Hello, everybody! I just finished a book, Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers. It should be going to press this week and be available mid-February.
The book is an programmer's introduction to Drupal, coming from a Windows developer's a point-of-view. I cover the Drupal page lifecycle and how it differs from the .NET page lifecycle. I talk about the hook model and how it differs from .NET's event-driven architecture. I also have an introduction to PHP for the C/C# programmer, since PHP might be new to a lot of Windows developers.
The book is mostly centered around Drupal and getting it to run and being productive on a WAMP stack. I highlight the $100 VS.Php add-in for Visual Studio, which provides Intellisense, breakpoints and step debugging for PHP and Drupal. I do have one appendix where we go through the installation of the Microsoft SQL Server driver for PHP PDO and get everything running on IIS.
I think everyone on this list will find the book useful.
Enough for the plug. I wanted to put forth a suggestion and see what the community thought about it. This group seems to be focused on the issues around Drupal and IIS (as the group name suggests). There are some posts about SQL Server and development on a Windows environment.
I am focused on Drupal 7, because of the PDO implementation, the baked-in testing framework, and the more elegant hand-off between modules and themes. But I'm also focused on Windows and I think there is a demand out there for Drupal 7 on Windows.
So is this group the proper place to discuss such things, or do you think another group would be better? It would be titled "Drupal 7 on Windows", or something like that.
Comments
I just pre-ordered your book
Hi Brian. I just placed a pre-order on Amazon for your book. I think this is fantastic that you put forth the kind of effort it takes to write a book about this subject. I want to buy you a drink at DrupalCon Chicago for doing this. Actually maybe more than that :)
As the guy at Microsoft who is responsible for driving demand for and making it as easy as possible to run Drupal on Windows+IIS I would have liked to see more focus in your book on Drupal+IIS but I'm a pretty pragmatic guy and realize that most Drupal users who are using Windows are doing it on WAMP so your book probably has the right balance in terms of content and that's important if you want to sell books :)
If you decide that you want to do a second edition of this book and want a collaborator I'd be happy to work with you to contribute for how to setup/configure/optimize Drupal on IIS.
Thanks again for writing this book. I'm looking forward to reading this.
Regards,
Mark Brown
WISP Stack
Mark, I was hoping to devote more pages to the Windows/IIS/SQL Server/PHP stack, but the tools just weren't there yet. I delayed the book as long as I could, and wrote an appendix on the work you guys are doing at Microsoft. But to press we must go!
I love the idea of a second edition that focuses more on the full Windows stack. I also want to cover back-end integration using web services. I think both of these topics are of interest to Windows developers working to present a front-end to their enterprise data stores.
I agree with your assertion that most Windows developers would be content with the WAMP stack for now, but as Drupal 7 gains traction, there will be more demand for a full Windows solution.
Brian Travis
Author, Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers
Sounds great
Let's have a beer or two at DrupalCon in March. I will have read your book by then as well too.
Thanks again Brian. Very excited that you wrote this book.