is a great product...I just don't happen to agree with it's philosophy on it's core installation.
Is there something wrong with that?
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
I am sorry, but to me, your
I am sorry, but to me, your comment was inflammatory. And, I probably would have never said anything about it, but there are so many of these kinds of comments on this site.
Here was someone's attempt at saying something positive about Joomla!: 1.5 final release is due out anytime.
Matt's response is: I've given up waiting for the final release of Joomla 1.5. Don't hold you breath on it happening soon.
Perhaps that could have been worded differently? Surely, one understands how unfriendly that is?
A week ago, or so, in another thread someone said another positive comment about Joomla! and Drupal: Overall it looks like the biggest difference is that drupal is more flexible for developers to build on, but joomla is simpler and is more ready to go out of the box.
Matt had several long responses refuting anything good about Joomla! and went so far as to include these "facts:" I was watching a video from a session recorded on the google campus and there was an interesting distinction made between the two setups. Drupal has literally thousands of develpers working on modules and hundreds contributing to the code drupal development. Joomla has somewhere around 20 people working on the core development. The drupal community has a much better developer side to it.
That is such an inaccurate depiction of either development community and so slanted to make one look so much better than the other that I finally said something. But, sharing URLs for commonly accepted open source statistics is considered nearing a "religious war" by Matt.
Here's another unnecessary comment: Don't let the really shinny factor is Joomla fool you out of the box.
OK. This is you guys website. You don't have to be fair or objective - no one can tell you how to run your site. But, at least understand from the perspective of one member of the Joomla! community, the collection of these comments seem inflammatory and unfair, very unfriendly.
Please - go visit my site. It's made from Drupal. Find the name Drupal in the tag list on the home page - there are tons of great stories on the Drupal community, an amazing group of people who I have nothing but respect for.
Again, my hope is that we show respect for open source contributors of all flavors and be sensitive to what we say so that we do not distance groups, but rather encourage people to work together.
Thanks for considering what I have had to say.
We're nobodies...
I guess where I am coming from is this: we're nobodies. We're nobodies who happen to prefer drupal to joomla. I guess my question is: So what?
I'm not sure why it would be required that we'd like Joomla and Drupal equally. It's just our opinion. If you don't agree, that's ok, but please don't tell us what our opinion can and can't be of a CMS. We hope that everyone here will make up their own mind.
We appreciate you being a supporter of Joomla, we think that's great...but that doesn't mean that everyone must be..It's my personal opinion that I like the philosophy of the Drupal CMS more than Joomlas...and I think we all have a right to our opinions.
We're not telling you or anyone else not to like Joomla...I'm not sure why our opinion matters so much on this issue.
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mustardseedmedia.com
Nobodies?
Sorry it took so long to reply. You are *not* nobodies (ignore the double negative - or not - whichever in nicer). You have a wonderful community service here and a growing and important voice. I enjoy your work!
Soon - when we are not so busy with v 1.5 releasing, I will try to put together some material about Joomla! for you. I'll even let you know some of the soft underbelly stuff that we know we need to work on. Oh heck - like it's a big secret - ACL - ACL - ACL.
Thanks!
Look forward to it
Amy - we look forward it. :-)
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
Look for the positive
Amy - please look for the positives in this. We aren't trashing Joomla. We've said a number of times in the podcast that it's a good product. We've even recommend it over drupal in circumstances. Sometimes on the air and sometimes in the forum. If you look you will find it.
I get the impression you are looking for the negatives. Please don't. I give Joomla a lot of credit. They Joomla developers are doing a lot right. When I try to point out differences please don't take that as a knock. If anything expand on an explanation if it's not clear. Their communities are different. The structure, the people, and how they coexist. That's not a bad thing. There isn't one right way to be.
