On not doing Drupal anymore

Hello,

I am new to Drupal, but an experienced developer and open source enthusiast. I am generally very impressed by Drupal, at least in terms of its "competitors."

I was on the verge of choosing a way to contribute, but after much research, forum-reading, and list-reading, have decided to back off. I will still work with the software, and even likely produce a module or theme that I will make available at my website, not through "official" means.

Rather than work "with the community," it seems actually more effective to work alone. It's sad when the help of hundreds of people slows you down more than aids you, but Drupal definitely suffers from bike shed syndrome, unfortunately.

I am excited for the new Drupal company, and hope that Drupal gets some profiles, and even mild fork-like manifestations, so that it enjoys the rapid iterations and innovations that Linux enjoys. Competition is what Drupal needs. From within.

thanks for the details, steven. i have a couple of ideas, in case you have any urge to work on drupal more.

• exclusively work on a contrib module or two. maybe openid server, or openclient. ther are no prolonged debates when you are the contrib module maintainer.
• start an "experimental" drupal fork. you are the only committer. just share the repository so we can see what you've done, and possibly bring the patches back into standard core. so you will just code your ideas, and leave the advocacy to others.

You know that if I'd agree with you you might have achieved the feat of offending me. However, I don't agree with you.

There are of course a lot of people coming to Drupal lacking your sharp whit and whatever else. But we also continue to attract the kind of people we really need.

Also, you should remember that Drupal's beginnings were rather humble too. For example you may remember that we didn't have much if any inline documentation. This wasn't because people were too lazy, but because it was thought that so many comments would slow down the execution of the script! Somebody had to actually proove to us that this wasn't the case.
Another example: Our SQL's performance sucked because we didn't know much about it and weren't diligent enough to learn it proper. Now we finally have attracted people who know it (and we also learned a bit ourselves).

Whatever you'll be doing in future, I wish you all the best. However I am afraid you'll find that people aren't always up to your standards wherever you go and whatever you do.

Cheers,
Gerhard

Well, I'd like to say thanks for all your efforts in the past and good luck with whatever you do next.

The Drupal community is certainly changing with the growth it's experiencing.

Thats unfortunate news, and the Drupal community will be a lot poorer for not having someone of your standards, passion, and articulateness on board.

I disagree with you Steven.

You might have some point about other people lacking your diligence and your quality, yet this doesn't mean you step back. Your contributions aren't mixed with what other people do. I still see that what you have offered for the Drupal community does really shine and stand from the crowd. At first I thought you were going to "drop" some modules to be able to concentrate on other but I never expected you will totally drop contributing modules for Drupal.

Having only few contributing to the community and a vast majority only building solutions based on the few contributions doesn't mean someone is making more benefit than another. I still believe the community gives us more than it takes.

I am really sad to read that, yet I also support you in whatever decision you've made.

Best of luck Steven.

These are his opinions. You don't get a vote.

Sorry the process has been so draining on you. I hope you find a way to feel fulfilled and still give back to the greater community (Drupal or otherwise) in the wonderful ways you have.

I definitely know firsthand the effect you mention; the more you do, the more you're expected to do. As you know, I had to back off and lurk for my personal well-being. I still hope to get back into the swing of things, but it's a very difficult balance to maintain.

All my best!

To Anonymous:

We have just as much a right to our opinions as Steven does to his. Expressing them isn't a vote because his life isn't a democracy. We have the right to express them, though, because the comment module was enabled.

It's facts that you can't disagree with. They just are.

Steven;

It is worse in the corporate world. Development is like that.

That said, you have a pretty good understanding of why I tend to focus my efforts on contrib modules, and it's taken me a long time to come around to the idea of Views in core. Like Moshe said, in contrib, the arguments are different. But also in contrib, I suffer from lack of peer review as well. So there is a tradeoff; some of my code is excellent, some of it is utter crap, and lots of it is somewhere in between. Functional, not as good as it could be, but not as bad as it could be either. And that's about where I prefer to be.

Long ago, I had to try to give up striving for perfection. There's too much else to do, too many things to focus on. My goal now is to do a better job than I think the other guy would do, and make sure the product works. And to try to remember that, as much as I like to think so, I'm not actually always right. Even if I am usually right.

