Drupal 6 was released in February of 2008. At the time, George W. Bush was still president, XP was the latest Windows OS, songs like “Pocketful Of Sunshine” and “Just Dance” were on top of the charts, Fidel Castro was President of Cuba, some people thought that turning on the Large Hadron Collider would create a black hole and destroy Earth, and Heath Ledger - the most terrifyingly hilarious Joker to appear in a Batman movie - had not yet passed away.

Welcome to 2014. Processing speeds are faster, MacBooks and iPads are now MacBook Airs and iPad Airs, "Demons" by Imagine Dragons is now dominating the airwaves, the "God Particle" has been discovered, Batman - who is not being played by Christian Bale (which I am not okay with) - is teaming up with Superman, and Drupal 8 is just over the horizon. And much like that laptop that you bought a couple of years ago (yes...the one that you spent so much money on and was so future-proof that you swore you wouldn't need to buy one until the next decade), a lot of us are thinking it's okay, my Drupal 6 site is working just fine.

But are we right? I checked in with some of our experienced Drupal developers and asked how much better can Drupal 7 possibly be compared to its D6 little brother?

“About a million times better…”

“An awful lot”

“172%?”

Oh. So maybe there is something to this after all. But I hear Drupal 8 is coming out pretty soon, so shouldn’t I just wait to change my D6 site to D8 after it is released?

“All the [D8] third party integrations and futureproofing, plus a really improved front-facing UI have me pretty stoked. In-line editing, responsive out-of-the-box, Twig...”

“We aren’t seriously working with D6 nowadays, are we?!”

I’m realizing that developers are definitely excited for D8, but that’s part of the problem. Many quality developers are already ditching the D6 ship and gearing up for D8. When D8 is released, almost all valuable support for D6 will be gone and bug fixes for even the core will cease. At that point, security for D6 websites will not be up to date, and if things go wrong with a site, they are going to go very wrong. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to just jump to D8 as soon as it’s released.

“I’d say we won’t be able to use Drupal 8 for 1 year from now at very-very minimum. The API completion phase is supposed to begin on July 1st; that’s when Drupal 8 betas will start appearing. So, ideally, we’ll have a release by the end of the year- somewhere in the 4th quarter plus some time- and maybe 4-6 months to get contrib modules in stable shape so they can be used on business-critical websites.”

You’re not laughing anymore. From a business standpoint, it can often be hard to justify upgrading to something that is going to be “second best” in the foreseeable future. Nobody wants to buy an Apple product a couple months before the newer better cheaper line of futuristic tech is about to be unveiled. Nobody wants to start liking a popular song right before everyone is about to forget about it. I didn’t want to like Heath Ledger as the best portrayer of The Joker ever right before his tragic demise made it impossible for the character to ever be played so well again. So it’s understandable when there is resistance to switching away from a D6 website. After all, my website is working just fine right? Look, my information is on the web, people are viewing my page, everything is fine.

But it’s time that we stepped swiftly into 2014 and realized that an effective web strategy involves maintaining a website just like we would maintain any other business product. Our websites are products, and when we make them change and grow with us, our audience notices. In fact, our audiences often increase as a result of SEO boosts that growing and changing websites enjoy. Expecting a website from the last decade to keep pace with the latest is like showing up to a business meeting in a 1986 Mustang and not understanding why a billion dollar company didn’t take you seriously. Don’t misunderstand me, I love the eighties, I love Mustangs, and I’m sure you take good care of it and that it runs quite reliably. But dynamic content, added features, and upgrading versions are what we have come to expect as users, so we should start expecting it when we deliver a site as well.

Let go of Drupal 6, forget about the recession of 2008, buy yourself a ticket to an Imagine Dragons concert, and start working on a shiny new Drupal 7 site with refreshed strategy, bold content, and exciting new features. Do it with the help of a leader in Drupal, like Propeople, and you’ll never regret it. While you’re at it, stay ahead of the curve and make sure that your long term web goals include a jump to Drupal 8 in two to three years when everything is really running smoothly. Build a habit of revitalizing your web presence instead of staying stagnant, and you’ll notice a lot of positive results.

If you have any questions, or simply want to know more, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or send me an e-mail.

Tags: DrupalUpgradeDrupal 6Drupal 7Drupal 8Check this option to include this post in Planet Drupal aggregator: planetTopics: Business & Strategy