[development] Extend database abstraction layer, to include table creation.

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

Dries Buytaert wrote:
>>> This is somewhat problematic as we need more people that are good 
>>> Drupal developers.  There is such a
>>
>> We recently got some very nice additions to our developer crowd.
>
> At any point in time, we had a nice addition of developers.  That 
> doesn't mean there is enough talent available.

What qualifies as "enough"? Drupal is a growing project and sure we 
could need more Drupal coders. But it isn't that we wouldn't get new 
code. You already added a couple new features to HEAD and 4.7 is only 
two weeks old. There are a lot of patches flying around and soon I will 
have to get extra patches for 4.7 because the code changed so much.

>>> strong demand for good Drupal developers, yet which each new 
>>> version, we add more barriers as a side effect of making Drupal more 
>>> powerful.
>>
>> I think this is only a matter of perception. You (as I was) aren't 
>> yet fully comfy with the new forms API and thus think that everybody 
>> will find it more difficult. For people who are new to it, they will 
>> just read the (excellent!) docs and should be able to make the usual 
>> forms within a few minutes.
>
> It's not just a matter of perception.  At least a dozen people told me 
> they got flabbergasted by the new forms API.

Oh, I was too. Because I was used to the old ways. It took some time - 
and the process isn't finished - to get used to the new ways. I am quite 
sure that 2/3 of your dozen people were people who were used to the old 
string based functions and had not really investigated the new forms.

Of course, I am not yet 100% confortable with it, but I was always a 
slow learner. ;)

>>> The web is built by millions of individuals, many of which are 
>>> amateurs. They continuously update, tweak and rebuild their 
>>> websites.  We want Drupal to remain accessible for them.
>>
>> Do we? I certainly want them to be able to use Drupal but I'd 
>> appreciate if they'd keep their hands out of the code if they aren't 
>> programmers. This only makes for nasty support cases.
>
> Funny.  You just mentioned you didn't know any PHP or MySQL when you 
> started using Drupal ...

Right. I first had tried to build a web site builder in bash and AWK and 
found it didn't work too well. Then I looked for CMSes in FORTRAN. 
Didn't find any and resorted to learn another programming language. But 
I wouldn't say  that I didn't have any programming experience.

Cheers,
    Gerhard