Quantumodo Live
July 14th, 2006
Hey people. Welcome to Quantumodo, yet another blog about about web design.
Well, I wish that I had something super to serve up for my very first post, but instead all I have is this… this little blurb about how Quantumodo came to be. A while back I created a website, bamboostudios.com, to publish all the ‘cool’ stuff I create and think of. As it turns out, I have a lot of things on the go. I wanted to publish artwork, design work, a projects portfolio and a web design journal all in one place. The trouble is that it just didn’t go together; the technical ramblings did not sit easily alongside the art and design work I was trying to feature. I’m sure you can see where this is going…
Earlier this year I created this domain with the intention of using it to publish my especially ‘geeky’ content. At first I wasn’t very set on what platform I wanted to base Quantumodo on. That is, I was trying to decide between Drupal and Wordpress. At the time I was heavily entrenched in the development of a large website based on Drupal, businessabilities.ca, and was leaning in that direction. I knew that Wordpress was probably the more suitable platform for what I needed at this website but I lacked the knowledge to really make Wordpress do what I wanted. As I completed development on businessabilities.ca I was able to finish up a new version bamboostudios.com that I had been developing in Wordpress. In order to complete that project I had to learn a great deal more about advanced functionality you can get out of Wordpress; understanding the loop, how to use custom fields, etc. So now, equipped with a great deal more knowledge about both Drupal and Wordpress, I was finally able to make a clear descision about which platform I wanted to publish my technical thoughts on. The choice was obvious; Wordpress it is.
Like Apples and Oranges
Comparing Wordpress to Drupal is like comparing two different types of fruit. Both are sweet, but they are really different applications. Compare Drupal to ModX… or Wordpress to Movable Type… these are apt comparisions. We’re talking about blogging software v.s. full blown content management systems. The reason the lines are blurred at all is only because Wordpress is such a full featured blogging application. It has most of the essential features of a good content management system, and for a site that is run by only a few people that are somewhat ‘tech literate’, or by a single author, it’s a great choice. Drupal, the full featured content management system, is the perfect tool for the large community website that requires a ton of integrated features like forums, contact forms, advanced access control, mailing lists, etc. Wordpress is the perfect tool for something like a blog, which this is… and really simply, I like it like that. This website should be a blog. Why not? Websites are turning into blogs faster than you can say ‘googlebot’.
So, in a quick review, I thought I would roud this out with a little list of things that I like and dislike about Wordpress and Drupal:
Wordpress
Pros: Extremely easy to install, upgrade, or move about. Easy to theme, standards compliant, easy to use, slick admin interface, excellent documentation and community support.
Cons: Lot’s of plugins out there don’t work, or work poorly, built in Tiny MCE HTML editor has no default option for adding heading elements.
Drupal
Pros: Tons of add on modules that mostly work great, intuitive method of editing and managing content, extremely flexible, very expandable, standards compliant, excellent documentation and community support.
Cons: No installer script, can be slow and quirky, default navigation and administration is not user friendly.
Alright, well, with all that having been said, it’s best that I get on with the theme for this.
Cheers,
Until Next Time.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.