Some of the people who have visited this blog, have pointed out that I’m a weird fellow. Why? Because I’m talking about Joomla! , using a WordPress powered blog! Some of you even found it so hilarious, you had to rub it in. Is it really that silly? Okay, I’ll admit that it’s somewhat silly.
So, for the past three months, I’ve been thinking. I thought it was about time I left WordPress behind and finally start our “proper” website about Joomla. To show that I’m serious when I say I love Joomla!. I had it all figured out. I’d be using Joomla 1.5.22 and install K2 for our blogging / content purposes. I’d use a kick-ass Joomlart / Rockettheme template – or find the money for a Joomlabamboo template. Of course, I’d be installing the very same Akeeba tools I’ve been praising here for a long time. To top it off, I’d add a neat download section where you could download manuals I was planning to write. And let’s not forget the Ninjaboard Forum – I should write a review about that some time soon.
All I needed was content. I originally planned to name our new site “The Joomlaverse” and I was planning to cover interesting topics, like Molajo, Nooku Server and Joomla 1. What are they, why are they interesting for you? I was also planning to “contribute” to the community which has given me a lot – a well visited blog, an interesting job. Fortunately, my ‘Trademark request’ was turned down because the site wasn’t done yet. As it turns out, Claire saved me a lot of money by doing so. (Side note: she was right, the side didn’t meet the requirements.)
But I cancelled the project
That’s right, you read it here first. The site I just mentioned? Not going to happen. Giving back to the commnunity? Maybe, if a certain person asks me nicely on Skype. But the “Joomla” version of Joomla & More is cancelled completely. Not that you care, of course. You’re just here to find a quick fix. Can’t blame you, since this blog is a pretty good source of information 😉
Why would you do that?
Good question. Why would you invest time in planning a website, and then decide not to do it after all? I’ll tell you why.
In the past few weeks, I’ve seen too much shit happen in the Joomla! Community which I don’t like. For example, did you know that there’s sort of a mini-war going on around Joomla 1.6? Some claim that you must upgrade because it’s the latest and greatest. Others point out it’s flaws and tell you it’s better to “stay put” for a while. Confusing, right? And then, the “war” starts. Both sides seem to be pretty convinced that their opinion is the only valid opinion. As a site builder, I’ve read these post and wonder “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?”
That is just one shining example. Another gem is the new release cycle. There will be two major versions of Joomla in the next year. OSM’s point of view is pretty clear: “Developers, deal with it.” Us,, non-site builders are still waiting for a good reason to upgrade alltogether. A confusing ACL system, and features we don’t give a damn about because 90% of them are developer oriented aren’t a selling point. We’ve got no choice but to wait until the developers catch up – and that might take a while. Talk about how “Business NEED to adapt, or they’ll get behind” aren’t really encouraging either. It’s not up to OSM to decide our Business strategy.
It’s not just because those two reasons that I’m cancelling the project. It’s the whole current “vibe” in the Joomla! Community we don’t like. I’m asking myself: How much time do I want to invest in a community that’s so bitter, angry even? When I get home from work, and I start my “time off” I don’t want to be confronted with even MORE politics, bickering and arguing than I find on the workplace. I don’t want to “pick sides”. I just want to have a good time, and for the moment I can’t.
Cancelling the project just makes sense
The past few weeks, I’ve lost a lot of time this week, trying to understand what’s going on in the Joomla! community. Even when I decided to “work on our project” it was hard not to be distracted. I could have used that (valuable) time to do other things. Like updating the current site. Working on things that aren’t related to this site. Doing fun stuff. But I cared too much about the Joomla! community to let it slide.
In order to stop myself from spending time I don’t have, on things I can’t change, I’ve decided to just pull the plug on the project alltogether. Someone asked me a few months back why I used WordPress to blog about Joomla!.
My initial answer was “Because I don’t want to think about work constantly.” (I’m paid to goof around with Joomla!)
If someone would ask me the same question today, I’d reply differently. I’d tell them “I love Joomla!, I love helping people, but for the moment, building a new site is not something I want to do. Not in this climate.”
What’s next?
Will I never look back at Joomla! again? Like I mentioned, I can’t, as I’m payed to goof around with Joomla!. I’m a site builder. And the people who pay me, expect me to build sites using Joomla! that’s what I’ll be doing. Unless someone else would pay me NOT to do so, of course. Which probably won’t happen.
It’s inevitable that, during said “work” I’ll be stumbling upon problems that need to be fixed. That I’ll discover beautiful gems of Joomla! goodness I can’t keep for myself. It wouldn’t be fair of me not to share what I’ve learned, when I could easily do so. So, I’ll just keep on posting. Right here, on this blog. This WordPress powered blog. You guys never seemed to care about that, anyway.
