Kyle Einecker on Drupal Components, Commerce, and Platform Choice

Ahead of NEDCamp 2022, The DropTimes spoke with Kyle Einecker about component-based development, Drupal Commerce, CKEditor 5, and planning beyond Drupal 7. At the camp, he presented “Why Is Building Components in Drupal So Difficult?”

At the time of the conversation, Einecker was a senior technical architect at Perficient, where he led a global team of Drupal developers working across e-commerce, healthcare, and finance. He contributed on Drupal.org under the username ctrlADel and had been involved in Drupal camps and conferences since attending MidCamp in 2015.

This written interview was originally published as part of The DropTimes’ short speaker interview series around NEDCamp 2022.

TDT [1]: Please introduce yourself and your work in Drupal.

Kyle Einecker: Hi, I’m Kyle Einecker, a Senior Technical Architect at Perficient, where I lead a global team of Drupal developers to deliver award-winning enterprise Drupal experiences in eCommerce, Health Care, and Finance. On Drupal.org, I go by ctrlADel, where you can find me contributing to various core discussions and modules.

TDT [2]: The Drupal community often says that people “come for the code but stay for the community.” How were you first introduced to the community?

Kyle Einecker: I first found Drupal and its community online, creating my Drupal.org account back in 2014 as I was fresh out of college, teaching myself both PHP and Drupal. At that time, I was living in Chicago, and I chanced upon MidCamp in 2015—one of the best North American Drupal camps—where I met great people like Andrea Soper, Kevin Thull, Avi Schwab, and even Mike Miles, one of the eventual NEDCamp organizers. Since that first camp, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend and speak at many other Drupal Camps and DrupalCons across the country, where I’ve consistently met many other great members of the community.

TDT [3]: What were you planning to present at NEDCamp 2022, and who was the session intended for?

Kyle Einecker: My session touches on something every architect, developer, or site builder implementing components has felt but rarely talked about since atomic design and component-based authoring became the go-to approach. Why is building components so hard? The answer is complicated, so you’ll need to attend my session or watch the recording from a previous camp to get all the details. I also plan to touch on how the Single Directory Component discussion happening in Drupal core will eventually make components easier.

TDT [4]: At the time of this conversation, Drupal 10 was due for release in December 2022. Which feature were you most excited about?

Kyle Einecker: CKEditor 5. The open-source version that is part of the core brings cleaner extension patterns and a more customizable editing experience. Add on the new premium real-time collaboration/review features, and you get a powerful editorial experience I haven’t seen in any other CMS.

TDT [5]: After several extensions, Drupal 7’s end of life was then expected in November 2023, while many websites still used it. What was your advice for people staying on Drupal 7?

Kyle Einecker: It’s time to let Drupal 7 go. It’s an aging platform that is receiving less and less support as time goes on and will eventually be permanently EOL. If you haven’t evaluated CMS offerings in a while, there are a lot more options in the market than there used to be, and after looking at competitors like Squarespace, Backdrop, static site generators, or a headless SaaS, it may be that Drupal is no longer the best solution for you. Hopefully, you find Drupal is still the best, though, and if you do, then I say D9/D10 is great! It’s time to bite the bullet and do the migration.

TDT [6]: You have focused on eCommerce solutions. What did Drupal Commerce offer that could lead someone building an eCommerce platform to choose it over Magento, now part of Adobe Commerce?

Kyle Einecker: Drupal Commerce is the single most powerful Content and Commerce solution I’ve worked with over the course of my career. Whether it’s an eCommerce site with a little bit of content or a content site with a little bit of eCommerce, Drupal Commerce allows you to get up and running quickly with standard eCommerce functionality. For more complex sites, Drupal Commerce’s architecture is battle-tested and has been iterated on over the years to be extensible exactly where you need it so that it can meet even the most complex commerce needs.