I'm comfortable with discussions that commence, seriously enough, with questions about why Joomla is so good or not so good but I am fairly confident that the seriousness of those discussions usually ends with an argy-bargy about Joomla vs. WordPress vs. Drupal vs. Lego® (or whatever else people use to build their websites with).
karencho5 wrote:When people find out that I work with Joomla the first thing they ask is why Joomla not WordPress or Drupal.
My experience is entirely different. When people find out that I work with Joomla, the first question they ask is "What's
that?"
I guess it depends on with whom you talk. Most of the people I talk to (about webcraft, that is) are clueless; all they're interested in is how they can promote their businesses on the internet. One of the
last things I mention is
how I actually build a website. Businesses are not interested in the technology; they're only interested in optimising the potential to achieve the best outcomes for success.
There are thousands of businesses around the world that use Joomla.
Thousands of them! Is one website better or worse than another? Of course people can make subjective assessments about the merits of one site over another. Is the underlying technology used to construct a website "better" than another underlying technology? Again, it depends on what people require in order to operate and manage their site in association with their business goals.
I appreciate the robust contributions made by @itoctopus and @mbabker (both of whom have been around the game for a long time and whose contributions here and elsewhere are truly worthwhile). I may not always agree with their views but I respect them. I am sympathetic to @mbabker's opinion: "Joomla has a good niche; everyone who uses it understands that. But it doesn't do very well promoting itself outside that niche or addressing the real issues that make it difficult to adopt in a wider range of scenarios."
I don't think we need to blow our own trumpet or parade ourselves as better (or feel humbled) because other commentators may describe our work as worse or second-rate. I like to think of ourselves as a community of quiet achievers rather than a community of braggarts or needy of self-affirmation.
Returning to the original post, however, I understand that work opportunities for Joomla professionals may be limited in certain countries; perhaps that's just a cultural thing. I know that, in Australia, the penetration of Joomla in the "webcraft stakes"—the ways people construct websites for businesses—has steadily increased over time as the direct result small businesses that specialise in Joomla whose owners have successfully forged relationships with thousands of other businesses across the country. Are there opportunities for small businesses that specialise in Joomla? Of course there are.
If a business's first thought is "what technology should we use to build our website?" then it displays a complete lack of understanding of why they're in business. A business's first thought should really be about "how do we capture our share of the market?", not about "um ... er ... shouldn't we, perhaps, use
<insert-product-name-here> to build our website instead of ... um ... er ...
<insert-different-product-name-here>?" That kind of thinking displays their naïveté about why they're in business and, frankly, I would be reluctant to do business with them.
