André Angelantoni Explores the Next Five Years of Drupal Development

André Angelantoni’s recent LinkedIn post, titled “Keeping Drupal Relevant — The Next Five-year Plan,” provides a thoughtful overview of the progress Drupal has made since Dries Buytaert’s 2019 strategic vision. André highlights key features like automated updates, Workspaces, Composer, and the expanding Layout Builder module ecosystem, calling it "insane" how many modules are now available. He also praises the platform’s new tools, including the unexpected but impactful Recipes feature.

Reflecting on these advancements, André emphasizes the importance of these improvements for Drupal’s ability to stay competitive, noting that 

"Drupal CMS (aka Starshot) would not be able to compete without them." 

 With contributions from developers and the community, Drupal has evolved to be both more powerful and user-friendly over the past five years.

André, however, raises critical questions about Drupal’s future. Citing Dominique De Cooman, he suggests that Drupal might need to move away from its traditional page request model, a shift that would represent a "major upgrade" for the platform. This change could redefine how Drupal core and contributed modules function. André also references The DropTimes newsletter of the past week, which featured an experiment of Drupal's conversion entirely into JavaScript, suggesting that this could provoke deeper discussions about the platform's future technologies.

He also mentions experimental ideas, such as running Drupal on WebAssembly, which is pushing the community to consider whether Drupal should remain in PHP. 

"Does Drupal need to stay in PHP?" 

he asks, sparking conversation on the platform’s future direction.

André concludes by inviting the community to reflect on what should be part of Drupal’s next five-year plan. His post, which includes links to key discussions and presentations, serves as a call to action for the Drupal ecosystem to envision its long-term potential. He recommends reading Dominique De Cooman’s post on Drupal's long-term potential for further insights.