But I still think it’s a shame, really. Building that site was something I really looked forward to.
It’s still lame to be all about Joomla! and use WordPress to write about it. 🙂
I won’t hold that against you though because I have nothing against WordPress – it’s a great tool.
Joomla! was born out of adversity; the Mambo thing. Some of the best developers of open source content management systems came through this birth canal. I’m not surprised or discouraged about the bickering in the Joomla! community. I see a lot of passion in this community. Great things are coming from it.
I compare this to the dynamics and chemistry of a sporting team. Lots of people with talent don’t always get along and play well together. You have to find the right chemistry of players who do play well together and they will become your championship team. I think what we are seeing is this dynamics being played out in the Joomla! community.
Joomla! is not going to fall apart. That is fatalistic thinking. It’s in too many people’s best interests for it not to fall apart so they will find a way to make it work.
In my defense: the cost to run this site is $17. And it’s Joomla and MORE – but I brought it upon myself 😉 WordPress IS a great tool. And to be honest, I never planned this to turn into a Joomla! blog to begin with 😉
We’ll see how it all works out, right? Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe people say No, what the hell are YOU talking about?’ I’d love the community to prove me wrong 😉
You are not overreacting, you are right. It’s time for each and every one of us to grow up.
Thanks for the wake up call.
Amy
Amy, I just voiced my concern because I’ve been down this path before. In a completely different setting, sure. But I’ve seen where this can lead to, and the results aren’t pretty. So I spoke up, hoping that the project doesn’t follow that path, as well 🙂
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Sad to see so many people jumping ship, but sad to be loosing yet another resourceful person from the Joomla! community. Like the previous poster says, Joomla! is not going to fall apart, but its community is in a bad shape, and even if it does not fall apart now, it needs to get its act together or else something even worst might happen, again not that anyone will like to see that.
Had it not been for the complete alienation of the community prior 1.6, this release in my opinion, would have a) not taken as long as it did, with people questioning any remaining motif as to why they should contribute to some project in which they feel completely and utterly haunted by its leadership and b) most of the 90% unnecessary changes in 1.6 which are solid and much need features, will not have broken 3p extensions as it does, or at lease will be justified. To be honest i have been working with Joomla since the mambo days, and i have never felt the punch as a developer. The tot of having to re-write everything, to work with 1.6 and maybe 1.7 is a route which oddly, no one is willing to take. Hard to comprehend but its true. I am simply to scared of what might change in 1.7 that for 6 months its worthless to change to 1.6. Many people will most likely wait for 1.7 before upgrading anything, for that simple fact!
Fair enough people argue that the wild changes implemented in 1.6 will not break things just yet, and will not be changed in 1.7 after 6 months, but again, why are somethings changed? what is the basis of the contributor agreement? are there secret motifs behind accepting a and not b? the bias is barely unbearable. Those leading the Joomla way now, should be a little worried about the uprising of nooku and nooku server, molajo and other distros. Nooku leadership asked: what features did you not use with Joomla, the community answered, and those features were removed, and everyone was happy? nooku asked: what features do you want to see in Joomla and use, the community answers and those features, together with even more amazing ones being implemented. I could not be more excited when Johann in his presentation last night mentioned that they intend to keep compatibility of their extensions from 1.0 to 1.6 on nooku server, and new features are not added in place of awesome ones that existed because they sound cool, but are provided as better solutions.
Even though it might sound simple, this is closer to for the community by the community and will inevitably suit many more people. Just what i think the broader Joomla community is yearning for. I can’t count the number of times Joomla as is makes me depressed. but ironically sometimes gets you really excited. This is as pronounced as love hate can be. And i’m glad its not only me, and not only you Steve. On the Kohana forums i came across some one who said they were sick of the Joomla framework and trying to force the whole kohana framework into joomla. I have heared the same with CodeIgniter, and sounds like feeding a bulldog to a goat. Its amazing how desperate people are. But sometimes feels like the leadership does not see or hear this. I can only be excited for nooku, and should they provide on this promise alone, i think Joomla will be … (well id leave that space blank)
I personally love Joomla 1.6 but it will be a long time before i take that leap!
To comment on the first part: I couldn’t ‘jump ship’ if I wanted to (as it’s my day job to build Joomla! sites). You might also overestimate my “weight” in the Joomla community 😉
As for the rest of your comment: I don’t want to pick sides in the J1.5 vs J1.6 vs Nooku vs Molajo argument that might or might not be going on. But I’m starting to get the impression that it’s “not cool”
to “not pick a side” and yet I don’t want to make a “choice”. Why should I? It’s all “Joomla”, in my opinion.
