need mentor for learning to build Drupal modules

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katy5289's picture
Posted by katy5289 on December 14, 2010 at 7:26am

Hi, my name is Katy. I'm a freelance Drupal Developer living in Vancouver, Canada. I'm looking for 10-20 hours per week subcontract work to supplement my freelance projects. My background is in hand-coding HTML/CSS websites and in web design. My specialty is front end development - theming and site building, cck and advanced views. However, I am finding that jobs for front-end Drupal development are few and far between. Have other Drupal themers found this to be true?

There are many more Drupal development jobs out there, so I'm interested in learning how to build custom Drupal modules. I would like to pair up with a Drupal developer who is also good at teaching to help mentor me in building Drupal modules. When I have someone interested in what I'm learning and can give me feedback, it makes learning a whole lot more enjoyable.

I have started going through the examples modules (http://drupal.org/project/examples) but some have too much information. For example, the menu_example module, has too many examples so I find it confusing. I tried out the block_example module to add a block to a page but I ended up with duplicate blocks. I took a basic PHP course so I know the basics but not sure how it applies to Drupal.

Please respond with links to your work and how you can help,

Thanks,

Katy :-)
www.seascapewebdesign.com
katy5289 on drupal.org
seascapeweb on twitter.com

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Comments

same boat

Posted by kappaluppa on December 14, 2010 at 3:08pm
kappaluppa's picture

Hi Katy,
I am in the same boat. My specialty too is theming and building out sites. I'm really good at making a site work with CCK, Views, contributed modules, and can even modify existing modules a bit if needed. But I too lack experience in creating modules and would also like to learn how to do it. I too know basic php and would love to learn more of that too.

I'm in Denver, Colorado. If there is anyone out here who would like to help too, I'd be ever so grateful! Let me know how it works out for you.

Thanks,
K

helpful book

Posted by epersonae2 on December 14, 2010 at 4:00pm
epersonae2's picture

I only have a little experience with module building, but I found the Pro Drupal Development book (http://www.drupalbook.com/) really helpful with what I have done.

Seconded

Posted by spidersilk on February 3, 2011 at 8:40pm
spidersilk's picture

I second that recommendation. Reading that book was what finally began to make the module development process make sense to me. They explain things really well.

Working through Pro Drupal Development too

Posted by kbrinner on December 16, 2010 at 7:34pm
kbrinner's picture

Hi Katy,

Thanks for starting this thread. I've been building WordPress, Joomla, Mediawiki and Drupal based websites for the past 2 years, but have been focusing solely on Drupal for the past 5 months. It does look like the most competitive job opportunities lie with the more technical work, so increasing my knowledge of how to build modules and do serious Drupal customization is my goal at this point. I'm trying to devote an hour or two a day to hammering through the Pro Drupal Development book, working through the examples etc, with the goal that I can extend the lessons I've learned to build my own modules etc. So I wouldn't be a mentor of any type since it sounds like I'm in the same boat as you, but would be happy to work together toward your goal.

One thing that I really need to motivate to get this done is to set goals - would you be interested in agreeing on some task to complete every certain period of time, and then checking back in to see how everyone is doing with that task? That may be too structured for others, but for me it's the way I have to go in order to keep other priorities from crowding out my Drupal learning.

Thanks again -
Kristin

I'm working on getting a

Posted by kappaluppa on December 16, 2010 at 7:40pm
kappaluppa's picture

I'm working on getting a group together to do just that, Kristin. Maybe you'd be interested... http://groups.drupal.org/node/113274

Sounds like this D7 module

Posted by arianek on December 16, 2010 at 7:53pm
arianek's picture

Sounds like this D7 module development book is really good http://drupal.org/node/1000256

Examples for Developers

Posted by verikami on January 19, 2011 at 10:58pm
verikami's picture

You should definitely look @ Examples for Developers maintained by our beloved Randy Fay !!!

http://drupal.org/project/examples