Which of those Drupal modules that are crucial for almost any project make you want to just... pull your hair out?
For, let's face it, with all the “improving the developer experience” initiatives in Drupal 8:
- BigPipe enabled by default
- the Layout Builder
- Public Media API
- and so on
… there still are modules of the “can't-live-without-type” that are well-known among Drupal 8 developers for the headaches that they cause.
And their drawbacks, with a negative impact on the developer experience, go from:
- lack of/poor interface
- to a bad UI for configuration
- to hard-to-read-code
- too much boilerplate code, verbosity
- to a discouragingly high learning curve for just some one-time operations
Now, we've conducted our research and come up with 4 of the commonly used Drupal modules that developers have a... love/hate relationship with:
1. Paragraphs, One of the Heavily Used Drupal Modules
It's one of the “rock star” modules in Drupal 8, a dream come true for content editors, yet, there are 2 issues that affect the developer experience:
- the “different paragraphs for different translations” issue
- the deleted (or “orphaned”) paragraphs that seem to “never” leave the database for good
Developers are dreaming of a... better translation support for the Paragraphs module. And of that day when the deleted pieces of content with paragraphs data don't remain visible in their databases.
2. Views
Here's another module with its own star on Drupal modules' “hall of fame” that... well... is still causing developers a bit of frustration:
You might want to write a query yourself, to provide a custom report. In short, to go beyond the simple Views lists or joins. It's then that the module starts to show its limitations.
And things to get a bit more challenging than expected.
It all depends on how “sophisticated” your solution for setting up/modifying your custom query is and on the very structure of the Drupal data.
Luckily, there's hope.
One of the scheduled sessions for the DrupalCon Seattle 2019 promises to tackle precisely this issue: how to create big, custom reports in Drupal without getting your MySQL to... freeze.
3. Migrate
There are plenty of Drupal developers who find this module perfectly fit for small, simple website migration projects. And yet, they would also tell you that it's not so developer friendly when it comes to migrating heavier, more complex websites.
Would you agree on this or not quite?
4. Rules
Another popular Drupal module, highly appreciated for its flexibility and robustness, yet some developers still have a thing or two against it:
It doesn't enable them to add their own documentation: comments, naming etc.
And the list could go on since there are plenty of developers frustrated with the core or with the Commerce Drupal module...
The END!
What do you think of this list of Drupal modules that give developers the most headaches? Would you have added other ones, as well?
What modules do you find critical for your projects, yet... far from perfect to work with?
