> It's like asking for a car that can be constructed by a non-mechanic.
I think that's a good analogy actually, but that's the market. Honestly, I think to try and move into the market that WP has so tidily sewn up would be a waste of time and energy so Drupal has aimed for the higher end of the market - large institutions and companies with content mgmt needs. Also, in my (admittedly biased) perspective, Drupal provides vastly more interesting work opportunities than Wordpress ever could. That's why I chose to invest my time in learning it all those years ago.
> if a non-programmer can build a project on a self hosted platform then you're essentially asking for trouble with respect to security and future maintenance
Granted, but programmers are at least as likely to spawn security holes by being given a more powerful weapon. Relatively simple things like XSS and SQLi can be taken care of for a user who's not touching the code while they build their project. The strong params feature in Rails was a result of a gaping security hole in what I would consider to be the bellwether of good framework design. Mistakes are made.
So you still haven't named a better alternative ;)
In my opinion, I sort of agree - Drupal is the worst CMS, except for all the rest of them.
I know plenty of valid alternatives but your 'non programmer' restriction is kind of severe. That said, I'm not actually familiar with any non-programmers that do manage to install drupal to the point that it works but can not program enough to add some functionality (and usually in a dangerous way...).
An extremely customizable cms for non-programmers as far as I know does not exist, including drupal, so we don't actually agree, it's just that you've limited the scope to the point where there is only the one alternative left and that alternative suits your particular use case.
Agreed that drupal is a more interesting environment than wordpress, many of the same restrictions and gripes apply to both platforms and drupal seems to attract the occasional wordpress user because of increased flexibility.
I think that's a good analogy actually, but that's the market. Honestly, I think to try and move into the market that WP has so tidily sewn up would be a waste of time and energy so Drupal has aimed for the higher end of the market - large institutions and companies with content mgmt needs. Also, in my (admittedly biased) perspective, Drupal provides vastly more interesting work opportunities than Wordpress ever could. That's why I chose to invest my time in learning it all those years ago.
> if a non-programmer can build a project on a self hosted platform then you're essentially asking for trouble with respect to security and future maintenance
Granted, but programmers are at least as likely to spawn security holes by being given a more powerful weapon. Relatively simple things like XSS and SQLi can be taken care of for a user who's not touching the code while they build their project. The strong params feature in Rails was a result of a gaping security hole in what I would consider to be the bellwether of good framework design. Mistakes are made.
So you still haven't named a better alternative ;)
In my opinion, I sort of agree - Drupal is the worst CMS, except for all the rest of them.