Occasionally when speaking to people who are considering which cms to use, it is mentioned that Drupal has a steep learning curve. The reality is that Drupal is very straight forward and makes a lot of sense. The concepts involved in understanding Drupal are very easy.
New Concepts
The idea of Drupal being a steep learning curve has amounted, due to the reality that Drupal is so powerful. One way to view this, is to realise that it requires a new way of thinking, to understand new concepts. Someone who is used to using WordPress or Joomla will not necessarily pick up Drupal quickly because Drupal is more flexible has so many more features. These extra features require the knowledge of more terminology and jugen, and more concepts to understand.
Paradigm shift
Drupal requires a paradigm shift. Much of WordPress and Joomla’s framework works out of the box. Drupal’s advanced functionality allows custom configuration for many features. This can be seen as Drupal’s peculiar and unique framework. To understand this framework, to gain these skills and knowledge requires seeing content management in a new way, to a completely new way of thinking – a paradigm shift.
Granular Control
One of the strongest features which is unique to Drupal is its ACL Access Control List. ACL allowing users to be allocated particular access privileges. For example certain users can be displayed particular content depending on which group they are placed in. This type of granular control is typical of Drupal, and this level of configurability is characteristic of the level of control across much of Drupal’s functionality.
Requirements
If you have chosen to learn Drupal, then you have at you fingertips the power and flexibility beyond other cms systems. To access this it requires the ability to understand new concepts and a paradigm shift. Once this shift has been made, and some time spent learning the system, it will be seen that Drupal makes sense and actually is quite easy.
About Author
Mitchel Xavier is a Drupal Development and Drupal web design specialist.