Hello Everyone,
Here's a few thoughts I have been mulling around in my head. I'd like to share and see what others may have to say about them. I don't have a blog, so posting here where it's nice and open too.
I'll always be the programmer I was when I first inherited an old business computer in the 80s. Lazy to the bone, this was the profession for me. Lazy is the second most important thing I look for in fellow programmers; Intelligence, applied to facilitate that laziness is the second; And perhaps for Open Source, empathy comes next (so that we can help each other be lazy well too). We write code to reuse for ourselves, for other developers and to make people's lives, our users' lazier (easier and quicker). We write good comments and author in coding standards, so that we can all get to grips with the works of others quicker. And the biggest reason for all this laziness? Probably so that we can get more free time to learn more to be more lazy with what we've learned ;-)
For many of us then, laziness translates to our rewards. To accomplish more with less work and to learn more in the process. Once the bills are paid, those are definitely two of my major perks in life: Learning and Accomplishment. Just about essential, I'd say.
Of course, we work for clients; Even if we're building products internally, we have users of our software. Those are the people measuring our successes so that when we're done, we can get that sense of accomplishment from a well functioning product. Our co-workers and the Drupal community that we get to know teach us, and we share information in turn, so those too are people that measure our success and contribute to our rewards in life.
As I grew from lone coder to managing Burtronix, our clients and later when it became open and available, joining the South African Drupal community in Johannesburg, my days were spent less on programming and more on talking to people and going to meetings. Working with the people that measure not just mine, but Burtronix' people's success and ultimately, as we start working together as a community more , everyone's... and yes, with the massive leverage of the internet, we also all contribute to the success of humanity as a whole. As internet developers, we punch above our weight in that regard: Our sites are used by thousands, and really, now-days, millions of people.
For a while it seemed that the laziness paradigm didn't apply to people. But with the work being done by DASA of late and the people I've been meeting in our community that are all so very interesting and helpful, I'm thinking it still does:
For the lazy coder that chooses the right open source function or CMS for the right job and then contributes to making it better for others, we now have the lazy manager choosing the right person for the right job and contributing to making his or her life better, not just assigning a job. That does require the right people to be available. People and CMSes/functions are limited ready resources, so we have to work together to develop them. And therein lies the carry-on topic for laziness and bringing it back to Drupal.
We've heard time and time again that Drupal is not just a CMS, it is also a great community. So many people in the Drupal community have jumped ship for Node.js, some completely. I often hear them pine for the Drupal community they've left behind. Drupal wins out even when Drupal (the code) falls short a bit because it is such a great community, sharing so much with each other.
If Drupal is both a CMS and a community, then we should acknowledge it as such. Taking Larry Garfield's introduction of the now popular idea that the Drupal community should get off the Drupal island forward, we need to spend more time on the larger ecosystem of Drupal-related development. That can even include Node.js (and so much more); In fact, the front-end build stack I'm talking about at the Johannesburg meet-up tonight goes off our reservation just like that and I'll try to come give the talk in Cape Town too soon.
Our clients in South Africa are often not well informed about web technology. They often see Drupal as the esoteric Wordpress equivalent or a more expensive option to Joomla! Most of what we sell at Burtronix these days barely register as a "website" to our clients, never mind calling it a Drupal website, yet they mostly still rely on Drupal in the back-end.
As examples: We're working on a mobile game for a client, full animation and everything. It's still using Drupal to save games and track data. We also built the software for those huge three-story screens at concerts in Dubai with live Tweeting and such, everything with a Drupal back-end. Many of these things require us to develop in off-the-island technologies and even mentioning Drupal at the first pitch will either dent your pitch or require us to sell and explain a whole lot of technical reasons on "why Drupal". Heck, as I said, you don't even say a "website" is involved. You sell the solution.
Once the product is a success, then you can tell your agency that you used Drupal. And man, then they become serious Drupal fan-boys and -gals ;-)
It's the position in these more diverse projects that make Drupal not an equivalent to Wordpress and Joomla! No, Drupal is so much more and Drupal 8 will bring even more of that, so be prepared, you won't be building just "websites" in future.
In closing, growing in person, as a community and in our development abilities means we're changing our work milieu, but we can learn a lot from our age-old laziness, love for working together, transferring knowledge and diverse means to accomplish our tasks. This is also Drupal - the community of Drupal - and often as unmentioned yet as crucial.
Come to Drupal user group meet-ups, now in Johannesburg and Cape Town once a month and in the coming months also in Pretoria, come to the Johannesburg DrupalCamp and if these are too far, contact info@dasa.org.za for assitance to start your own meet-up in your area. Help us build the Drupal that is not just the code too. It pays back in serious dividends!
With no formal business education, these are just thoughts I share in the hope to hear back and learn from others' analysis as they grow their own businesses. Even if not shared here on GDoSA, perhaps this may generate some discussions in the hallway tracks of our meet-ups and I look forward to hearing opinion and other points of view!
Kind regards,
Riaan