So the big news last week was winning the Knight News Challenge. The grant is going to enable me to work on Spot Us, community funded reporting, for about two years.
I’m VERY excited.
As I move forward with Spot.Us I want to be very transparent with how I’m approaching certain issues and just want to make myself open for conversation in general. As such – I figure doing a regular video where I just talk to the screen about things is a good idea.
So – here is the first installment. Essentially I wanted to get across being open and ask my first big question: Should I build the site in Ruby on Rails or Drupal?
In some circles – I just opened a big can of worms. I know.
As I mentioned in the video – I’m very familiar with Drupal, so I’m not ignorant about the issues surrounding Drupal or Ruby. But that’s what makes this decision so important to me.
In the end, it’s the people that matter most. Still – this is a question I’ve been wrangling with and would love any other feedback on it.
For those keeping track: I’m using YouTube to upload my interviews and Viddler to do these vlog-like entries. Seesmic is for quick and disposable video entires.
Have you considered Django for your development framework? It’s great for any site that involves publishing since that’s what it was originally built for.
I’ve built a few small apps using Django — my blog and a news aggregator — and thought it very easy and fun to use.
David,
WOW- I remember discussing this with you over our pint of Guiness after we were both S.F. newcomers- you made it!!
Way to go man- and let me know if I can ever help you in some way!!!
I know Spot.us is crowdfunded- but let me know if you need or want advertising, I am sure I could send a few advertisers your way.
WAY TO GO!!
Or consider Seaside with the Pier/Blog CMS (http://seaside.st).
Drupal is a platform for content management — it’s a customizable package of software.
Ruby on Rails is a toolkit for building web applications. It has no functionality out of the box. You have to build your own application with the tools.
Django is similar to RoR – it’s a toolkit, not a platform.
That said, I’ve found working with RoR to be an absolute delight. It’s a brilliant toolkit that makes it remarkably easy to build web apps quickly.
From what I’ve heard, Django is similarly wonderful, though I have no personal experience with it.
On the other hand, I’ve heard that Drupal is a royal pain in the ass if you want to make it do something that doesn’t fit the usual shape of a Drupal app.
So your first question is probably this: Do I want to roll my own application that does exactly what I want it to do? Or does what I want to build fit nicely into a pre-existing framework?
(I interviewed the creator of the Windy Citizen the other day, and his big gripe with Drupal was that the really hot Drupal sites have tons of custom code – so they’re not great examples of what you’d get out of the box.)
I’d definitely roll my own site, using Django or RoR — but of course I would, I’m a coder. 🙂
I take it you figured out how to “make a weblog in 15 minutes”? 😉
I like Drupal a lot. But, you might want to sit down and think of everything you could possibly want to do with the site. Then, see if Drupal capable of it all (or most and definitely the necessary ones).
You can try learning PHP – but that could take a long time. You’d have more control over the functionality of the site.
There’s always the possibility of using other PHP based projects to provide any functionality you’d need (not available in Drupal). But, then you’d need to figure out how to integrate multiple projects.
Hmmm… RoR or Drupal? Each one has its drawbacks.
Damn, why isn’t there an edit button on the comments 🙂
Good luck with your choice! Take your time; the choice will affect the site for a long time.
Developing with Django will make development less stressful, faster, and more fun.
And who wants any of those things?
Hey Dave- congrats on wining the Knights award. Looking forward to seeing your non-profit grow!