Ohhh, you’re looking for the Warm fuzzy thing. They’re 2 doors down, in the “less innovative, less independent-thinking, easier to herd than flying cats” department.
Oh, come on John! Innovation is one thing. Having to do a massive amount of work which you may have to redo all over again in six months is not innovation. It’s masturbation. Let’s keep things in perspective when commenting, shall we?
I can certainly understand why Steven is so reluctant to build his site using Joomla!. 1.5 is an LTS, but itself and its extensions are not forward compatible with 1.6. Even if he used Joomla! 1.6 compatible extensions, experience tells us that he might have to redo his site once 1.7 is out (and 1.6 goes immediately EOL) in July. Frankly, I do share his concerns. Until I see with my own eyes that 1.7 does not break BC with 1.6 I would, too, stick with 1.5 or hold back and use whatever tool I already use for my own site.
I share his concerns, for sure. He just got trampled a bit, like a lot of folks have when wrestling with the Joomla monster.
Somehow I think he’s got the nads to not let it get him down much though. We’ll see.
If you think I’m all about the “warm fuzzy feeling”, you don’t know me. 😉 But if you believe that this current climate is “normal” or healthy in any way… well, that’s your opinion. As a concerned “customer” I’m worried about where this might lead. Of course, you’re just hoping for more CMS’es to cover at your expo after Joomla is forked into five other CMS’es (Kidding, John).
I don’t expect everyone to make out publically, but I expect a certain level of “professionalism” in the Joomla! community. Is that really so unreasonable?
Steven, re-read what I said… maybe it still won’t make sense, but I know you’re not looking for warm fuzzies. It was a back-hand at the way Joomla works.
Wikipedia would be maxing out on hard drive space if we tried to analyze the reasons why Joomla does what Joomla does, let alone suggest solutions…lots of the folks on here have already beat that horse.
Suffice it to say, I feel your pain.
And no, I’m not looking for more Joomla-babies. I’d have to give them up for adoption. Love Joomla, but one’s enough, thank you. That was funny, by the way… You should go into blogging!
🙂
John, no problem. That’s the “challenge” of the internet: you type something, and how am I supposed to “read” what you’re trying to say (other than reading the actual text)? 😉
So don’t worry about it, we’re cool. Glad you intepreted my “Joomla baby” comment the right way, too 🙂
This blog post is ridiculous and you are mad. Can’t believe it!
Nah, I completely understand the points you make and respect your decisions.
Btw: this is a blog site, and – as a Joomla enthusiast – I must say that WordPress is probably the easiest way to get something like this (blog only) up and running.
Other than the arguments that lead to this blog post, that’s exactly why I’m not migrating. For this concept, WordPress is perfect. All I need to do, is post something now and then. No worries about updating, components that might be out of date… just the content to worry about.
Not that you can’t blog with Joomla, it’s just more work. And sometimes I can be a bit lazy.
You’re right about your wait and see attitude regarding Joomla. Something is really, really wrong on the developer end of things with regard to their current path.
In my opinion, Joomla still beats WordPress in terms of overall flexibility. That said, Joomla is way behind the curve with regard to upgrading its extensions and platform to the next stable release. I heard that they’ve, at least, made this version (1.6) SEO friendly right out of the box. If that’s true, good for them and ’bout damn time too.
But this lack of an upgrade path is a real issue for me. Also no upgrading of extensions from the back end either. This is a giant security hole for Joomla and a major pain in the ass for the non-coding world Joomla was allegedly designed for. It’s just a mess right now…has been since 1.5 came out without an upgrade path, effectively leaving most 1.0 users to have their sites taken over by hackers.
Anyway, WordPress has both these areas down to a single click and done. I like that. I also, like that it appears WordPress gives a damn about those who use their platform as demonstrated by their willingness to incorporate their users’ ideas into the platform. I think that given the fact the Joomla development team has no immediate plans (if they have plans at all) to incorporate these progressive ideas…ideas the bulk of the community is screaming for…into the platform, is proof that the team has lost its way. I went through the hell of upgrading all my clients’ Joomla sites once already from 1.0 to 1.5. It’s not for the faint at heart. I won’t be doing that again; Instead, I’ll be moving over to WordPress in the very near future. And I predict that while Joomla is going to be around awhile, if the team doesn’t get it together, you will, likely, see a lot more people moving away from Joomla until they do.