Guess what? There’s a lot of content being authored for the web, and there’s no end in sight. Perhaps the oldest challenge of the modern web is how to bridge the gap between those who are creative and have content and those with the means to structure and present such content in a web browser. There are creative writers and artists with no interest in the technology and there are structured thinkers who command the technology.

To the rescue comes the nearly ubiquitous content management system (or CMS but not a course management system…that’s a different breed of application).

Content management systems are torn between two fundamental poles: one hand wishes to preserve creativity and flexibility, while the other hand aims to make things simple. These goals, more often than not, are opposed to each other. As one increases the simplicity of a CMS, the ability to tweak, move, modify, and control the result all diminish. Alternately, if one is given complete freedom inside a CMS, it begs the question: why have a CMS at all if creating content is as complex as it would be without one? It is in this light which Drupal sets itself apart from other CMS's.