The drop is always movingYou know that saying about standing on the shoulders of giants? Drupal is standing on a huge pile of midgetsAll content management systems suck, Drupal just happens to suck less.Popular open source software is more secure than unpopular open source software, because insecure software becomes unpopular fast. [That doesn't happen for proprietary software.]Drupal makes sandwiches happen.There is a module for that

It's nice to be recognized

Submitted by nk on Sat, 2008-01-19 14:03

I ordered a Montbell jacket from a website (running ASP) and in a follow up email, I was asked "One question, are you the same Karoly Negyesi that is the Drupal developer? Drupal is a very nice piece of software". So now I can tick the "famous" part, let's see what can be do about the "rich" part...

Automated install/update

Submitted by nk on Thu, 2008-01-17 18:26

Could everyone just stop producing these modules? If your webserver can write files that are executed by the webserver, that's a security risk. If there is a minor exploit, this can turn it into a critical one. The proper way to do is to use FTP/SSH/whatever wrappers of PHP5 to FTP/SSH back to your server and thus write files over. Never store the password, ask it each time. This way security is kept and yet semi-automated updates are possible.

The two most important new permanent members of the Drupal Association

Submitted by nk on Thu, 2008-01-17 15:20

In my view, the most important two members are Laura Scott and Michael E. Meyers (disclaimer: the latter happens to be my boss and I worked with Laura in the past.). The reason? These two are businessman/woman. They do not hack code or bang on Linux for a living, instead they do business (based on Drupal, of course). Yes, I know a lot others are doing business as consultants but that's very different from what these are two doing. Drupal is maturing and we need people like them in the Association -- thanks for running, congratulations for being elected and can't wait to see the results.

New simpletest contributor: Jimmy Berry

Submitted by nk on Sat, 2008-01-12 07:14

As a GHOP student under the nick of boombatower Jimmy writes simpletests. He does with a remarkable speed and quality. So far he has written tests for path, book and content translation modules. Rock on! Thanks Jimmy! Thanks Google!

How comments will become nodes

Submitted by nk on Sun, 2008-01-06 02:23

Comments are not nodes mostly because nodes are perceived as heavier. However, hook_comments are more or less equal to hook_nodeapi so this is just a matter of actually registering which nodeapi implementation operates on what call. The seed for this is the module hooks registry. Second, currently we load all comments for one page in one query. This will be a possibility for most cases once we have join/foreign key info in schema API.

Meet me in...

Submitted by nk on Sat, 2008-01-05 22:14

New York between Jan 13-Feb 2. Chicago Feb 2-17. Boston Feb 17-Mar 16. Washington DC Mar 16-Apr 5.

Follow up on Dmitri's Chipin

Submitted by nk on Sat, 2008-01-05 22:13

I really do not know what to say. The Drupal community throwed together 680 USD in 1.5 days to get a 12 year old Drupal ninja to his first DrupalCon. Thanks. You all rock. See you all (including Dmitri, apparently) in Boston!

Help getting Dmitri to the Boston DrupalCon

Submitted by nk on Fri, 2008-01-04 13:52

In case you do not know who he is, check his Drupal.org profile and here is a quote from Eric Reid's blog:

...Bay Area Drupal Camp this weekend. All types of people from all backgrounds. And then there was Dmitri.

Dmitri Gaskin is a key member of the Drupal Community... a commiter... an expert... a 'Ninja' if you will... Dmitri gave several talks here this weekend, and people listened to him with interest. He knows what he's talking about. He's only developed on Drupal for a relatively short time, but he gets it, bigtime. Dmitri's definitely The Man.

Oh, and by the way... Dmitri is 12 years old.

Less than 100 000 nodes last year

Submitted by nk on Wed, 2008-01-02 08:21

First node in 2007 was 106137 and the last was 205224 which makes it 99086 nodes in 2007. However the first 100 000 nodes took five years, the next 100 000 just a bit more than a year... and the third surely will be less than a year. Also, we have 222442 users, a year ago we had 100651 which means 2007 added 121791 users to Drupal.org... and we have a Drupal 6 release soon which will attract even more users and nodes. No wonder the 2008 spring DrupalCon needs to be held at a convention centre.

The dangers of OOP

Submitted by nk on Sun, 2007-12-30 08:17

"Effective use of OO tools requires traversing a long learning curve." -- Mitch Kramer in an article from 1993.

"Object-oriented programming (OOP) is becoming the norm within software development, but is associated with a steeper learning curve than the conventional structured approach." http://www.actapress.com/PaperInfo.aspx?PaperID=27552

"Really "getting" object-oriented programming will take a bit longer" http://lists.apple.com/archives/Student-dev/2004/Oct/msg00053.html