Drupal is very much a ‘Do Everything’ CMS. There are modules that allow you to add almost any functionality, which is great. However, it feels like a lot of the features (v5 and v6) seem scattered around and unintuitive for the user. As a developer, I’m left with the feeling of having patched a site together using bubble gum and string.
For example, to add text to the default search box (that disappears when clicked), you have to either add some jQuery code OR override the theme. I’ve also found the menu system more complicated than it should be.
Am I the only one with this opinion? What things (if any) would you change about Drupal’s core?
The lack of true object oriented design means that you frequently have to rely on other developers’ foresight to leave ‘hook’ functions to let you alter a certain behavior.
Using Drupal 5 I’ve also run in to situations where the only way to complete a relatively simple design change is to patch Drupal itself (and then be sure to reapply patches with each new official Drupal release). But, to be fair, you should have seen how bad it was in Drupal 4.
I’m also annoyed that when I take the time to identify a bug or quirk in the current production version of Drupal, I submit a patch, and the patch is never committed because, basically only security bugs get fixed in the current stable release.