I'm sad to see you go, Steven, and I hope that one day you'll return. In a way, Drupal is your child, and it's ok to let your child grow up and go its own way, but I do hope you'll come back and visit from time to time.

http://drupal.org/user/10

And I don't think that even mentions Steven's work (with Stefan Nagtegaal) on a little theme called Garland. The benefits of that theme alone to Drupal adoption and raised profile is incalculable.

Steven, I hope you're still working with Drupal, the software, and spend a year or so just making an insane amount of money based on your knowledge and skill, and of course well-deserved from all you've already contributed.

I hope you'll be at Drupalcon Boston and I'll have a chance to meet you.

Drupal will continue and will improve strongly (including in particular with regards to one of your concerns, usability, this year (or should I say season), and obviously it has a lot of fantastic people involved. But that's not to say we can't do better. Specifically, we'd be better off with you still on board (literally and figuratively).

True solutions to problems usually require systemic change. Whether or not you agree with that, I'd love your thoughts about what processes and procedures – rather than people – could be better in a project like Drupal. (A version control system like Mercurial or Git is one thing that might encourage temporary branching is one thing, a more modular core that can have sections replaced by contributed modules is another, but I'm wondering especially about communication tools and practices.)

I can't help realize I'm speaking here as one of the people more likely to weigh in on a thread without the knowledge or time commitment of some others. How to run an open project that can strive for the very best with people like me helping and not hurting?

The idea that people who earn money customizing Drupal have acted on their incentive to keep it less usable was first raised by a friend whose opinions I respect, but who didn't know much about free software communities. Now that you have also suggested this possibility I'm going to take it very, very seriously, even though I don't feel I've ever seen anything like that. For some developers (not many who do the main work on core though) the incentive is there, though, and I'm not sure how we as a community can make sure we avoid it being acting on. I do know free software needs a funding model where end users take money they would have spent on proprietary software and/or support and pool it to spend up front on free software development. That would change that incentive, as well as opening up a lot of good opportunities. contact me at Agaric if interested in this also.

In short:

Steven Wittens, as a Drupal user I salute your work. I hope we haven't lost you for good. And I would love to know more of the structural changes the community could potentially make to attract and keep developers and designers of your talent and commitment to quality.

benjamin, Agaric Design Collective

Steven

First, what you do is up to you, you are under no obligation and you owe nothing to anyone. What you do is your decision.

Second, I would like to thank you for all your efforts. Regardless of what you think now, Drupal is what it is today in great part because of your efforts.

Finally, please reconsider, and I will leave it at that.

"Now sticking head back in Microwave ..."

You are a genius and most of us are, alas, not. Words are just noises in the air, tune the nonsense babbling out of those who hinder and do not help (you can now unpublish or delete their issue followups. that helps).

I would like to specifically thank your assistance that you still give from time to time. The search simpletest was a fantastic achievement of late, thanks. If you could remain in somewhat an advisor capacity, that be a great help.

Thank you for the amazing contributions you have made over the years. I wish you the best and hope the community has not lost you forever.

Thanks for posting, Steven. I know you've been pretty burnt out on this stuff for a while and I think there are a lot of people who'll experience the post as an eye-opener.

The larger any group of developers it is, the harder it is for people who are interested in the aesthetics of code, architecture, and design to communicate that vision. Another close friend of mine hit the same wall at a consultancy we were working at. Like Earl said, it can be even more crushing in the commercial software world, but frustration and burnout suck no matter what the context.

I'm bummed that you won't be working in the Drupal community but I definitely understand your reasons and I'm glad you're able to step back rather than grind away out of obligation. Over the past couple of years, I think Drupal's rapid growth has resulted in a lot of accumulated design debt, and the solutions being built on top of it are becoming tanglier and tanglier. I think resolving that is one of the biggest challenges the community will have to deal with going forward.

Like Earl, I hope that I'll see you hacking on Drupal someday in the future, if only because you come up with hilariously cool things. Whether it's Drupal-related or not, though, I'm definitely curious to see what stuff springs out of your bursts of code creativity when you've recuperated. ;-)

I don't know if you realize the impact you made on my life, so I'll go ahead and tell you (and I guess everyone else :D).

