lessons

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
Walt Esquivel's picture

Internet Relay Chat: an intro to Miranda IM (Windows) and Colloquy (Mac OS X)

In addition to Skype and WebHuddle, the Drupal Dojo used Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for the first lesson on Thursday, January 4, 2007. IRC is a useful tool for Drupal developers and users to quickly resolve issues, collaborate and work on Drupal modules and themes, and, among other uses, consult with fellow Drupal consultants.

There have been many questions in the Dojo regarding how to get started with IRC, and it is presumed that the Dojo will continue relying on IRC for future lessons. Although it appears an improved screen-sharing application will be used for future Dojo lessons, having a stand-alone IRC program and knowing how to use it will be helpful in order to access the various Drupal channels should you need them in the future.

With that in mind, the following article is provided with the hope that it will be helpful and have you up and running with IRC in as little time as possible. It is a simple guide and is based on installing Miranda IM, which is designed to run on a Windows machine and will allow you to tie in IRC, Yahoo IM, AIM, MSN, Jabber, etc. For an IRC that will work with Mac OS X machines, please read this comment on Colloquy.

Please read on for more info and post your Miranda/Colloquy-related questions here if you need help. Hopefully someone will respond and be able to help you.

Read more

Lesson 2 Pre-Lesson Resource List

Note: This is a tryout of the proposed pre-lesson documentation for drupal-dojo. Please add other resources or delete those that are irrelevant.
Note: Thanks for starting this off! -josh

Writing Clean Safe Code

Contributing Back To Drupal Project: Reviewing Patches

With the 5.0 RC2 coming out any minute now, I'd love to cover this so that dojo members can contribute to getting the release out in time for Drupal's birthday on the 14th!

Read more
joshk's picture

Dojo Lesson #2 -- Coding Standards

Start: 
2007-01-12 12:00 - 14:00 Etc/GMT-8

Only local images are allowed.
The Drupal Dojo will convene again this Thursday at 8pm EST (GMT -5). We will gather in #drupal-dojo, get on a worldwide Skypecast and fire up an improved screen-sharing application to do our lesson. We will also take time to debrief the work so far, talk about what we'd like to do going forward, and answer misc questions about the group and about Drupal.

The Lesson Plan

  • Sound Check: make sure everyone can get on Skype and is in IRC
  • Debrief: talk about how we've been doing, also about moving the regular lesson time to Sunday and/or starting other times
  • Drupal Coding Standards: what they are; why they matter
  • Keeping Your Code Clean: where to put stuff; how not to kludge
  • Keeping Your Code Safe: how and why to use Drupal functions for text, links, input fields and database queries
  • Making Your Code Intelligible: the tao of commenting
  • Dojo Challenge!: review a patch for Drupal 5.0
  • Documentation: lets keep the great documentation coming!

Feel free to comment on this post with feedback. I'm especially interested in collecting links to documentation folks may want to read ahead of time, and/or we should look at improving as a result of this lesson.

See you in the Dojo!

Read more
joshk's picture

Josh's Weekly Dojo Time?

Keep it the same: Thursday at 8pm EST (GMT -5)
0% (0 votes)
Move earlier in day (e.g. not after midnight for EU, during working hours for N. America west coast)
0% (0 votes)
Move to weekend *and* earlier in day
0% (0 votes)
Later
0% (0 votes)
Total votes: 0
joshk's picture

Great Success!

Well, I consider our first lesson event to be a total success. Victorkane has done an incredible transcript (below) complete with code, and after watching the screen capture of the session, I feel really good about how much we covered and what kind of potential there is for the future here.

My immediate thoughts are on what we should do for the next lesson. I really do want to regularize the timing, so should we change it? After Thursday's success I am willing to take time out of work or weekend to see this group go forward. I'll put up a poll.

Also, we had some good talk in the IRC channel about even better screen-sharing for the event, and next time we'll know to tell people that skype is required. I will also be better able to prepare with one lesson under my belt.

I'm excited!

Use the comments here to throw out ideas for the next lesson in terms of content and procedure. I'll start a separate poll and thread for picking a time.

Read more

Lesson #1 Class Notes wiki -- Drupal Basics, FormAPI and CCK

Request to the Author!!
Please describe system requirements for this lesson.
What versions of PHP and Drupal are needed to accomplish given task?
I tryed it on Drupal 6.16.
form output does not work!

Complete Class Notes of First Lesson: read on, but also, type on, and execute on, till the end!

[Note: all code examples tested and run as advertised on my own test installation. Everyone should do exactly the same, so we are all on the same page, and can at some point even feel right at home doing patch reviews!!!]

An hour and a half screencap of the 1st lesson is also available (warning 90mb download). NOTE: link currently offline - will update this page when I find a good copy. Full transcript below the jump.

Read more
Tresler's picture

Feedback from the First Lesson

So, we just had the first lesson and it was a truly formidable event. A lot of people had their eyes opened to some neat new things (I know I did) and some people couldn't get the webhuddle running.

What went right?

What went wrong?

What do we need to do to follow up on the first lesson?

The IRC is rollicking with hundreds of good ideas. Put them here so we can aggregate them and build from them.

Read more

First Lesson Plan

This is a draft, but feel free to edit it if you like.

The first Drupal Dojo lesson is on January 4th 2007 at 8pm EST (GMT -5) and is planned to run two hours maximum. The lesson will take place in the IRC channel, with a skype-based audio component, as well as on a screen-sharing application called WebHuddle. For those who cannot attend the "live" session, this plan page will grow to be a documentation piece.

IRC will be the primary channel for Q&A and is the only "requirement." Skypecast is recommended as introduction of concepts will be done there in the interests of time. Webhuddle is for peeking at the moderators screen, and recording for later usage.

Read more
joshk's picture

Dojo Lesson #1 -- FormAPI and CCK

Start: 
2007-01-05 12:00 - 14:00 Etc/GMT-8

kung-fu droop by SquidsterAfter some discussion in IRC, it seems that there's definitely interest in having "lessons" here at the Dojo. Ideas range from HOWTO on specific features and topics to having creators of interesting sites lead the group in an under-the-hood tour. Really, the sky is the limit.

It is my intention to try and make lesson-time be a recurring weekly feature. To that end I will run the first few. Hopefully within a couple weeks we will have a format that works and other experts can step in/step up.

For our first lesson, we will try to cover the basics (ala Angie's lesson plan): drupal terminology and what it means, the basic module hooks, good coding style and best practices.

Since this is of high value to all dojo members -- and it's a lesson that could/should be repeated many times as new developers join -- we're also going to try and create good documentation out of this. A primer for new Drupal coders, so to speak.

(image credit: Squidster)

Read more
Subscribe with RSS Syndicate content