Drupal Programmer essential skills

please stop using these groups to try to drive traffic to and comments on your blog, if you want to have a discussion here, post your content here. Also, since your content has nothing to do with NYC please stop posting it to our group. Thanks.

For the record, my only goal was to start a conversation about the necessary skills a small business should look for in a Drupal programmer. I included many groups because I've seen great information and comments from each. I assumed that we all have a vested interest in making sure customers are well served. This way as a group we all win.

I recognize that the subject matter is inflamatory, irritating and arrogant coming from someone with such a glaring conflict of interest. This is one of the reasons I left the post on my blog. Also i didnt feel that it was right to spam people with the whole article. I presented it as a synopsis in a light-hearted way to allow those interested to comment.

This being said, this conversation needs to be had, for the benefit of the little business person hoping that Drupal can be all it can be. I've seen a lot of opportunists pretending to be upstanding Drupalers, whose only intent is the fast cash. If you agree, speak up.

There are two comments on the blog leading me to believe that at least 2 have read it. :)

I think posting it to several groups looks like SPAM. I did assume your primary motivation was Back-linking, and it appears some others had a similar perception.

That said, I bookmarked your article for future reference. It reminded me of a list I came across a couple years ago (I regret not bookmarking it now) of Drupal developer interview questions.

But, I actually find this debate heartening and inspiring evidence that the Drupal community seems so stringently opposed to the kind of "me" attitude that IMO results in messes like Joomla. It's great.

To me it looks like what Garret said above. A random list of things that are needed for having a good understanding of a web site. To not be exhaustive here:

• you: "Security knowledge is a must. If the files on your Linux host have the incorrect permissions or your php.ini file allows programs to be executed by the apache user, you can end up with all kinds of new and improved cracks from all over the world. Installing up to date Drupal patches, often times isn't enough. The whole host needs to be secure and your Drupal Programmer will need to know how to check that it is. Most hosting providers will not take ownership over the security issues related to Drupal. They'll even threaten cut off service, if the problem isn't fixed immediately. For this reason and many more, fundamental security knowledge is a must. Ask them if they've ever had a website compromised and how they went about fixing it? If the answer is yes, you know you're dealing with honesty and experience."

  This is incomplete, vague, and mostly useless. I cannot grok any security checklist here. Perhaps it's my fault. But then:

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:39:45 GMT
  Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Fedora)
  X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.9
  Set-Cookie: SESS535d3844d4828bf0d7a0befdf54c7b8e=6aqd17d18uk1loveo3ubv066v2; expires=Tue, 08-Mar-2011 06:13:05 GMT; path=/; domain=.drupalcreations.com
  Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
  Last-Modified: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:39:46 GMT
  Cache-Control: store, no-cache, must-revalidate
  Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
  Connection: keep-alive
   

• you: "Apache is the Web Server of choice for most designers. There are others, but where Drupal is concerned Apache is the right choice. Knowing, at least, how to configure and restart the httpd is a must. Ask them if they're ever experienced the “Can't connect to local MySQL server” issue and how they fixed it. Google the answer. It's a common one related to either the MySQL configuration or the number of processes Apache allows."

  What's the rationale for saying that Apache the one true and only? I can't read any evidence above for your assertion. Oh and by the way, Apache has nothing to do with databases, unless you use a module like mod_auth_mysql, for example. That's strictly an application layer thing, even when you run Apache with mod_php.

• you: "MySQL knowledge is a must. While there are Drupal modules that can be used to compensate for a lack of phpMyAdmin knowledge, there is no substitute for a fundamental understanding of command line MySQL. All Drupal data is stored in the MySQL database. Being able to sign in and manipulate that data is something that's regularly needed. A condition common to older versions of Drupal is known as the white screen of death. The Drupal website just goes white. Depending on how crazy you get with contributed modules you might even encounter it in newer versions of Drupal. Rolling back to the most recent stable database is very often the fix. Doing this at the command line on a Linux host or through phpMyAdmin is the only way to fix it. There's no way around it. MySQL knowledge and experience is a core requirement in a Drupal Programmer. Ask your candidate what their experience is with MySQL, and research the accuracy of the answer."

This is wrong in so many ways. Let's see:

• MySQL AB was bought by Sun, Sun was bought by Oracle. Now MySQL is effectively an Oracle product.
  In my case as a free software user I'm wary of what Oracle might do with MySQL. I don't think they bought it to let it cannibalize their business in the overpriced "enterprise" space. Have you heard of MariaDB? AFAIK, drupal.org runs on it.

• Regarding phpMyAdmin don't even get me started. Do you have any idea how many advisories it had in 2010? Chive is a much better and more secure alternative. Of course the most secure way to manage a DB is the console on the DB host.

Let's leave here. No use flogging a dead horse. Your post doesn't belong in High-Performance. There are plenty of groups around so that you can be quite specific in your targeting. There's a Consulting and Business group and I see that you posted there also. No wonder you got pushback from people. I can't help thinking that your post is a thinly disguised advertisement for your services. Perhaps I just have a dirty mind. It might be.