We were both students in Summer of Code together in 2005, and we would chatter back and forth on #drupal, making jokes and stuff. :) I remember you helping me with a lot of my "stupid" questions as I was struggling my way up the Drupal learning curve, which was critical in me passing the "suck" threshold. It wasn't until halfway through SoC that I realized you were THAT Steven (!) and was completely humbled and amazed that actually talked to little old me, a silly n00b who had literally just installed Drupal for the first time the day Summer of Code started. :)

You nurtured and guided me through my initial baby steps as a contributor in the community. You were instrumental in helping me get over my fear/intimidation of core development, and subsequently getting me completely hooked. ;) You taught me to be thorough and meticulous in my patch reviews, and to take absolute pride in every line of code I write. You showed me the "Drupal way," and you did so by example, and always with the utmost respect. You helped me to become as passionate about Drupal, open source, and life in general as I am today.

But more than any of that, you're a completely amazing person, and I'm proud to call you both a mentor and a friend. Thank you.

As for the Drupal of today, a big part of my contributions nowadays is trying to impart the guidance and lessons you showed me onto the current generation of new contributors. :) Here's hoping I don't suck at it. ;)

Interesting reading the replies to this... I think having read this over my morning cereal that it was actually pretty diplomatically put in the end. The nature of the personal choice emphasized and all that. Like it was said above many times I think it's safe to say that despite it all, the 'community'/users really do appreciate and value all your work very much.

Of course, I am also a little sad...the post lends an air of finality, and I can't say I won't be (not so) secretly rooting for you to return to Drupal one day down the road...

But for now, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I can respect that.

I'm a firm believer that everyone has to reinvent themselves every now and then to really be happy in life. In my professional life, I spent 10 years as an atmospheric scientist (meteorologist) and currently finishing a second decade in information technology. In a few years, I likely will feel the need to move on to new challenges, but at this time I don't know where professionally those challenges will take me.

I bring this all up, because I understand that in order to start a new chapter in life, the current chapter has to be closed. So I wonder when I read:

After many years in this environment, I find myself utterly drained and unmotivated to participate in that sort of charade anymore.

Which environment are you leaving? Drupal, Open Source, or both? I've seen people work in propriety and non-collaborative projects find new life when they move into open source. However, I wonder for those that were brought up as young adults with open source and on projects via collaborative teams...if new life for them is a need to sometimes shut the door, for at least a little while, and work alone in their own endeavors.

Sorry, if I've overstepped my bounds in this comment...I suppose I'm writing for me just as much as you. After all, I do have a third career to think about...

It's very annoying to "have" to argue about s.th. if you don't see any need for argument. So if you are sick of it, stopping may be the best choice.

Discussions, even if they are very, very long, are vital for a large community. And users, even if they ask questions seemingly superfluous, are vital for a software project like Drupal. If no one used Drupal who is not a super hero developer, Drupal would be a boring software just like so many other systems around. There would be very little or maybe no discussion.

Everybody starts with very little knowledge and will only improve if he or she shows interest, aks questions and makes statements. Accepting that is better for one's health.

All the best to you Steven.

Everyone should know by now that designing by committee has its limits and I can only imagine that point being a source of frustration. It's also the path to becoming mediocre.

But perhaps that's to be expected growing to a greater degree as Drupal moves forward. Moshe and Merlinofchaos is spot on. Work from contrib so it has time to settle and others can see something more tangible.

Good luck Steven, I hope you reconsider. We need more individuals who can think outside the box. With you leaving, Drupal has become closer to mediocre.

Steven, thanks for your immense contributions to Drupal, and thanks for saying something instead of the mysterious silence. I won't pontificate; I just wish you the best in whatever you decide to do.

If you're not happy with all things Drupal, Steven, then you've made the best possible decision. In all seriousness: good choice. Get out, take a break, and see what other endeavours in this big wide world are worth investing your time in. Work on other software. Work with new communities. Work in a different field entirely. Go to Africa and work as a volunteer. Or don't work at all: just go to a tropical island, and sit on a sunny beach for a month. Perhaps, after your first two mojitos, you'll forget whether the dollar-sign goes before or after the variable name; and you'll wonder why you ever even knew or cared.

