What Really Changed with Drupal 8

Dick Olsson• Long time contributor

• Workflow Initiative coordinator

• Working at Pfizer — 1200+ Drupal sites

• Past at NodeOne, Al Jazeera

• Twitter: @dickolsson

• Drupal: dixon_

What really changedwith Drupal 8

• Code — not the only thing that changed

• Big cultural changes

• Process changes

• Core initiatives you might not know about

Changing code is easy

Changing culture is hard

Cultureinfluences process

Culture + Process = Code

Code changes• Config management

• Twig

• Entity API

• Better multilingual support

• Mobile friendly

• etc.

Culture changes• “Proudly found elsewhere”

• Iterative thinking

• No longer developer-centric

• Clearer leadership: drupal.org/governance

• Clearer vision: drupal.org/core/roadmap

• Funded development — clearer ROI

Dries

Community Security Technical CoreDocumentation

Working groups:

Product managers: Dries, webchick Release manager: xjmFramework managers: effulgentsia, alexpott, catch, Cottser

Media Initiative

Coordinator: slashrsm

Workflow Initiative

Coordinator: dixon_

Dries

Community Security Technical CoreDocumentation

etc.

…

Working groups:

Process changes

• Semantic versioning

• 6 month release cycle

• Experimental modules

Semantic versioning• MAJOR . MINOR . PATCH (e.g. Drupal v8.2.4)

• MAJOR — Incompatible API changes

• MINOR — Compatible functionality additions

• PATCH — Compatible bug fixes

• semver.org

Release cycle

• Minor release every 6 months

• Previous minor release not supported

• One long-term supported release at any time

• drupal.org/core/release-cycle-overview

Experimental modules• Iterative development

• Not perfect

• Not adhering to semantic versioning

• Dropped if not stable within 1 year

• drupal.org/core/roadmap

Why is all of this important?

Technologywill always change

Outside-in initiative

• More natural site building workflow

• Experimental module in core — “Settings Tray”

• Inspired by WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix etc.

• drupal.org/node/2762505

Media initiative

• Simplifying media management

• Many powerful modules for D8

• drupal.org/node/2786785

Workflow initiative• Improving content workflow experience

• Content Moderation module in 8.2

• Trash module in 8.3

• Workspace module in 8.4

• drupal.org/node/2721129

All this was done in the last 6 months!

Thank you! Questions?

Twitter: @dickolsson