Why I shifted focus from Drupal to MODx

Quote from: ifthenelse at Jun 05, 2007, 09:33 PM

(I know what I’m saying about Drupal is harsh, but I have over 25 years experience as a software developer, including Unix kernel development and years of major software system lead design/architecture experience.)

Then I ran into MODx. A bit less mature than other options, but it has a much better thought out core, and it hasn’t spiraled out of control like Drupal has. It also is reasonably performant. In less than one day, I was able to put together a basic site together that took me two weeks fighting with Drupal to create. I was able to focus on getting the CSS and other elements right instead of dealing with all the wierd idiosyncracies of Drupal.

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I, too, have spent more years than I like to admit as a software developer and although I never installed Drupal, Joomla, or Mambo, I could see right away that MODx was a much better fit for me. As a relatively new member of the MODx team, I am continually impressed by the forethought I see in MODx’s architecture. When I want to do something that the current core doesn’t quite do, nine times out of ten, I find that the developers have already built the hooks in to do what I want. Similarly, when MODx has a bug, nine times out of ten, it’s really a browser bug, a MySQL/PHP/Apache bug, or a hosting error. The one time out of nine that it’s a realy MODx bug, it’s usually extremely easy to track down because the design is so sensible.

The robustness, too, continually amazes me. I’ve run a number of MODx sites for some time and I have yet to have a site go down or malfunction due to a bug in MODx. Given the laxness of PHP, I never expected this kind of reliability from a CMS.

Security is a particular area where I think MODx can have a particular advantage - I have some security background, and while I do think there are areas where the MODx model can be improved (the existing role based implementation doesn’t work well with certain use cases), at least it is built on a foundation that can actually work. The hierarchical document tree is key - enhance the system to include the appropriate container and document-level security (possibly one thing might be to add specific access controls to document groups, containers, and individual documents - for example, implement access control lists.). Throw in some specific inheritance features and MODx will have a document security capability that no other open source CMS I’ve worked with can handle (at least not easily).

MODx security is somewhat in transition as we move to 0.9.7. Given your background, it would be great to have you take a look at the 0.9.7 alpha release and comment on the new security system and how well it would meet your needs (If you’re not too busy).

http://wtf.modxcms.com/downloads/

Thanks again for the great feedback.

Bob

My brief experience with Drupal sort of echoed the OP, but I don’t have the developer experience to put it all into good words.

I installed Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Textpattern, CMS Made Simple and a couple of others. I probably spent more time with Drupal than the others.

I found Drupal to be sort of overwhelming in that there is just so much there. Rather than having a closely followed set of core modules there are like hundreds of them. I also found the Drupal bulletin board to be all over the place. Here the board seems more focused, more agreeable and more concerned about leaving good bread crumbs for others to follow.

In the end I decided to stick with Wordpress for blogs, MODx for CMS needs and regular XHTML & CSS for static sites...

Max

If you guys remember, I was looking at Drupal a few months back for a really long time. From what I saw, I can echo others sentiments that Drupal:
- can be very heavy after adding needed articles
- can be a pain to design for

On my local MAMP server, I had to increase the RAM given to Apache several times after adding many modules. The modules are great for functionality. But they all add up in resources needed. I feel Drupal is great if you’ve got a really big budget for hardware and design, and need a highly interactive community site. The biggest pros for Drupal I’ve seen are:
- CCK (similar to TV’s and using snippets instead of module addons- think 5 star rating snippet)
- Views module - this is GREAT!!!!!!!!!
+ the functionality can be done with ditto/html but the Views WYSIWYG is awesome if power hungry
+ not available for 6.0 yet and is the main reason I didnt use Drupal for that project
- Multi-sites (though this increases the need for good hardware)

But you really need either a good team (1 for programming and 1 for design) or some pre-built sites you know well and deploy/customize.

Chuck

Quote from: BobRay at May 12, 2008, 02:57 PM

Quote from: a7 at May 12, 2008, 01:21 PM

However I must say the article by ifthenelse is pure FUD - He doesn’t actually say !anything. Therefor it is not worth anything until proven with facts.

I wonder if this comment is typical of the Drupal forums? I must say that we’re used to much more polite and civil discourse around here. The OP raised some interesting questions about CMS architecture and development and spoke from his experience as a user with both Drupal and MODx.

I think you’ll find that most of the people here are ready to admit that Drupal is a useful CMS and that, for some people, it might be a better fit than MODx.

We would welcome your comments as well on how MODx and Drupal compare, but those opinions would carry more weight if you tried a little harder not to insult other forum members and if you actually installed MODx before posting your opinions.