You may find a new community that's more rewarding to work with than Drupal ever was. But on the other hand, you may find - at the end of it all - that Drupal really is a community like no other, and that it's worth coming back to. There's only one way to find out which of these is true, and I wish you the best of luck in your search for the answer.

The only other thing that I want to say is: you can take the UnConeD out of Drupal, but you'll never take the Drupal out of UnConeD. Drupal will always be your home, and you'll always be welcome should you one day decide to return. It was great to meet you in SF last year, and I envy whichever group or project you decide to work with next.

Glad you posted, I'd just like to say thanks for all the random learning-by-osmosis bits and pieces, in code, in IRC, etc.

Steven, thank you for your great work and all the best for the future. I hope at some day you'll be back :)

It sounds so familiar. Being frustrated by all that is not good. And seeing it becoming worse, or at the very least not progressing at all. I guess any of the more involved Drupal developers can point out the parts in core, in contribs, in documentation and in the community that they really despise.

Fighting it will only get you more frustrated, for you will start feeling like Don Quichotte. You see what is wrong and why it needs to be fought (and fixed) others don't. They will only see you fighting windmills, not real problems.

The reason is very simple: everyone looks at any matter from a different perspective; code is nothing different. One person hates the fact that a function is 200+ lines big. Someone else hates all the small chopped up functions. The more one gets focused on such an (apparently stupid) issue, the more one gets frustrated. This happens on all sides in our society. In religious debates, desktop-flamewars, your housemates wrt dishes not being done, and so forth.

What Gerhard pointed out, is so very true here too: you most probably won't find any place where everyone shares your ideas. Of code. Of manner of working. Of amount of passion and devotion required. Of going home early (versus finishing that darned deadline). Of whether or not the room needs vacuüming twice a week.

I can therefore only point you out that what is bringing me back into Drupal more and more these days (after dropping out for months) is the ability to look beyond the small things that annoy.
Looking at the great things one can achieve with Drupal, rather then looking at that frsking taxonomy.module and seeing all its hideous code. The first makes one happy and proud. The latter makes one frustrated and gives the idea that it will never become a quality product.

Get some time off. Try Ruby on Rails (haha) . And take into consideration the good advice from Moshe. I am sure that if you, Steven, are the one Lord and Master, the projects in your hands will become gold.

Bèr

It seems to me there has been a bit of a surge in ugliness in the community the last year. Maybe it's just me. But nasty back and forth threads seem more common now. And I've seen stuff in IRC that is truly tasteless.

I know you're work is top drawer, and I know you have as much or more support from the "important people" as anyone else. I think over time that the best ideas do prevail. I know it doesn't seem like this in the short term. Some loud mouth grabs the helm and drives a component into the ground. They win a battle now and again, but they cannot win the war as long as folks like you, Dries, chx and others are involved. Of course, I don't know the details, maybe these are the very people you're referring to :)

At the risk of sounding like a simpleton, part of working with a group is being able to accept less than ideal solutions occasionally and being able to accept the output of those who may not have the same abilities or standards as one's self. You can't force the right way on others, you can just hint at it to them and hope for the best.

I hope you're just burnt out and need a temporary break. But if you really need to work with a smaller select group of like-minded geeks, that's completely understandable.

I personally thank you for the contributions you've made to Drupal.

It is too bad I did not get a chance to work with you on any project, or was too busy to ask your opinion on any custom hack or module I created. I would not have minded to have my work criticized in detail by you, am a bit intimidated by your ascerbic wit, but oh well...

Other ideas for drupal and opensource projects, how about instead of decision by committee, a voting system where people like Dries, Steven, Gerhard, Moshe, webchick, chx, etc. have a higher point count based on actual useful work committed.

I have had an idea of drupal or other opensource cms's being the instrument of an effective government by using tools such as voting, points, etc. Also integrating cvs/svn type diffs to document management online would make for interesting use for reading changes to legislation. Therefore only those that are interested have a say, and those that actually know what they are talking about have a higher point.

A point could also be gained if, as judged by a mentor, a newbie gained a certain level of drupal proficiency and community involvement.

Hi Steven,

There are many people in the Drupal community I respect, but your fusion of creativity, design sense, and craftsmanship makes you one of the most impressive.

