Posted by Squidgy on January 12, 2007 at 7:19am
Basic HTML knowledge - smattering of PHP.
21% (21 votes)
I know PHP! Drupal's sort of a mystery.
10% (10 votes)
I firmly understand PHP and can somewhat grasp Drupal's structure.
27% (27 votes)
I understand some parts of Drupal's structure very well, but some areas are unclear.
27% (27 votes)
I understand Drupal's structure and grok forms, hooks and themes.
10% (10 votes)
I casually write Drupal modules that iron my laundry and feed my pets.
4% (4 votes)
Total votes: 99
Comments
Hey, folks. I think that
Hey, folks. I think that today's session went pretty well, but may have alternately too technical or too light for some of the users - while clean code is definitely very important, I feel personally that I don't understand the structure well enough to write it safely at all! It may be helpful to josh_k and the other awesome folks who'll be leading this group to have some info on what the average level of knowledge is. If this poll was inappropriate, feel free to nerf it, admin dudes.
Drupal Dojo - Thelifeofme.com
Very appropriate
Hey Squidgy, I think it's very appropriate... Last night was a little "higher-level" than the first lesson, for sure, but still very important stuff, especially if you want to take advantage of Drupal's ability to protect your site from malicious folks and script-kiddies out there... :)
The hope is that more "sensei/teacher" folk will emerge and there will be a wide variety of classes offered. Of course, students can be teachers and teachers can be students. Nobody knows everything about Drupal, not even joshk :)
Great idea
This is a great poll. I would love to see lessons evolve that have a skill level (dojo belt? too much?) associated with them. This would be especially important for the long-run utility of archived screencasts and notes.
http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com
https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com
PHP as gating factor?
I actually know a heck of lot about HTML, CSS, Linux, MySQL, Perl and XML .. what I do not know much of is PHP. But your poll does not allow me to say that "I understand some parts of Drupal's structure very well, but some areas are unclear" for example AND that I do not grok PHP.
.... so the results may be misleading. Is there interest in another poll that asked more granular questions, like PHP knowledge, HTML and CSS knowlege, Programming skills in gneral, etc? Or whatever else the gurus feel is required to truly master Drupal...
http://www.ambereyes.net/
--
www.ambereyes.net
Finding one's place in this learning cauldron
Good questions Katrina. I don't think PHP is a gating factor here. It's simply an assumed minimum proficiency since PHP is the language on which Drupal is built. Since Drupal-Dojo was set up to train developers who could take on the formidable task of maintaining or creating modules, this is not an unreasonable expectation. I joined because I thought I could dive into PHP with this group, starting with the little knowledge I have about PHP and programming in general. But lately, I have to accept I don't need to learn at the pace and level where the more experienced people in this group are. They are teaching and documenting generously out of their own volunteer time. From their efforts, I could still learn to write PHP code on my own time and also contribute in some ways.
What I do want to see as this group evolves is a better delineation of what does a web development cycle mean with Drupal compared to what we traditionally understand. You know, the user scenarios and personas, wireframes and mockups, functional specs, prototypes, etc. It's hard for me sometimes to dive in because I feel I'm already starting with a basic tool and many spare parts and the task of web development is how to customize and combine parts to achieve certain things I want done. You know what I mean? It requires a different framework from what I am used to.
Information Architecture is a good place to start
It all comes down to process, to what roles are involved in what series of disciplines organized in planned, iterative phases, or development spikes, or scrums, or whatever anyone wants to call them.
You've got understanding the business case (making sure why the world needs this new site), requirements gathering, storyboarding, environment and version control and tools, analysis and design, graphic design, coding, testing, coding, testing, usability checking, coding, testing, usability checking... and deployment, bringing user documentation, user training, online documentation, and also site administration, load balancing...
I have a lot to say about this eventually, since process engineering (how to get an organization set up for software development, and embarked upon a road of constant improvement and maturity) is my main field.
In the last few years I have been applying this to web development, and in the last few months or so to Drupal development.
In the meantime, I would say that Information Architecture (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture ) is a good place to start.
But the center of interest for what you are saying, I would imagine, within IA, would be user centered design. Not the classification of sites, or technical writing in the abstract, but rather how that can be turned on its head and made part of a process, that is, how the needs of the users and the nature of the content of the site be transformed by a team into code.
Getting the coding done (on all levels: html, javascript, css, flash/actionscript, php, shell scripting, sql, and how to use a zillion tools), is just a small, important part of it. But the scenario of everyone doing everything on their own is moving towards at least a group doing the development, with a lot of necessary specialization. One person can take on more than one role, but less and less can any one person take on all the roles.
And without all the roles, the site can't exist (for long, at least).
The open source model, as it lives in Drupal can help a lot: if you know how to install a module you don't have to actually code, and even those who know coding do less coding with modules like views and cck and panels.
If this sharing can be extended to all the levels of information architecture, then the Drupal community (especially when potentiated by groups such as this one) could be viewed as a community site factory.
Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar
Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com