Hello Bob, I am not speaking for the drupal community only for myself.
The only thing I said is that posting negative allegations about other systems (especially in the open source world) without naming facts is FUD.
I did not say anything, espescially nothing bad, about MODx. I’ll probably come back and post here once I’ve got something to say.
Also I don’t think there is a problem with posting opinions like the Photowebmax or ProWebscape did as they only posted opinions but things like:

"So much so that Drupal now is very inconsistent in how it does things - especially regarding security."

Are simply bad for open source itself. You read FUD about Joomla here, Drupal there and about MODx somewhere else how would you want to stop it without naming the facts.
There are Security audits, security mailinglists, security guidlines for writing modules, ... - there is a whole team at drupal caring about security. Even people like Rasmus Lerdorf work to improve Drupal security.

“I love finding custom CMS because I know I can break into it. If I see Drupal and its up to date I just give up.”

- paraphrase of Rasmus Lerdorf

So if you want to read some more about drupal security here is some information:
http://drupal.org/security
http://drupal.org/security-team
http://drupal.org/node/36526
http://drupal.org/project/security_scanner

I am not comparing MODx with Drupal yet so my opinion about how they compare does not carry any weight. I only think such a statement shouldn’t be left uncommented as they leads to false assumptions.
And here the top 5 Reasons why Developers don’t use Drupal http://www.nicklewis.org/node/968

Quote from: a7 at May 13, 2008, 11:43 AM

There are Security audits, security mailinglists, security guidlines for writing modules, ... - there is a whole team at drupal caring about security. Even people like Rasmus Lerdorf work to improve Drupal security.

Just because a lot of people work on something does not make it a *better* product.

“I love finding custom CMS because I know I can break into it. If I see Drupal and its up to date I just give up.”

- paraphrase of Rasmus Lerdorf

This, my friend, is far more FUD than anything else in this thread. Please don’t come onto our forums and spread propaganda like this.

So if you want to read some more about drupal security here is some information:
http://drupal.org/security
http://drupal.org/security-team
http://drupal.org/node/36526
http://drupal.org/project/security_scanner
I am not comparing MODx with Drupal yet so my opinion about how they compare does not carry any weight. I only think such a statement shouldn’t be left uncommented as they leads to false assumptions.

Fair enough.

And here the top 5 Reasons why Developers don’t use Drupal http://www.nicklewis.org/node/968

That article is horrid. Let me expound:

1. ’Our API is Only as Powerful as the Developer’s Knowledge of It ’
That’s a lame excuse - any API is like that. Drupal is not alone. What makes a good API is three factors:

1. Power - A good API is powerful, fast, and does what it needs to do with excellent efficiency.
2. Accessibility - if an API is too obfuscated and hard to understand, then it’s not likely it will find wide adoption. Well thought-out APIs are not only powerful, but have excellently designed models that are easy to quickly understand.
3. Extensibility - A good API can easily be overlayed and developed on top of, and should be easily able to be adapted into other MVC or OOP design frameworks (or non-oop frameworks, for that matter).

2.Developers Hold a Deeply Held Believe that *their* tool is the best
Nonsense. This is a generic, stereotyped attack on developers. I personally dont find my frameworks to be the best in everything. I wish PHP had the scaffolding capabilities of RoR. I wish MODx had the revisioning and rollbacks of CMSes like Stellent. They are better in those areas. The writer of this article is horribly biased toward PHP, by his statement: "Oh, btw, RoR sux."

3. Developers Often Don’t Form Opinions From Experience
You’ve got to be kidding me. Maybe beginners dont, but most every serious dev I know always checks out a product or toolkit before making a statement on it. Most, as well, also try to implement that software or language into a project at least once.

4. Anti-PHP snobbery.
Bah. I hear this in any community. In fact, I’m willing to be there’s more Anti-Anti-(languagehere) snobbery that there is opposition to the software. What does this have to do with Drupal in particular? There’s _tons_ of PHP CMSes.

5. Drupal Doesn’t Speed Up Development for Developers Who Aren’t Drupal Ninjas
This is a major core problem with Drupal. It doesn’t have the core principle of good API - easily accessible and understandable without compromising power or flexibility.


All in all, that was a bad article, that really didn’t produce any good pro-Drupal arguments. It seemed to bash developers more than anything. If you want to gain developers, it’s a pretty bad idea to go around bashing other developers.

