Web Developer (2000 – Present)

I’ve been writing code since 1984. In the 6th grade we had an Apple IIe and we’d get BASIC code from magazines and store them on these awesome things called 5.25″ floppies. BASIC lead to Pascal which lead to C which lead to Fortran and C++, then to modeling languages like VHDL,  and then in 2000 I discovered the wonderful world of PHP and MySql.

Drupal (2005-Present)

In 2005, I discovered the wonderful world of Drupal. Drupal 4 was pretty basic but it had security checks, database sanitization, and it was fast.

Drupal 5 and 6 were even better. More stuff made it into core and it was a lot more robust. I wrote some custom modules for a couple of websites that I worked on and even did a little consulting as well has helped with the issue queue for Drupal 7.

However, the issue with Drupal is that it still isn’t friendly to update and the learning curve can be a bear if you don’t know how to do things “The Drupal Way.”

WordPress (2006-Present)

Around the same time that Drupal was exploding, WordPress was also starting to come on the scene. So I also started to play with WordPress 2.0. WordPress was a lot more friendly, a LOT easier to keep up to date, and has become the most popular CMS in the world. I’ve written a couple of widgets and tapped into the loop but it’s mainly been for educational purposes. There are so many plugins for WordPress, I just haven’t been able to think of one unique enough to contribute.

Today, I mainly work in WordPress.

Joomla (2006-2006)

What can I say about Joomla? I didn’t really like it enough to develop with it. A lot of the good modules were commercial where everything in Drupal is free and a LOT of good stuff in WordPress is free.

Summary

When people ask about CMS’s I tell them to go with WordPress, it’s user friendly, easy to update, and the learning curve won’t snap your neck.

Drupal is a big engine and 4 wheels. If you’re a mechanic, you can add whatever frame (modules) you want, whatever body  (themes) you want and you can have anything from a race car to a space shuttle. Drupal is that powerful and that versitile… BUT some expert assembly required. I make people happy by exporting their data from Drupal to WordPress.

WordPress is a Suburban. It has plenty of seating (modules), it has a big motor for towing (ecommerce), and it’ll get you where you need to go. It’s big because at it’s heart it’s a blogging platform, but it does whatever job you want it to do.

Joomla… is like Johnny Cash’s psycho billy Cadillac. You can have multiple motors running and everything feels like it was kludged together.