Drupal 5 has been out for a few weeks. I have not upgraded one of my existing websites to Drupal 5, but I have been playing around with it on various test installs since the early beta versions. It is fairly obvious to me that this version of Drupal is at a whole new level of operation.

The first thing a new user would notice is the new installer. I happen to be totally ambivalent about the installer. It is about the same to me either way; create a database and run a script or create a database and upload a file. Actually, I take all that back and come down on the anti-installer side of things. Let me tell you why.

First off, there is no one place I have found that lists all the fresh new tables and their configuration. It actually may be there but I hafta look for it and I don't want to do that. Obviously I can create a dump of a fresh install but I don't want to do that every time. Now, I understand the newbs don't want this, but they should. Plus, when upgrade time comes and it will, these same newbs will need to experience PHPMyAdmin or whatever in order to do that all important backup.

I can't remember how many times I have done a Drupal backup. Nowadays when a security release comes out I do multiple updates in a row. I have learned to always backup my database. I can get into a rhythm doing a backup. It goes: backup database>sign in> upload>run update.php> BAM. Soon it is site1BAM>site2>BAM>site3BAM>site4>DISASTER.

Disaster may be first, middle or last in the sequence but it always comes. Gotta have that backup. Protecting the newbs from the database interface is just wrong.

Now that I have that off my chest I will try to return to what I really intended to write about, which is Nice Things About Drupal 5. I will skip over the new admin area. That could be nice, or it could be the same. It is different, and will take some getting used to, and it is certainly not worse. At this point we truly encounter ambivalence.

The first thing I would really like to rave about, that I have been waiting on the edge of my seat for, that will truly change life with Drupal as we know it, is the seperate admin theme. Having the admin section as an offset of the main Drupal site really rocks my world; I wouldn't have it any other way. On the other hand, being able to work around those cursed tables in the admin section is a dream come true. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

There are lots of other nice things I could say about Drupal 5, and many of them are also found in Drupal 4.7, such as the nice clean URL test and the cute update script. One nice new feature is the section under the logs where you can get a status report about your site's operation and any detected problems. I just love that. I also like how the core modules are seperated out from the optional modules. I like all the new help text for the new features. I like all the fun things like regions and freetagging that started in 4.7. Drupal has come a long way while retaining the good bits that were there from the start.

I am glad I started fairly early with Drupal because I learned how to build websites without benefit of all the wonderful things that have come along recently. Part of the joy and frustration of using Drupal is due to the fact that there is may ways of doing a certain thing, and I am happy knowing a few of the different ways things can be done. I hope I can use this experience to help the new crop of Drupal fans to accompolish what they envision. I also feel I can make my own visions a reality with much less trouble.