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Two very different European Drupal events in one week

Published June 18, 2024
I was fortunate enough to attend two very different European Drupal events recently, and wanted to take a few minutes to share my experience as well as thank the organizers for their dedication to the Drupal community. The events couldn't have been more different - one being a first-time event in a town I've never heard of and the other celebrating their 20th anniversary in a city that can be considered the crossroads of the Netherlands. DrupalCamp Cemaes First off - it is pronounced KEM-ice (I didn't learn this until I actually arrived). Cemaes is a small village at the

Ruminations on Drupal Starshot

Published May 23, 2024
a second official version of Drupal - Dries Buytaert, in his blog post announcing Drupal Starshot If you're a Drupal developer of any caliber and pay any attention to the goings-on in the Drupal community, then you no doubt have heard about Starshot , recently announced by Dries Buytaert at DrupalCon Portland 2024. In this post, I'll do my best to not repeat everything that was announced, but rather to summarize, ask a question or two and offer an opinion or two… The basics Starshot will be a new download available on drupal.org that includes contributed modules and configuration to

Drupal needs new, young developers

Published May 21, 2024
Image used with permission from Michael Richardson from Ironstar.io . I took a lot away from DrupalCon Portland 2024, and while one of my lasting memories from the main keynote (the Driesnote) will be the introduction of Starshot , something that has occupied a good amount of space in my brain is what happened just prior to Dries’ Starshot announcement. At the start of his presentation ( the 21:15 mark of this video ,) Dries asks everyone with at least one year of Drupal experience to stand up. He then asked everyone with less than three years of experience with

Mentoring a team of new contributors at DrupalCon Lille 2023

Published October 25, 2023
One of the signature events of every Drupalcon (IMHO) is contribution day, when community members from around the world gather to work together in the same physical space to advance various aspects of the project - from strategic and community initiatives to contributed modules and themes as well as non-code contributions like Promote Drupal and, of course, core contributions. As part of this, space is always set aside for new contributors, with community volunteers helping to organize, train, and mentor community members new to project contribution. This space strives to be a welcoming environment to those of all skills and

Introducing the Markdown Easy Drupal module

Published September 2, 2023

Markdown is a text processing library that takes readable text and converts it into HTML. Started over 20 years ago, it is now a widely-used library that makes it easy for people to write text documents that can be easily and predictably converted into HTML. Quick example - the Markdown syntax "this is **important**" converts to "this is important " after passing through a Markdown converter. There are many "flavors" of Markdown today - most include the basic syntax and many include their version of "extended Markdown". Examples include Github-flavored Markdown and CommonMark. Predictably, there have been Markdown-related Drupal contrib

Come to the Lite 💡… of Professional Module Development!

Published August 8, 2023
If you’ve been on vacation or heads-down on summer projects and have been meaning to ramp up your module development skills, there is still time to register for the Lite version of the Summer 2023 session of Professional Module Development , DrupalEasy's newest long-form, best-practice focused, professional Drupal development course. James Shields , who completed the Winter session earlier this year describes the PMD as “A fantastic course covering some really advanced stuff. If you understand the principles of Drupal, but want to move forward to deal with advanced development topics, this is a good place to start.” The deadline

Cindy Garcia; Discovered Drupal, hooked a new career

Published July 21, 2023
It’s been an interesting path to finding professional and personal fulfillment for the decidedly bold and curious Cindy Garcia . She graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering from Florida International University in 2012, landed a job as a Quality Assurance Engineer in the medical device industry shortly thereafter, and then realized she was more interested in, and really well suited for IT; specifically web development. This time of transition was not just one of wrestling with her professional journey, as she was also starting to pivot her athletic interests, explaining, “I started participating in an adult wrestling class because

Smart Trim module - past, present, and future

Published July 18, 2023
The Drupal Smart Trim module is used by more than 65,000 sites, including over ⅔ on modern Drupal (8+) sites. It has proven to be a valuable tool to improve Drupal's core functionality to trim long text fields in an intelligent manner. Late in 2022, we released a major update ( 2.0.0 ) to the module. Among other improvements, we delivered Drupal 10 compatibility and much improved automated tests. Since then, a 2.1.0 release (completed during the DrupalCon Pittsburgh community contribution day) has brought even more automated tests and functionality. During DrupalCon Pittsburgh, Mark Casias ( markie ) and I

