When I headed to DrupalCon this week, I thought it would be strange to attend a talk called "Why Drupal Sucks", but that's exactly the title of James Walker's talk this morning about Drupal and all that's wrong with it.

Walker starts off by talking about some of the great things about Drupal. But in a comedic style, he targets some of the most often complaints regarding the open source platform. He focuses on usability, the fact that Drupal tries to be all things to all people, and that it's nearly impossible for a newbie to effectively involve themselves in the community with ease.

A lot of what he takes issue with is well known. Core has 30 modules, many of which are difficult to use or impossible to configure. Every Drupal developer knows the phrase "there's a module for that!" and they use it religiously. The problem is that average, ordinary folks don't want to find the module for that – they just want it to work.

He highlights a lot of great things about Drupal as well – the community, the level of involvement, the fact that there are 1,400 people at Drupalcon. As someone relatively new to Drupal, but a seasoned PHP developer, this was a great overview.

Walker ends his talk by saying "Drupal sucks at being a product so we should become a movement." I don't entirely support his argument but I appreciate the sentiment. In all, Walker provides some great things for the community to consider, and makes some important points about the direction Drupal is going.