Best place for a Drupal grasshopper?

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stuart-gdo's picture
Posted by stuart-gdo on July 27, 2007 at 4:41am

I'm a Drupal grasshopper without any in depth PHP skills. I checked out the first Dojo video - but when it broke into the FormAPI discussion, it started to go over my head. Can anyone recommend a good way for a motivated beginner to start learning how to build sites on Drupal?

Thanks,
Stuart

Comments

Dojo is still the place for you

Posted by magdelaine on July 27, 2007 at 5:19am
magdelaine's picture

As a Drupal grasshopper myself, I can understand where you are coming from, but not all Dojo screencasts are at that level and you would be wise to try some of the others.

You can also look into the following:

http://drupal.org/node/31896 - Building a Brochure Site with Drupal. A great mini-challenge for a beginner by sepeck. In fact sepeck has quite a few "beginner" type tutorials on his website, so check that out too.

www.lullabot.com - Check out the podcasts and articles section; I find their explanations very understandable and geared toward the new user. And if you have the money and the time, their Drupal training is said to be the best.

Read the documentation, especially terminology, because getting a handle on terminology can be a big hurdle (at least it is/was for me).

Hang out in IRC. The drupal channels are on freenode and include #drupal (for general development only but fun to listen in on), #drupal-support, #drupal-dojo, #drupal-themes, and probably many others. The folks there are always friendly and ready to help with spur-of-the-moment tutorials. (I love you guys!)

Ok, hope that helps. And remember there are lots of ways for us "grasshoppers" to contribute too, from document editing to trying out patches, so stick around.

learn one, teach one, do one

Drupal School

Posted by barry1222 on July 27, 2007 at 3:07pm
barry1222's picture

Elliott Rothman has a series of excellent screencasts ideal for the Drupal newbie (of which I am one). Check them out at http://www.theartlab.net/podcast/drupal-school. I found them to be very helpful.

A book to help...

Posted by bradfordcp on August 16, 2007 at 6:16pm
bradfordcp's picture

I had no experience with Drupal when I started the Summer of Code this past year. A copy of "Pro Drupal Development" helped me out in some tough situations (including FormAPI). check it out at http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10258
~Chris

~Chris