Jacqui Young: Came for the community, stayed for the code

Published July 7, 2023
After 20 years of swinging a gavel as a licensed auctioneer, Jacqui Young bravely picked up her laptop and filled out the application for Drupal Career Online so she could transform her lifestyle and pursue a passion. This began her official bid to become a full-on contributing member of the Drupal Community, which she had become acquainted with, and intrigued by, for several years as she accompanied her partner to Drupal events. Tagging along to various Camps and Cons, Jacqui became drawn to the mobile lifestyle that a career in web development has to offer. She also felt connected to

Curious about DrupalEasy’s Professional Module Development Course? We’ve got a free webinar for that!

Published July 5, 2023
Join us at 10:00 am ET on July 14, 2023 for a Closer Look at Professional Module Development , a new no-cost mini-webinar that provides an overview of what the two versions of our Professional Module Development course covers and insight into all of the benefits and resources that come with it. The Full version of the Summer 2023 session begins August 8, with the Lite version starting August 22nd. The 30-minute Closer Look webinar includes a curriculum overview, including the topics and modules that you will build during both the 90-hour full version and the 60-hour Lite version of

DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023 Superlatives

Published June 13, 2023
Unless you've been living underneath a Druplicon-shaped rock, you're probably aware that DrupalPalooza Pittsburgh took place June 5-8. If so, I'm guessing that your Drupal newsfeed is full of wrap-up articles and summaries that may feel a bit redundant (I know that mine is and that they do). It is in the spirit of hopefully spicing up your Drupal news consumption that this will not be one of those blog posts. Rather, in my somewhat still high-school-aged mind, I'm rolling back the clock to present the DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023 Superlatives 🎉 Best session (that I attended) : Drupal Distributions &

Perfecting the Art of Drupal Talent Development

Published March 28, 2023
Drupal Career Online Palantir.net Fellowships enrich their corporate character When George DeMet and Tiffany Farriss brought Palantir.net into being in 1996, they sought to create an organization that strives for excellence not only in client services, but also in a collaborative, creative environment in which its staff brings out the best in each other. They also believe that the more diverse that staff, the better their corporate culture can achieve excellence on all fronts. When you chat with George, Tiffany, or really any Palantiri, you realize these guidelines are not just words in a value statement; collaboration and creativity truly

Keeping up with DrupalEasy

Published January 4, 2023
With all the new stuff we have in 2023 , now is a great time to ensure that you're keeping up with DrupalEasy in the way(s) that suit you the most. Whether you are active on social media, listen to podcasts, or just want to keep up via email, we've got what you need to ensure you never miss out on upcoming DrupalEasy classes and consulting offerings. Keeping up with DrupalEasy can also be financially beneficial, as we sometimes offer discount codes to our courses exclusively to those that follow us in a particular medium. Social media No matter where

Launching into 2023 with new stuff!

Published December 30, 2022
If you've visited DrupalEasy.com anytime in the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed that we've got a refreshed logo, a revitalized podcast , and a remarkable new long-form module development course ! First, we decided that it was time for an updated logo - something we haven't had since the start of our company. The updated logo incorporates the new "tilted drop" design element referring to both our Drupal roots and a capital letter "D" for DrupalEasy, of course! We retained the lime green color that we've grown accustomed to, and will be using this new design element

ChatGPT explains why you should learn more Drupal

Published December 29, 2022
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence based chat system developed by the same folks behind DALL-E , one of the recent AI based image generation services. We decided to play around with ChatGPT's capabilities by asking it about learning Drupal, considering our upcoming Drupal Career Online and Professional Module Development long-form courses that we have starting in late January and early February. Below are ChatGPT's (amazingly) unedited responses. Prompt: Tell me why learning to be a professional Drupal developer is a good thing. There are several reasons why learning to be a professional Drupal developer can be a good thing: Demand