Thank you to the Drupal community

I completed and published my first Drupal site today. I've used several CMS frameworks, and decided to start learning Drupal a few months ago to deal with more complex web applications. Given the complexity of what is possible with Drupal, I was expecting a massive learning curve and lots of frustration. Instead, it has been a pleasure to learn and work with, and has continually surprised me with elegant solutions and methods of working. I am so used to hacking code, that Drupal's smart handling of customisation was a complete shock!

I posted almost nothing on the forums, because the answers were already there. All I had to do was look them up. I wanted to just say thanks to everyone who posts both problems and solutions. At 11pm it is nice to know you are not the first person to be having this problem, or the first person who didn't see the simple solution right in front of your nose. The responses to newbie-type questions were polite and kind, not something one sees with every community.

As a newcomer, this is my perspective of why Drupal is the best CMS.

• local.css - WHAT a brilliant idea!
• sub-themes - ingenious
• installation profiles - while they have their issues I would never have been able to set up a shopping cart from scratch without the guidance this offered
• help files - little helpful hints at the top of pages that probably drive experienced users crazy but are a timesaver
• taxonomy - didn't understand it, thought it was crazy, then realised how smart it was
• views - no more SQL and PHP hacks!
• modules - thank you kind, kind developers who have thought of everything one could possibly want and are prepared to give so much time to help out others.

My new site is www.kindlebooks.co.za - a website to support the South Africa fiction writing community.

I still have a lot to learn and I'm hoping that the hackers, spammers and mongrels who make web developers lives a misery won't find me for a few weeks!

Kind regards