This page is heavily out of date, as Drupal 8 is now available. Links have been stripped from this article due to age and inaccessibility.
I’ve not blogged for what seems like an age! I wish I had an excuse above and beyond “I’ve been working and moving house” but I don’t, so I won’t give an excuse. Oh hang on I just have. Bother! Anyway I figured I would try and update my blog more regularly in the future (I know I always say that but what the heck I’ll give it a go) I decided to write my next blog article on something that I am being asked a lot by my customers at Contemporary Fusion Computer Services [Link removed, site and company no longer actuve. Originally pointed to contemporaryfusion.co.uk] and that is “Should I upgrade (Or build) my site to Drupal 7 [Drupal.org] yet” I am finding I am giving 2 answers.
These answers are (roughly) inline with what a lot of people are saying: If you have a new site and the site has to be available quickly (IE within 4 - 6 weeks) then it is probably better to use Drupal 6 as more modules are available for it. If however updating or building is a longer term project (2+ months) then why not build it in Drupal 7. Although not officially stable yet Views, Panels and many other modules are quite usable (I believe D.O uses Views and has done since launch day of Drupal 7). If D.O believes a module is stable why not use it? (OK I know it’s officially alpha still and alpha should NEVER be used in production sites, but I don’t see why the code is Alpha if so many sites are using it.) Please note I am not saying the code is stable - I know there are bugs that are seen as critical, and stop it being marked as stable - but I’ve used it enough to say “beta” should be an option now, if not soon. :-)
I am working on a new copy of davidthorne.net [davidthorne.net] which is in D7, but I have yet to build a theme for it (This one is approaching 2 years old so I figured I ought to update it a bit) as well as import all my old wordpress blog articles in case anyone has a fit of nostalgia/insomnia (Take your pick) so hopefully I will be able to say “Yes I have a D7 production site” soon. With that will also (hopefully) come an upgrade tutorial, as well as copies of some presentations I am giving soon on D7 with Cambridge’s Drupal User Group on using Drupal 7 with multiple languages etc.
I hope this fills people in a little on my thoughts as to whether to upgrade to D7 yet or not, but if not feel free to ask in the comments section below. I’m going to try and make sure I check the comments queue more regularly!
Dave