Early in my IT career I did a great deal of web development, among other things. But ultimately I was forced to choose one of two paths: continue as a web developer, or pursue life as a Windows server admin. I chose the latter.
After eight years I've come to regret my decision (for reasons I shan't get into here). So, I'm looking to get back into web design/development, particularly in Drupal/PHP/MySQL etc. and I would appreciate any advice on how to best approach getting real-world experience. As I mentioned, I'm not entirely without expertise, but web development technology and methodologies have changed considerably since I had my hands in the mix. And while I am confident in my ability to "catch up" quickly, and do all kinds of dev/test stuff on my own, that obviously doesn't amount to squat when trying to land a gig. I still have a day job (and plan to keep it until I can make a "clean break"), so that makes this a bit more interesting, I suppose.
All comments/criticism welcome.
Comments
Join the Chicago Drupal Meet Up Group
You are in luck. Chicago has a great Drupal community. We meet monthly and can provide the support you are looking for.
http://cdmug.org
RSVP for our next meetup @ http://drupal.meetup.com/1
Make Stuff + a Book
To get in to Drupal configuration, build blogs, vanity sites, and other small things for fiends and family. You really need to dive in before you can understand how complex and how extensive Drupal is.
If you'd like to get into the development side of things, I suggest reading Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition. This is an excellent book, but it assumes you have PHP knowledge. It sounds like you're familiar with programming concepts, at least, so this probably won't be a problem.
Also, be sure to look at contrib and core modules to see how they do things. Documentation isn't always the greatest in the open source world, but this is mitigated by the ability to copy-paste and slightly modify complex modules.
Seconding both Suggestions
I agree with both suggestions... and in both cases diving in will be a big help, even if it's just some simple personal stuff. Check out the Using Drupal Book (http://www.usingdrupal.com/) it will give you a number of practical recipes for building various scenarios to adapt.
We also have another Chicago Area meetup out in the Far West Chicago Suburbs http://www.meetup.com/The-Fox-Valley-Drupal-Meetup-Group/. We normally meet on the fourth Thursday night of the month and have other smaller events during each month as well.
Bob Snodgrass
Lynda.com
I'd never heard of Drupal a month ago (gasp), but i've been working on our company website and a few searches for WCMS landed me here.
As i was browsing drupal.org (after diving in a bit myself), i noticed this:
http://drupal.org/node/672118
I've found that the $25 to sign up for lynda.com is well worth it for Drupal training!
I've already completed the videos by Chris Charlton on Theming and I'm currently in the process of watching the Drupal essential training by Tom Gellar.
Personally, I'm a visual learner and I prefer to learn from an experienced developer before diving in too deep.
For instance, i started making a custom theme to integrate with our current site, however i saved it in the main theme folder.
While this approach works, its not recommended. So now I have it in the correct folder (sites>all) thanks to the training videos on lynda.com.
Hope that helps!
P.S. Lynda.com has additional subjects that $25 entitles you too, but i'd browse the selection first if that's what your after.
I've been doing some silverlight 3 development and Lynda.com's training videos seem to be practically non-existant in that department.