One of the things I've learned doing the podcast and being in these forums is to try and look at everything through joyful and positive eyes. There is a lot to be joyful about. Anytime we post we should be trying to act in a matter that shows the joy. I think when you get into things that are as close to people as religion (choosing a CMS) we need always attempt to frame what we are saying positively. And, when we respond to something we don't like we need to be extra careful to be that way.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
No need to be neutral
I think people are mostly OK here.
There has been no real dishonesty or trash talking.
I disagree with some of the arguments and points I've seen posted and agree with others, but they've generally seemed honest and reasonably well informed. I suppose it is a question of degree (objective/subjective), but I'd hate to see this site try to go all "opinion neutral".
I've read everthing here plus a lot more elsewhere and I'd still consider Joomla!. I've regularly been documenting the impressive improvements I've seen in v1.5. I wouldn't avoid recommending it, but I wouldn't recommend any product unconditionally. Any product is going to have a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and you can't really assess a product if you hear only the arguments for its strengths.
In the past negative and positive remarks have been shared on Adobe stuff, Apple stuff, Microsoft stuff, web-based applications, and a slew of different varieties of audio and video equipment. A share of that opinion included some subjective reactions and strong personal preferences.... and with the way its been done, that is just fine with me (even when I'm in a dissenting minority).
Mark
"I get the impression you
"I get the impression you are looking for the negative"
Matt - if you talk to anyone who knows me, they would laugh at that comment. I'm called a cheerleader or Polly Anna or "positive." Honestly, I was offended!
It's fun to trash talk. I get that. I understand it's not intended for anything more than fun.
You have to understand, I look at open source projects as very noble efforts; and, many of us really do view Drupal as a "sibling" or "friend."
OK. *PERHAPS* I was a tiny little bit over sensitive? I must admit, I have also been told that thousands of times over, as well. And for that I sincerely apologize.
Thanks sincerely!
Amy :)
It happens
Sorry it took me a little bit to respond to this. I was out of town vacationing and I disconnected for that.
Sometimes conversations over the internet don't go as well as we would like. We loose that non-verbal part of communication that makes up 90% of the face to face communication. I may have been a little harsh with my comment. I think we are all good and I look forward to more feedback, especially when if comes to Joomla which you know a bit more than me about.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
Joomla gives you options
I have tried so many different CMS's its not even funny. I often try to break out of the mold of what a "website" does and create new designs/functions. I hate having my creativity stifled by my CMS.
I have tried Serendipity, Thyme, Drupal, and Joomla. From what I have heard, Drupal seems to have the best community features. But I have found that Joomla gives me the most freedom to do whatever I want to with my website. I admit, I haven't given Drupal a ton of time to explore yet, but I know that when I have had a dream, I have been able to find an option for it in Joomla.
My biggest struggle with Joomla is the lack of the options to create more "user types". I've really wanted to create lots of user types - meaning that each user would have different "executive options". For a church site, this would mean that the children's director would have special options while signed in to add content for the Children's department, while they are limited from adding content to the main page or to the youth.
Another big issue that I have found with CMS's is their really weak calendar options. I think this will be one of my goals in expanding my php knowledge.
most freedom and calendaring
Any CMS is going to constrain you in some ways. You get features at that work but they constrain you. Next down the line you have frameworks which Drupal is one, too. They give you less constraint and more freedom but you have less out of the box functionality. Next down you have the languages themselves, like PHP, where you have no features but crazy freedom.
Unless you are a programmer you have to live with the constraint of a CMS if you want the features.
What you talk about with Joomlas user types limitations that's an issue of permissions. It's possibly Joomlas biggest weakness. This is one of the places drupal excels and one of the reasons I initially chose it. I wish Joomla took permissions as seriously as drupal.
Calendaring typically sucks in CMSes. It's really tough to do it and do it well. Once you get into multiple dates, deal with resources, time zones, signups, and all the rest it's a pretty big and complex system. Few people have done it well. I'd actually be a little scared to write something like that well. It would require the kind of attention the views module does (yikes!) in drupal.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
comment#1
whats the difference between the Joomla and 1.5 SVN Revision 9955..