I feel that the Drupal vs Wordpress debate is similar in one aspect to the Python vs Perl debate: "One way to do it" (Drupal) vs "More than one way to do it" (Wordpress).

Especially in Drupal 8, rather than hacking my way through .module.inc files and includes, etc., it seems there is a relatively opinionated way to architect your modules.

However, I recently asked a question regarding the "Drupal Way" to do something, and it was heavily edited. Why?

  • 2
    In a site about Drupal, we don't need Drupal put in the title. Just ask how to achieve something; if there is a more idiomatic way of doing something (supposing such a thing exists), users will point out it. I think it is more correct to talk of using the correct function/class rather than Drupal way. – kiamlaluno Jun 7 '17 at 5:36
  • No, Drupal is not one way to do it. Many things can be done in more than one way, but you need to consider the consequence. For example, I would not delete a node accessing directly the database, but that doesn't mean it could be done; just be aware no module will be able to delete the data it stored for the deleted nodes. – kiamlaluno Jun 7 '17 at 5:40
  • @kiamlaluno But is there not usually a best way? Can you give me an example of two equally good ways in Drupal to do the same thing? – Lincoln Bergeson Jun 7 '17 at 14:16
  • There isn't a best way. What is the best way for a person it is not necessarily the best way for somebody else. It is rather subjective, not something that can be in an answer, since Drupal Answers is for objective, answerable, and not opinion-based, questions. – kiamlaluno Jun 7 '17 at 14:50
  • Yes, ok. Assume "best" in a software sense means easiest to implement, most performant, most intuitive to maintain, follows best practices, and is encouraged by the framework maintainers. – Lincoln Bergeson Jun 7 '17 at 14:55

To answer your question succinctly, it was done to make your question more objective sounding.

To get more analytical, DA is kind of an odd sub-forum on the Stack Exchange network since it's a objective Q&A knowledge base for a CMS/framework that's designed to adaptable from the core to fit many use scenarios.

Thus, there's a conflict between the question's subjective aspects and trying to maintain a Q&A KB that's suppose to maintain definitive answers.

For example: in your comments about the Drupal way, you've defined "best" as:

  • Easiest to implement
  • Most performant
  • Most intuitive to maintain
  • Follows best practices
  • Encouraged by the framework maintainers

Putting aside that there still remains subjective aspects there (e.g. "How can something be the most intuitive?"), you're trying to optimize ("best") 5 different attributes that can often conflict with one another (e.g. performant vs ease of implementation). With a question like this, you're likely to get more opinions than facts/knowledge (which is what you're here for).

Ultimately, the only way to mitigate this problem is by refining questions, such that subjective bits are shorn off, so they can have definitive answers (and perhaps short/simple enough to not need pages of text to understand).

  • In addition, Drupal way and intuitive are a bit in conflict, if we use the first to mean more idiomatic for Drupal. The OP started with asking about the first, and ended up with the second. – kiamlaluno Jun 8 '17 at 8:58

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