---
layout: post
title: Why I Hate Drupal
created: 1236617576
permalink: blog/walkah/why-i-hate-drupal/
tags:
- drupal
- drupalcon
- drupalcondc2009
---
I'm back home from a truly spectacular [DrupalCon DC](http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/) and have been reflecting this morning on some of the feedback from my talk: [Why I Hate Drupal](http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/why-i-hate-drupal).

See [the slides](http://www.slideshare.net/walkah/why-i-hate-drupal) and [watch the video](http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconDc2009-WhyIHateDrupal)

I first got the idea for this talk several months ago watching the DjangoCon 2008 keynote [Why I Hate Django](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk) by [Cal Henderson](http://www.iamcal.com/). I had several ideas for things to address, but aside from the session description I intentionally said very little about my talk publicly. This, of course, lead to some interesting [speculation](http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/news/100-hot-sessions-tentative-schedule#comment-1644) and [negative feedback](http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/why-i-hate-drupal#comment-752). All part of the plan.

As it turned out, I was not lynched and nothing rotten was thrown.

What I was *not* expecting (and what the video doesn't capture), though, was all of the interesting discussion that followed. I was overwhelmed by the positive response and the number of people who agreed with several of the points I tried to make:

Drupal is not a product. To grow into a "movement", we should focus on becoming a better platform, adopt some better practices around development, be a better framework, and create more space for the creation of "products" (install profiles, etc) on top.  

What do you think? How to we "fix" this project?