This chapter is not about nerdy technology but more about philosophy – after 28 years in the software business, I am convinced that productivity and efficiency in developing IT systems is more a question about:

• Choosing a development strategy and sticking to it
• Creating development rules and concept for development and sticking to them
• Understanding the business concepts behind the solution before starting
• Having well defined test routines

Whether you have chosen .NET, Java, PHP or other main strategies – you will not succeed unless the 4 success criteria above are fulfilled.

I needed a development tool that would allow me to:

• Make CMS based web solutions
• Create database oriented contents, logic and more interactive solutions with the end user
• Control access to contents for different user groups
• Focus on development and logic without having to concentrate on graphic designer (I am a programmer NOT a designer)
• Create cost efficient solutions both in terms of software price, hosting price and development time

Last but not least I needed an environment that could be expanded either by downloading open source modules and tweaking those or by creating own modules in PHP.

Drupal more or less provided all these facilities within one open source package and I decided to create solutions that were in the scope of what Drupal could solve (and that is quite a lot) instead of using tools that might offer more power, because the cost for more power and versatility in your solutions is usually more development time, more error fixing and more analysis of potential solutions.

With Drupal I got a fast lane to 90% of the problems I come across and I can really live with that.