I respected the stands you took to champion Garland and your innovative Javascript interface developments. There are many agendas in the community. If evolutionary efforts are stifled by commercially-motivated inaction the inevitable result is stagnation and the discouragement of developers such as yourself.

Best of luck with whatever you choose to dig into next!

I agree with you that there are far more Open Source 'takers' than 'givers' out there. But I believe there are worthwhile rewards for the volunteer developer. Especially those fresh out of university who find it hard to find paid work despite having a good degree. Contributing to such projects as Drupal and getting your name 'known' can only help when it comes to impressing a potential employer.
There is something else at stake: The Open Source movement offers a real, workable alternative to Microsoft's ongoing attempt to establish a global monopoly of the Internet and the software it runs on.
If the Open Source initiative were to falter, it would be good news for Microsoft alone and an expensive, unprecedented disaster for everyone else.
MySQL, the Apache web server, PHP, Linux and Drupal are classic examples of robust, beautifully designed and presented Open Source applications that are helping to keep Microsoft in check. I for one am prepared to do all I can to maintain the advantage and help to keep the Internet free for everyone.
For me, knowing that I am doing that very thing gives me a real buzz - and that's priceless.
When we developers feel exploited by the takers, I guess we just have to reflect on all those wonderful tools that have already been freely given to us by so many others.

I very much share your sentiments. I too have been very actively involved in the past with WordPress community. Working in open source community is mostly a thankless job. At least in commercial development you get compensated for your efforts. There is much more to say, but it is a fresh morning and I don't want to sound bitter, so I will end here.

I wish I had someone like you in my team, but I am not sure I can compensate you enough :)

Take care,
Angsuman

Hi Stephen,

Stumbled across this thread earlier. Fascinating read.

I'm just wondering what brought you back to Drupal? I notice you're very active on drupal.org at the moment.

A good friend and collegue in Ireland who introduced me to Drupal stopped around the same time as you did and I'm trying to persuade him back into the fold.

If you don't mind me asking, what changed your mind?

cheers and great to see you back on Drupal.org

phil

sorry..my mistake. I looked at your tracker page on drupal.org and it looked very active. I didn't realise, at first glance, that they were just replies to old posts made by you.

Phil

You made a big impression on me with your jQuery presentation at OSCMS 2007.

I've been at that point with various projects of my own, and I don't blame you for getting away from it.

It's a tough loss for the Drupal community, but good luck and God bless. I have no doubt that you'll find something more personally fulfilling.

Greetings Steven-

I happened to learn of you as I saw a web page that looked like the site "must" be built with Drupal as it was Garland. (View \ Page Source) A comment linking to this site.

Anyway, I found this thread.

I can understand your frustration with the things you mentioned.

As for you passion for XHTML / CSS, bravo! One big site we are working on, for that site we arrived at customizing Blue Marine. I am by no means an XHTML guru, but I appreciate code which validates properly. We were working with another theme at first, but found ourselves in an endless loop of opening tickets and always part of the ticket was "Blue Marine theme does not have this same trouble." Thus, one day I harvested what was valuable from that theme and others, and plugged that IP into Blue Marine. Woo hoo! Validates properly, does not have countless issues, "no going back!"

So, my subject line... "Steps and Stages"

For "Internet" alone, we are currently on our third tier of web hosting provider. Each time we parted ways from the prior provider, the decision was clear, unmistakable, and no turning back. Always we grew very much while with the tire we left. I suppose it is like driving a stick shift... each time you shift the engine RPM's drop back down, but in total you go faster and faster...

I suppose your time with the Drupal project (just one gear in your life's story) ended, and it was time to move into the next gear. I can understand situations like that.

I started out coding HTML by hand. Then I wrote a "proprietary" tool to make coding HTML FAR more efficient. With this last hosting provider move, we were not working with Drupal at the time, but the way I configure the directory tree structure made moving into Drupal a BREEZE!! Knowing what I know about Drupal now, I would have not changed one thing of how I set up the server then. Next up for us, I am considering a hosted Ubuntu VPS solution. As for what will be next after Drupal... well since I discovered your existence, I just might watch to see where you show up on the radar map next! ;-)