April 2010 - Module development nitty-gritty

Posted by kathc on March 2, 2010 at 2:28am

Start:

2010-04-12 17:30 - 19:30 America/Montreal

Organizers:

kathc

Event type:

User group meeting

I'm really not sure what's going to be discussed, but we've been doing a lot more management type stuff the past few meetings, so this one will be for the developers to talk about best practices.

As always, discussion here is welcome, and signups help with the planning.

Comments

Easter Monday?

Posted by mgifford on March 2, 2010 at 2:08pm

Just wanted to check in with the date. Looks like it's going to be on Easter Monday on my calendar. This may not matter but is something to be aware of.

I've been pretty bad at making it out lately, but know I can't make it on Easter weekend.

--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide

That's on my calendar too,

Posted by kathc on March 2, 2010 at 2:15pm

That's on my calendar too, but I wasn't looking at it when I grabbed that date. I would suggest that we go to the week after. I know I'm not in the office on Easter Monday. So to note for everyone else, I'm changing the date on the event here.

Topics for Discussion

Posted by rjerome on March 5, 2010 at 1:50am

Hi all,

This is a pretty broad topic, which could probably fill a few meet-ups, but here are a few suggestions for discussion...

Development environments (editors and debuggers). In my humble opinion, this is one of the most important tools for a productive work environment. Personally, I use Eclipse, which is the Swiss Army Knife of IDE's. You can add plugins for almost all programming languages (including PHP of course). It can deal effectively with HTML and XML files as well as connect to databases and edit SQL. Additionally, it has a "Team" module which integrates it with major revision control systems like CVS and SVN. There is also an integrated debugging feature which, when combined with XDebug allows you to set break points in your code and step through the entire Drupal process line by line. And finally, if that's not enough, there is the breakfast plugin which cooks you a nice warm breakfast after a long night's coding :-)
Revision control. Again, IMHO, no code should be written without using some form of revision control. There are many aspects of revision control that may be confusing to new developers, so this could be another top of discussion.
As I alluded to in (1) knowing how to use a debugger is indispensable when it comes to tracking down those pesky little critters. Setting up XDebug can be a little finicky, but once done it will pay back the time invested many times over. XDebug also allows remote debugging so you can step through code running on a web server on the other side of the world (also a time and money saver :-)
Drupal API. If you are going to do any serious development in Drupal, familiarity with the API is a must. Module developers, should at the very least be familiar with the "hooks" that Drupal provides to extend the core functionality and forms the basis of the "modularity" in Drupal.
Project system on Drupal.org. New or non-developers may not be familiar with the functionality provided to contributors by the project module on d.o.
Documentation :-( Yuck! who needs it? Both inline and online are important and often overlooked.

So that's my core dump for now... I'm sure there are many other topics as well, so perhaps people could add other suggestions and then do an informal vote to determine where to start.

If there is interest in any of the above, I would be happy to share what knowledge I have on the topics.

Cheers,

Ron.

Interested in...

Posted by klamoureux on March 23, 2010 at 2:37am

and 2. in your list would really help me out right now...so i would definitely like to hear more about these topics.
and 4. as i have several things i need to do and dont think an out of the box module is going to get it done for me.

So i would like to express my interest in those areas.

Looking forward to it,

Kit

Meeting place

Posted by supriya09 on March 23, 2010 at 1:58am

Hi, I'm new to this group and just signed up for this upcoming event. But I was wondering where this meeting is going to be held.

Thanks
SM

Meeting Location?

Posted by rmarmen (not verified) on April 5, 2010 at 7:54pm

I am also new to this group and will need to know the location of the meeting.

cheers,

Rob Marmen - robert@open-systems.ca

Meeting at the same place...

Posted by kathc on April 6, 2010 at 1:37am

Hi all,

Hearing no other suggestions, you're all still welcome at the NUPGE Board room, 15 Auriga Drive, Nepean (near Hunt Club/Prince of Wales).

I know last month some people were asking about buses from downtown - I would recommend getting to South Keys and then having someone pick up there (leave a note here, and I'm sure it can be worked out if everybody has a bit of notice). I can always take a few people on my way out after the meeting, so same applies if you need a ride home.

Kathryn

is this on?

Posted by liquidcms on April 5, 2010 at 8:15pm

I think this meetup has moved to next Monday to avoid Easter but not sure we have a plan yet as to what is being discussed or who is speaking.

I think when i suggested the topic (was it me?) i was sort of thinking I'd give an overview of the hook system - but certainly all the items that Ron has listed are worthy of discussion.

Doesn't matter to me what the topics end up being or who presents - but not sure just going in with no plan is best approach.

Maybe to get the ball rolling; i'll throw in suggestion that we start at the top of Ron's list and maybe discuss IDEs (and maybe even rev control) - and we can save hook discussions for a later time. That being said; i don't think any of these are prerequisites to any others - so whatever is everyone's preference.

As for IDE discussions i use phpEd, swear by it. Also, use SVN for all projects as a rev control system.

Peter Lindstrom
LiquidCMS - Content Solution Experts

I agree, no plan is a bad

Posted by rjerome on April 6, 2010 at 11:59pm

I agree, no plan is a bad plan!

As for where to start... The top of the list does seem to be the logical place, since doing any serious coding without a decent development environment can be quite painful. That being said, I also know that IDE's and editors border on a religion, so likely 10 different people will have 10 different opinions on what constitutes a good environment.

Personally, I like to see what other tools can do, so it might be interesting to compare and contrast phpEd and Eclipse (commercial vs. open source). if this is of interest to others, I could handle the Eclipse side if you want to do phpEd.

Given the integrated nature of these IDE's, the first three points (IDE, RCS and debugging) really all meld together so they could probably all be covered off at the same time. And while on the topic of RCS, we should keep Git in mind given drupal.org is going to migrate to it in the not to distant future... http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/git

Ron.

we on?

Posted by liquidcms on April 12, 2010 at 4:13pm

so are we on for today?

Haven't heard otherwise so i guess we are discussing Development Environments.

Hopefully some people show up as would hate to be wasting my time... busy week.. leaving for Drupalcon on Friday.. :)

see everyone at 5:30

Peter Lindstrom
LiquidCMS - Content Solution Experts

See you all there

Posted by klamoureux on April 12, 2010 at 4:29pm

Looking forward to it.

Kit

According to the signups, we

Posted by kathc on April 12, 2010 at 6:23pm

According to the signups, we have nine people coming.

Maybe we can have the next meetup downtown?

Posted by rjeschmi on April 12, 2010 at 7:45pm

I hope to make it out to a future meet-up, but I can't really make it out that far in the time constraints I have tonight.

Meetups downtown

Posted by kathc on April 15, 2010 at 12:22am

Hi there,

If you'd like to arrange something, please just post it here. As an informal group, we just get together when more than two people want to talk about the same thing.

There tends to be at least one person who wants to show some site or tool, so a projector or large screen is good to have, as well as a quiet enough space to accommodate about 10 people (our average number of signups) able to hear each other.

Please also note closest parking, etc. Monday seems to be convenient for most of us, as long as it's not a holiday :)

Since a few of the usual attendees are going to Drupalcon, they offered to give us an overview for the next meeting.

Kathryn

Can't make it after all

Posted by z1pp3r on April 12, 2010 at 8:03pm

Sorry, I won't be able to make it this evening after all.

I was looking forward to it.