You seem deeply hurt? Sorry wasn’t my intetion.
Only showing the other side, posting links were to get real information.
Only quoting the opinion of someone who should know better than me. (Rasmus)
Not saying anything is better or worse than the other.

Only posting a link to an ironic blog post that I found funny and that probably could have been written by a MODx user as well. An article I chose because it adresses issues which drupal has like the steep learing curve - Can’t you understand that there are people wanting to provide acurate information without trying to advertise?

Relax!

Quote from: a7 at May 13, 2008, 12:31 PM

You seem deeply hurt? Sorry wasn’t my intetion.
Only showing the other side, posting links were to get real information.

No one is hurt here. I was just simply pointing out that you were claiming FUD on this guy’s article and then posting FUD of your own.

And just because something is a "link" does not mean it points to real information.

Only posting a link to an ironic blog post that I found funny and that probably could have been written by a MODx user as well. An article I chose because it adresses issues which drupal has like the steep learing curve - Can’t you understand that there are people wanting to provide acurate information without trying to advertise?
Relax!

I was simply providing my opinion on that blogger’s post. I didn’t accuse you of advertising at all - I simply stated his blog post (which is pro-Drupal) was not a good argument.

Quote from: a7 at May 13, 2008, 11:43 AM

Hello Bob, I am not speaking for the drupal community only for myself.
The only thing I said is that posting negative allegations about other systems (especially in the open source world) without naming facts is FUD.
I did not say anything, espescially nothing bad, about MODx. I’ll probably come back and post here once I’ve got something to say.

I appreciate your attempts to support the Open Source community by challenging aspersions on the security of Open Source software. I agree that this is an issue that needs to be treated carefully.

We’re getting OT here but, just to clarify, you said:

However I must say the article by ifthenelse is pure FUD - He doesn’t actually say !anything. Therefor it is not worth anything until proven with facts.

My point was that, in this community, telling another poster that he or she isn’t saying anything and that his or her opinion is "not worth anything" is not acceptable. It’s common behavior in lots of places on the web and, in those places, nobody minds. It’s not like that here, though. We’ve made a real effort here to be positive and welcoming without backing away from full and open discussions of MODx’s flaws.

You can make all the negative comments about MODx you like, as long as they’re reasonably accurate, constructive, and don’t involve negative comments about other posters.

As an aside, I think you also misread the OP’s post. I believe he was talking about the ease with which particular access policies can be implemented in MODx versus Drupal. I don’t think he said anything at all about which CMS was more secure from attacks.

I have missed this thread otherwise I’d have stepped in but now I just say : +1 to what BobRay said.

I don’t mind having contradictory opinions, quite the contrary, but let’s at least keep our facts straight and never make this about people. As a moderator I won’t allow that to happen. 

We’re bound to hit a wall when comparing CMS or frameworks because it’s not only the tool but a mix between the tool, the skills of the person who uses it, the context in which he uses it.. If you (over)simplify by making it only about the tool, you just miss the point I think.

Of course we’re each passionnate about our favorite tool and that’s particularly true of MODx, we have a wide bunch of enthusiast here   Any professionnal will tell you that choosing the right tool for the job is one of the most important skills and of course one tool can’t meet all needs !

MODx is currently a pretty versatile tool for corporate and marketing sites, but less so for heavy editorial content where workflow is key and being stuck in a title-summary-content structure is not a problem, or multi-site from a single install, or heavy duty multi-lingual websites. Of course, this is a shorcut, you can go beyond that with MODx and it all depends of the mix between the tool, the person who uses it, the context of the job... etc. Plus, some of those limitations will vanish with the new branch but that’s another story.

Any tool has limits, even Drupal. Don’t get me wrong I consider Drupal to be the main competitor for MODx at the moment. I don’t think things are so clear cut between MODx and Drupal, security is certainly not the issue. As far as I am concerned, I chose MODx not only because of the feature set, but also for its community and even more important because I can do the same work with less time I’d spend with any other CMS and I am not stuck into any design pattern. Call me lazy, but I choose the path of least resistance

Now for some people, learning MODx will be hard, not my case. For others, learning Drupal will be hard, sure my case though it’s not that hard either... just nerdy so to speak.

I use Drupal now because Modx is just not developed enough, Drupal is where Modx should be IMHO. I would prefer using Modx, but unfortunately it’s just not a complete CMS unless you are a programmer. It should be called the CMS for programers. Other CMS like Wordpress and Drupal and Joomla are already 20 light years ahead of Modx. What I find interesting about Modx is that it’s a futuristic state of the art application, yet it’s so far behind the times when compared to the current CMS solutions.