In a snapshot: History and evolution of Drupal
When Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder wrote Drupal as a message board that would help them to communicate news and announcements between the student communities, little would they have imagined that it would become an open source in 2001 and go on to become an extremely popular Content Management platform.
The word 'Drupal' is actually a variant of druppel which means “drop” in Dutch. Dries Buytaert was checking for available domains and as he scanned for dorp.org, a typo occurred and was suggested drop.org which stuck.
Drop.org charted a new course as its members shaped it into an experimentation site. The site was inundated with brand new ideas and discussions. New web technologies were discussed and distributed, and authentication, syndication and rating dominated these debates. Later, in 2001, Dries and Hans took the all-important decision to release the software that drove drop.org and named it “Drupal”.
The primary purpose of Drupal was to help people use and enable the flow of ideas and encourage the newer methods of development and this succeeded tremendously. The fact that it was an open source technology that allowed modifications made it unique; this later went on to become the key strength of Drupal.
It was kernaltrap.org, owned by Jeremy Andrews, a friend of Buytaert, to become the first one to show confidence in Drupal so much as to convert to Drupal and many more followed. The open source community and the boost that web technology received in general, ensured that Drupal made rapid changes to its core and went on to evolve into several versions, from 1.0 to 4.7, in real quick time.
When Drupal 5.0 was released in 2007, it already had some spanking new features for its time such as:
- Refactoring
- Form Handling
- Menu systems
- Content versioning
Drupal 5.0 had several innovative features for PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and Form API which were of tremendous advantage to users. A web-based installer that could be customized, was showcased for the first time, and helped in the distribution and use of Drupal.
Drupal 6.0 went a step ahead in terms of functionality and use and had a drag and drop interface to boast of along with many features such as downloadable theme developer module, better user controls and multi-language features. Drupal 6.0 contributed greatly in encompassing more web developers and non-programmers due to its versatility and ease of access.
Drupal 7 introduced great many changes and addressed various gaps in the following areas:
Security
- The log-in system became more secure
- Password system became better
- Updating of Modules were possible through the web
Database
- Queries like Select, merge, delete, update, insert, etc. were supported with additional query builders
- SQLite database engine was further fortified
- Allowed greater scalability and better integrity
New Themes
Themes like Bartik, Stark, and Seven were added as default themes while Pushbutton, Chameleon and Bluemarine were pushed out. Drupal 8 gives more priority to its use on mobiles and has made several changes to suit this fast-growing technology. Multilingual capacity, Ease of Accessibility, In-built web Services and an evolved configuration Management system has ensured that Drupal 8 remains aligned to modern times.
Zyxware Technologies embraced Drupal quite early and has been the leading contributor to Drupal from India. Connect to us to know more about our Drupal development services.
Embrace Drupal, upgrade to the latest in web technology, and make life easier for you and your clients.
