[support] Why SubTheme?

[Mark Shropshire]

This is an awesome discussion. Well worth having.

To your point below, I definitely test when updating my base theme so a blow up doesn't usually happen on prod. 

I think you and others have the right idea on why not to do subthemes. If you plan to build your theme and never upgrade the theme, it makes sense. There have been times when I want to upgrade the Blueprint theme and it has been so nice to just drop in the new version without touching my subtheme. Also, I had to upgrade a Drupal 5 site to Drupal 6 and having a subtheme seemed to make that go smoother/quicker.

This may be another case where the "right way" is depending on your needs.

Thanks!
Mark

On Mar 14, 2011, at 8:39 AM, Fred Jones wrote:

>> 
>> The main reason I would subtheme is to allow easier updates to your framework/starter theme from d.o. If you have just hacked those themes downloaded from d.o, you have to merge your changes back in. Of course that can be done with git, but I still think sub-theming is better.
> 
> But then you run the risk of the upgrade breaking something, no?