Chasing Perfection

This talk is based on a number of long-running discussions over the last two years. Several of those who have voiced opinions in this particular train of thought have since departed the Drupal community for a variety of reasons, mainly technical. I want to talk about those reasons. 

The life of a web development project is an endless series of compromises: compromises in expressing a creative vision, in our abilities to execute and realize those visions, in trading personal goals for shared ones, in choosing expediency over completeness, in choosing easiness over simplicity, and so on. 

We complain about our tools, our processes, our creative skills, our software, and our inability to make real that which seems to always elude us: a purer expression of our mental ideals, an end product closer to our dreams. 

We live in a world where the overwhelming majority of users treat Drupal as a complete 'product' sprung wholesale from the minds of some unknown 'community'.

A world where those in the community most active in core development do the least amount of real-world site building. 

One where we as developers are constantly bombarded with emerging alternatives and new, better ways to do everything, greener grass all around us — in all the little ways that Drupal and the things we build with it are always somehow less than what we want them to be, what are the ideals we chase? 

What are we measuring Drupal against when it fails to live up to a personal standard? Are others truly doing better than we are, and in what ways? What is the allure of alternative systems, and how does Drupal fall short? In what ways is Drupal truly 'good enough'? What would it take for Drupal to be great when compared to its alternatives, both old and new? What would an ideal Drupal look like — for back end and front end and creatives and authors — and how will we ever get anywhere near there?

And if Drupal can't get us there, then what?