Wrap-up of Dries's Q&A session
Dries Q&A session was run after a short break. A total of 108 people participated in polls and questions submission via Slido.
Live polls to attendees
Before the Q&A session, we asked attendees five polls and asked them to answer them live, which I think was a good ice-breaker for interactive communication between Dries and attendees via Slido.
Do you like Drupal?
The first question was "Do you like Drupal?" with the aim of testing attendees on how to use Slido.
Which the first version of Drupal did you touch for the first time?
Many of the attendees were first exposed to Drupal with Drupal 8, resulting in like a bell curve around Drupal 8.
It was surprising that some of attendees started with Drupal 3. Drupal 1 was released in January 2001 and Drupal 3 in September 2001, so they have been exposed to Drupal almost from the same time as its birth.
How often is Drupal upgraded? (including vulnerabilities)
The most common answer was "once every six months." As minor versions of Drupal are released every six months to add functionality, many people seems update Drupal at that time.
However, security versions have been released once a month at most, so it is ideal to update your site immediately when any version are released. We can't wait for the release of the Automatic Update feature, which Dries mentioned in him session.
Do you have account of durpal.org?
Anyone can create an account for free on drupal.org, the official Drupal website. When a user makes any kind of contribution to a Contribute project (e.g. issue submission, comment, patch contribution, etc.), credit is given to the user and is listed on the user page.
Of course, you can download and use Drupal without an account, so Dries commented that 38% of the audience did not have an account, which is not an unnatural figure.
Have you ever contributed to core or module development?
As Drupal is published as an open source software, anyone can be involved in the development of Drupal - contributions to Drupal include those to the Drupal core and even to contributed projects.
For Drupal to continue to grow in the future, contributors are essential, as well as the people who use Drupal. Almost people may feel like contributing to OSS is difficult, as only the best developers can do it, but the level of difficulty varies. Referencing an issue is the first step in contributing, and some things are easier than others to get involved in, such as typo corrections, answering questions in the forum, reporting bugs, creating documentation, participating in testing, and suggesting translations.
For someone who want to contribute to Drupal but don't know how, the Drupal Association offers a mentor program to help you learn on a 1 on 1 basis. Someone who want to teach can become mentors themselves.
Q&A with Dries
The total number of questions asked of Dries was 25. This includes 11 questions received via Google Form in advance and 14 questions received live.
If you could rebuild Drupal from scratch, on what technology stack would you build it?
Dries: One of the factors behind Drupal's success is the use of PHP. PHP is easier to use than, for example, Java. If forced to choose a language, I would consider it on the basis of ease of use, I still like PHP. Other candidates for consideration would be JavaScript and Rust. Rust is also of interest, but may be difficult to use for many people.
What kind of projects do you think can maximize the value of Drupal?
Dries: Drupal is highly flexible. If you want to do something simple, there are many options out there. If you want to create an application that integrates with other systems or has a complex structure, Drupal allows you to do this with little customisation.
If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to fix in Drupal?
Dries: Drupal was originally software I built for myself. As I was a developer myself, I created something that was easy to use from my (the developer's) point of view, but it was not very user-friendly. If I could go back in time, I would like to develop Drupal with a primary focus on 'ease of use' from the outset.
Where do you think Drupal's sweet spot is?
Dries: There are a variety of solutions in the low-end market today, including many SaaS vendors. Drupal does not compete there. As we answered in the previous question (What kind of projects do you think can maximize the value of Drupal?), we believe that Drupal can provide value in the high-end market, where the customisability and flexibility that Drupal excels at is required.
Which frontend framework would be best to build a headless CMS with Drupal? I mostly work with React (Next.js) and Vue (Nuxt.js)
Dries: I am not a front-end developer myself, so I don't really know. However, many people seem to use Next.js. And Drupal has a great Next.js solution.
In Japan, Drupal is often compared to WordPress. What are the advantages of Drupal compared to WordPress?
Dries: Maybe ten years ago, there were confusion about when to use WordPress and when to use Drupal. Today, I think WordPress fits simple websites and Drupal fits more complex sites. This is not necessarily seen as 'simple = low traffic' or 'complex = high traffic'. Even sites that handle high traffic may be simple in structure. So where Drupal will shine is in situations where it is going to be integrated with external tools such as email marketing and digital asset management solutions, and where it is going to be a Digital Experience Platform to personalize the user experience. It is in these complex and sophisticated examples that Drupal will shine.
Conclusion
Based on the fact that many people responded to the polls and many questions were asked of Dries, the Q&A session was much more lively than the management had expected!
