http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconDc2009-WhyIHateDrupal

Recorded by: Marc Tan

Darn, for this session alone I'd like to go to DC. This is going to be a lot of fun I'm sure. Maybe some riot in the audience :D

James you made a good job promoting this in Lullabot Podcasts. And keeping it as "black-box-like" in everybody wondering what you'll actually talk about is a clever move. Bound to be packed to the last seat.

I recently attended a Drupal Theming seminar and asked the presenter (who whole-heartedly claimed that he was not technical) what do people do to upgrade live Drupal sites with new versions of Drupal and modules (code and data). He basically said that there isn't a simple automated way of upgrading (I'm thinking more along the lines of WordPress, where you can upgrade the code base via SVN and then run their upgrad.php script to update the database).
Is this true? Is there an simple upgrade procedure for Drupal installs?

I will be interested in this.. i have been using drupal for my website, the online world and its not been a very smooth ride so far.. but then u cant expect everything from a CMS

I think this is brilliant.

I really don't see how this is intended to be an all out Bashing Session where everyone attending gets to listen to Walker unload Drupal frustration. Although, you never know, honestly, who could blame him. I'd still get a laugh or two. For anyone to say Drupal is a painless experience would be fairly odd.

In all truth, undeniably, Drupal is without question, aside from all the awards and mumbo jumbo, one of the best software's ever written to date. Also, without a doubt, so is it's loyal community base that brings it all together and makes it happen.

I myself, am not totally up-to-par on Drupal 7.
While I hear good things about it and I know the people working behind it are remarkable, I realize, we are at a cross-roads regarding web software and CMS software as we know it. (including Drupal)

While I am the first to state that Drupal is phenomenal and praise the people for it, I or I think anyone else for that matter, might be considered living under a Drupal rock to not "step-back" and do a simple "reality-check" about: What's not so great, Why people hate it, and more importantly, What's the simplest and most efficient way to do something about it.

Making Drupal improvements is not new; But taking a good hard unique perspective towards it is. And there has never been a better time to make a difference.

The good news is it's within reach to take a good hard look and hopefully make a change.

Now if you could only get all of the key people of Drupal to attend. :-)

I see nothing but good from this session. Hat's off.

I like that you're being straightforward, but what is the audience supposed to get from this? Listening to the top 10 reasons walkah hates drupal won't give us any actionable items to work with, it won't help us use what we have, or even make plans for improvements.

Dries's requests for improvements for drupal 7 + user testing was a productive means of identifying existing problems. He didn't say "email what pisses you off the most" or "vote on the suckiest modules".

Because that's not helpful. What are we going to take away from listening to this?

Got my vote - can't wait to see how this session comes off - it has the potential to be one of the very best sessions of the whole Drupalcon. :-)

This title made me click on the link, the fact that we can stop the lovefest and take a long hard look at why it took me MONTHS to understand the interface and "get it" instead of days or hours made me vote for it... I'm in -- I'm not only voting, I'll go to the session and offer my thoughts. And you know what? I'm just going to say it... this is why I love Drupal...

James, I'm voting on this one. I think a lot of people out there are going to appreciate your perspective.