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I have not had a chance to try D8 yet, but I had been looking forward to learning it, porting modules, increasing my knowledge and becoming a better developer. Now Backdrop presents a decision I had not been considering and do not relish. At some point in the future we'll all have to decide to port to D8 or Backdrop, or to start in D7, D8 or Backdrop. Only when each of us (consultants, shops, in-house devs) gets to that point will we know how this all starts to turn out.

At my current position as an in-house Drupal developer, that decision will probably be mine. The content and design teams mostly know Drupal as "the cms" and they don't really care which cms it is as long as it does what's needed. I'll get to do what's fun for me. In fact, I'll be encouraged to take on new challenges and invest in my professional development.

Part of that decision will come down to what's best for my career. Like many of us I'm sure, I had no idea that Drupal would become a career, but now it supports my family, kid's education, mortgage payments, vacations and lots of fun stuff I want to keep being able to afford.

I'm leaning D8 and taking a wait-and-see position. But there are some points in this post that don't quite ring true for me.

Devs and site-builders have always had to learn and relearn with each major version. I didn't expect D8 to be any different, and Backdrop will also have a learning curve.

Since starting with D5, lots of new technologies have become more integral to having a Drupal site: jQuery, Scss, endless 3rd-party apps, more OOP. Not to mention hosting and configuration management. No matter what platform, learning new things will always be the case if you want to keep up.

Some of the exit strategies listed aren't exactly that easy either, but I'm sure they would also be fun and challenging.

The idea of the "professional computer-engineering world" vs. the "hackable web software world" is a false dichotomy in the case of web apps. I don't have a CS degree, and I'm no CHX, Crell or Quicksketch, but like those of us who came in from the hackable software world, we're not exactly dummies either. We've learned it, and we use it to make enterprise-level apps and earn just as much as anyone with the same hours on the engine.

Although it seems implied in the Backdrop manifesto, I don't think that the majority of the Drupal community has risen to the level of its own incompetence with D8, and it would be wrong to assume newcomers would be any less capable. Nor do I believe that about Backdrop developers.

It's so early in the Backdrop story and the D8 story. Much too early to judge. I'm going to keep working, learning and watching. May everybody succeed.

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