The Drupal Diaries

This is a Drupal 7 website.

What is Drupal you ask? Drupal is...

  1. an Open Source software project
  2. a Content Management System (CMS) for websites

There are over 100 pages on this site and many of them were created long before Drupal showed up here to manage anything. This site is just a blog really, though I didn't plan it that way. I'm not a blogger. It just kind of turned out that way.

Drupal has a steep learning curve; some might call it a cliff. I'm ready to call it Wordpress for masochists. And I'm also ready to call it quits and move on to something else.

Drupal has a lot of really neat things going for it. I'll probably continue to use Drupal for a couple more years, at least until version 8, but I don't think this project is aging that well.

I'm too old now to have a career path or care what others think. All I have left is this opinion of mine. Here it is.

Diogenes's picture

When Pigs Fly

When Pigs Fly is actually a Drupal sandbox project.

Though there are contributed Modules on the Drupal.org website that are far more useless than this one, the chances are high that When Pigs Fly will never quite make it there. 

Nonetheless, there are some developers that may find this useful, if only for the practical jokes you can play on a fellow Drupal developers.

A lot of Drupal developers may be a bit surprised to find the standard installation of a Drupal contributed module does not check for potential url conflicts between different implementations of hook_menu().

The objective is to help developers become aware of potential url conflicts within the Drupal environment.

Diogenes's picture

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This blog is about the Drupal code reviews. There are 3 kinds of reviews, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Although many complain that the process is slow, it can proceed quite quickly. I have have my module reviewed 7 times time now. The shortest wait was 42 minutes; the longest wait was 66 days.

After more than a year now, I have given up hope it will ever be approved , partly because now I am writing blogs like this. Drupalistas do not take kindly to criticism.

To quote and paraphrase Grouch Marx -- "I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member" or maybe "I never forget a face Open Source Project, but in your case I'll make an exception."

Diogenes's picture

Just a Few Good Men

For over two years now, the Drupal.org website has had a policy in place regarding contributions by new members.

Members who have contributed before are exempt from this process.

The typical wait for a code review has climbed from 5 days to 5 weeks, to 3 months.

The attrition rate for this process is about 55%, based on a sample last month.

Although projects from new members are being approved at the rate of 1 per day, this represents only a small slice of the new Full Project modules that appear every month.

Current members with FP status can publish new modules at will without any scrutiny or community review, breaking all kinds of rules that new members must observe.

Apply the same standards to everyone. Make everyone climb the same wall or knock down the wall altogether.


Diogenes's picture

This Process is Broken

This blog is about the Drupal community, new members who would like to contribute a module or theme, and the process now in place to regulate that.

Eating their young

Just recently I came across an old blog: Module Approval Process will KILL Drupal. It's almost 1½ years old now.  It provoked a lot of discussion back then. I agree with much that was said. Unfortunately, almost nothing has changed.

Diogenes's picture

The Drupal Members Page module

Drupal sites are subject to web-bot registrations that target Drupal's /user/register url.

The Members Page module was crafted to fight this nuisance by creating a dedicated members page and registration page. The latter is available even if /user/register access is blocked. For added security, both page locations (url's) can be changed. Web-bots simply don't know where to look.

It does not depend on any other modules. Enabling the module does not alter your site configuration in any way although some configuration changes are necessary for practical use.

 

Diogenes's picture

Home from Chicago

chicago (87K)

So I'm back from the Drupal convention in Chicago last week and it was a great experience (with the exception of the airports and planes). It was my first ever convention, and I expected about 500 people, tops. There were over 3,000.

Chicago has an amazing skyline and some very impressive architecture, a blend of old and new. I've never seen so many cabs or stretch limos, but then I've never been to New York either.

One of the best things about the American experience are the restaurants and the customer service. A waiter is at your table in a minute. If you can make a decision quickly; you can order your meal when he returns with the drinks. I am no longer accustomed to this.

The Sheraton hotel that hosted the convention was full so I stayed at the Palomar - about 15 minutes away. It was a better price, the room and staff were wonderful, and the internet worked, unlike the Sheraton. No regrets at all.

There is a restaurant in the Sheraton called Shula's steakhouse. One item on the menu is a 48 ounce porterhouse steak. I must be in America.

Diogenes's picture

Could I have a side of spam with my comment salad?

tritops (14K)

I have this 8 year old desktop computer that has been an endangered species for some time. It crashes randomly, sometimes once a week, but occasionsally up 6 times in a single day. Sometimes when it crashes it just beeps and reboots, sometimes it's a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

So - really boring, and really, really unreliable. Who could like something like this?

Nonetheless, this computer and its web page now has a fan club. You can sign up for a name and password, and leave a comment. A valid e-mail address is needed to activate the account but hey, with Google mail, that is no problem.

Diogenes's picture

I'm Goin' to Chicago

I'm attending DrupalCon Chicago, March 7-10, 2011

Now that the personal website is up and running with the latest version of Drupal, it is with some excitement that I announce that I'm going to Chicago for DrupalCon, a four day conference for Drupal developers. How nerdy is that?

I was originally planning to go the the conference in London, England because it's closer, and London is always fun to visit (though I would never live there again). But there was a conflict. So I'm going to Chicago.

Diogenes's picture

The Big Bang

drupal-web-developer2 (9K) HomerSimpsonPontiacAztec (17K)

This is the first update to this site in over 10 months but it's a big one!

This web site is now managed by Drupal, a "content management system" (or CMS). It's a program that helped me organize a very messy garage. Pardon the mangled metaphor, but the old website had become a garage so filled up with junk that there was no room to park a car.

I had been fooling around with web technology for about a year and had built a couple of silly web pages just for fun. Once I had registered an official domain name, I needed a car to drive, so I built my own. The first edition looked something like this.

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