Drupal project lead Dries Buytaert just unveiled the Drupal Starshot Initiative and I couldn’t be more excited! Starshot is all about putting users first. Enhancing Drupal core with additional components tailored to everyday users of the interface. Technically, it builds on Drupal core’s robust foundation, utilizing Automatic Updates/Package Manager for seamless installation and maintenance, Recipes for the base system and on-demand additions, and Project Browser to help with recipe and extension discovery.
As I was talking to people about Starshot at DrupalCon Portland I realized it is easy to overlook how fundamental the changes proposed are in terms of how Drupal will innovate and the benefits end users will enjoy. At the same time those that did not have time to watch the whole keynote had understandable misconceptions about its nature. Some were concerned the fundamental changes are happening in the architecture, or a fork / parallel project is being set up. That is not where/how Starshot revolutionizes Drupal though. To address those misconceptions, I already worked on answers to frequently asked questions and published on the Starshot page.
This blog post will focus on the benefits that I see. I had the chance to participate in two hours of Starshot BoFs and then an hour long Q&A session at DrupalCon Portland. I also covered more technical details of Starshot’s architecture in my Drupal 11 talk (including the most popular question on what the Launch button might lead to). Finally I had countless conversations with people at the event. Maybe confirmation bias, but there were only a couple people I talked to that were entirely skeptical. On the other hand I got very different viewpoints on what will the benefits be depending on who I talked to.
I think all of those are great, so I compiled them. Let’s see 15 different reasons why I am super excited about Starshot and how it is very different from previous initiatives.
