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I've got a small handful of Drupal sites that I do all the work on. I consider myself a newbie to Drupal. I've been learning on an as needed basis per each sites need. Personally I'm very excited for Drupal 8 but appreciate the option to fall back on Backdrop if I struggle with D8.

I know php, however my programming background is a couple C++ classes in college. Everything past there is self taught. Maybe its that background that has me excited about D8's transition to OOP. I really like creating neatly packaged objects (classes). It allows me to separate concerns and focus better. I feel I end up with a more flexible and powerful result from OOP.

The procedural hop from function to function nature of Drupal has made it difficult to learn module development and understand core. I feel like I have to find the end of a thread of yarn and then follow it through a cobweb of functions. I imagine some would say OOP is worse. But again maybe because OOP is where I started it, I find it easier to understand.

Another example would be Drupal's crazy arrays of arrays of objects with arrays etc! Until I started using phpstorm and xdebug trying to dig in and find where and how data needed to be accessed was a nightmare of dsm() and print_r. But even still I much prefer the standardization to accessing variables, methods etc that comes with OOP.

The most frustrating part of Drupal currently for me (as someone new, trying to learn web programming and Drupal at the same time) is what I refer to as "module hell". I've spent hours,days,weeks downloading modules testing them, trying to string multiple modules together to get where my customer wants. I get 90% of the way there and then comes the "Can you just add this.." request. Unfortunately the modules I've selected suddenly fall short. I find myself trying to explain technical jargon to the customer who's eye's glaze over. They say "this new request is absolutely necessary". I run to my computer screaming, then tear my hair out trying to hack my way into a module that's code seems a random collection of functions with no idea how they tie together. That last 10% becomes a 24/7 hacking marathon. At the end of each of these "bouts of fun" I find myself doing google searches for "best php framework". I find my self thinking "if I had just built the site from scratch or off a more base level framework...". Yes it would be harder, it would take longer. But when the dreaded "Can you just add this" requests come in I would be dealing with something I understood well and could simply go in and make the necessary changes.

For me the jury is still out on that last issue, I'm not sure either Drupal 8 or Backdrop will really address that for me. I lean towards D8 because it seems they're going to great lengths to use current standards and best practices. Or maybe I'm better off just learning Symfony, especially since D8 is using some of its components.

Anyway that's my 50 cents (post is too long and rambling for it to be just 2 cents), I wish both parties the best and plan to keep an eye on both.

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