Drupal is 1 of the 3 major CMS’s (content management system) being used today (next to WordPress & Joomla) and is known for:
- Powering 2.3% of all websites on the web
- Being first intended for use as a message board
- Open-source as of 2001
It is a powerful platform targeted for use with large sites that have high traffic (for example, corporate and government sites). It gained some popularity when it was used to build “DeanSpace” for Howard Dean, a Democratic candidate in the ‘04 US president election.
Mention the job of Drupal dev. and people think that those with the title know about all aspects of Drupal. This assumption is a common misconception. Drupal is an extremely complicated CMS, so developers are divided into 3 major specialties (and can be familiar with others):
- Site building: Build the content types, taxonomy, navigation, image presets, rules
- Backend/module dev: Knows PHP & server side languages, writes custom modules, does automated tests, deploys system
- Frontend/theme dev: Experts in HTML, CSS, Javascript & Drupal theme layer, knows about/makes use of responsive design
The Drupal community is about 1.3 million strong, including 109 thousand active contributors that can work on the core code for your business.
