Joomla! Discussion Forums

I work on a Committee of a Club which has need of an improved web site. I am suggesting that we should run with Joomla. Another Committee member who lives both in UK & US states that 'it is widely known' that Joomla is unstable and has a limited future. He has no specific suggestion for improving the site, http://www.downhillonly.com.

He says that this opinion was the view held at LinuxFest Northwest 2009 last April. He also states that that conference was extremely pessimistic about the future of MySQL.

Looking at the conference program it appears that Drupal was more represented than Joomla but I do not find it credible that a conference like that would be bad mouth another product. And Monty himself was present answering questions.

I recommended Joomla over Drupal on the grounds that the categorisation processes were more accessible to the unaccustomed.

I am now being told that I should not doubt the veracity of other Committee members - I do - without knowing what went on at the conference.

Could anyone who knows about the conference tell me

a. Is this a fair representation of what happened at the conference?
b. Does the attendee list include Norman Freund? I think he is 80+

Thanks for your help

Sorry to have to ask.

i did a quick search and mostly found blogs eg
http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/2009.html

http://www.montanalinux.org/linuxfest-n ... eport.html
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=LinuxF ... hwest+2009

Joomla! and Drupal are both excellent CMS and their future can't be compromised by a third hand comment.

Tony,

I can't tell you anything about the conference (or Norman Freund ), but I can tell you that you are making the correct decision. Do not accept everything you hear to be 100% true and question what people say asking for proof to back it up.

I don't believe Joomla! is unstable and I think it's future is only looking better as more and more people start using it, so I wouldn't worry about it's future being limited.

If they are pessimistic about the future of MySQL, I would like to hear the alternatives they are looking at for a database. There are others out there, but I don't see MySQL going away any time soon. Are they worried that it's quality is going to slip or something? Also, doesn't Drupal (it sounds like that may be the CMS they are backing) use MySQL as well?

One CMS is not always better than the other. I think they all have their own purpose and some are better suited for certain tasks. I would look at the requirements your team has and try to make your decision based on that.

Make sure that the other Committee members understand that you are not questioning that they heard this at the conference, but you think they should be questioning the people they talked to at the conference. Anyone that tells you they prefer one CMS over another for reasons A, B, and C is giving you their opinion and trying to help you make an informed decision. Anyone that tells you one CMS is always better than another and provides no facts to back it up should definitely be questioned.


If you have any specific questions that you want answered that will help you make your decision, feel free to ask. If we can address your teams concerns, it will help them make an informed decision. I don't think you will be making a bad decision going with either CMS. I recommend Joomla! to most of my users because I (personal preference ) think it's easier for someone with less experience to use than Drupal. There are other factors to think about, but that is usually a big selling point for my customers.


By the way, pat yourself on the back for me for questioning the decision rather than just going with the masses.

Most of the FUD generated about Mysql is related to Oracle's acquisition of Sun, which is the current owner of Mysql. I doubt that Oracle will do anything to kill Mysql. It's really not in their best interest. Besides, Mysql is open source and I suspect there will be a number of people willing to pick up it's development if Oracle really does something stupid.

Joomla! and Mysql both have huge installed bases and are not going away anytime soon.

My opinion...if plans for your club's new site design is similar to what is out there now, Joomla! is more than capable of doing the job. But I wouldn't worry too much either if they decide to use something else such as Drupal, or Wordpress. They too are stable and quite capable.

Thank you all for the support.

My choice of Joomla! was based upon my perception that it is easier for non technical people without much technical support. In bigger implementations I have been responsible for implementations of several CMS as well as Joomla!, the commoner ones being Drupal, Plone and MySource Matrix, the choice being a reflection of the requirements of the site, the resources and abilities of the Contributor/Editor group and their technical support.

But I have been surprised by the fury and intensity of this guy's assertion that Joomla! in particular is not fit for purpose and that interactive sites are in general not a good thing.

If someone presents you with a view entirely contrary to one's own experience I find it wise to check reality with others. Thank you again for helping me out.

When I was at OSCON this summer, Monty and his crew spent a certain amount of time talking to me (and people from all of the MySQL focused projects). I don't think you need to worry about the future of MySQL even if it evolves under a new name.

I don't know why anyone would think interactive sites are a bad idea, but Joomla is certainly not unstable and is dominant in this market niche, as the recent Water and Stone report confirmed, so I don't think you need to worry about the future.

Tony, to address your thoughts about content management and categories, yes I think you're right that Joomla is the best choice. When it comes to having several information hierarchies, Wordpress falls flat and ends up needing a lot of extra coding and care that Joomla has out of the box. I'm not very experienced with Drupal, but my (and many others it seems) impression is that adminstrative section and it's terminology is meant for the mind of the engineer... who the average content manager is not. There may be some paid solutions that are good like Expression Engine, but if once you know Joomla's quirks like me... it's hard to think of paying $250-$500+ per site for a CMS.

After looking a the site, I see Joomla as the best choice because 1) There are several topics that can use their own gateway pages and sub pages. Hard to achieve that in WP, Joomla menus and section/category descriptions help out of the box. 2)Solid extensions for membership, events and CCK (you should check some of these out) are available. Maybe head over to the Site Showcase or www.bestofjoomla.com and send them some links? Here's a before and after of a pretty large site I just did: www.stpatricksseminary.org and http://stpatricks.dreamhosters.com/ (after - temp domain).

I can't say much about Mysql... but the fact that its been open source does sound like it can and probably will be forked off if it really came down to that. As for anyone rubbishing Joomla... naw, that's impossible! Never seen it...

Good luck with the doc project! Congratulations... whether the rubbishing continues is now at least partly in your hands to make a difference! Remember to try and think like a beginner instead of an engineer. Remember that some you are working with don't see that easily. That's been Joomla's problem all along.

I was talking to a co-worker and we came to the conclusion that if MySQL vanishes tomorrow, someone will just whip up a new JDatabase sub-class to interface with the second most popular open source database, similar to this:
http://api.joomla.org/Joomla-Framework/Database/JDatabaseMySQL.html

I believe the Joomla! architecture is designed to communicate with databases other than MySQL, but there just isn't much need/demand at the moment.

I don't think Joomla!'s fate is tied to MySQL in any way. A database is a database is a database. No offense to any MySQL fans/developers out there. I love it and would hate to lose it, but there are alternatives and Joomla! would move on if need be.

Well... it wouldn't be quite as simple as that, because many of the queries themselves would have to be modified, but we're getting there. Regardless, you are right - if MySQL for some bizarre unforeseen reason dissappears, we will adapt and move forward. Would it take some work? Yes, of course - queries don't rewrite themselves - but the sort of changes required would be something that could be easily aided by the community and these changes could be implemented if need be.

That being said, MySQL disappearing is pretty far fetched, as it is standard fare on just about any hosting package available. If Oracle drops it, it will be picked up.

Ian