DrupalCon

2014: A Year of Travel

Submitted by Larry on 31 December 2014 - 1:58pm

As 2014 draws to a close, I look back at the year and realize... holy crap I traveled a lot! I hadn't actually done a fully tally yet, but here's the full rundown:

Sunshine PHP - Miami, FL - February
Drupal South - Wellington, New Zealand - February
Florida Drupal Camp - Orlando, FL - March
MidCamp - Chicago, IL - March
Museums and the Web - Baltimore, MD - April
Lonestar PHP - Dallas, TX - April
Drupal Association Webinar - Online - May
php[tek] - Chicago, IL - May
DrupalCon Austin - Austin, TX - June
Refactor::Chicago (User group) - Chicago, IL - May
Nomad PHP (User group) - Online - June
Crafting Code Tour - Minneapolis, MN; Milwaukee, WI; Cincinnati, OH - July
Design 4 Drupal - Boston, MA -July
Twin Cities Drupal Camp - Minneapolis, MN - August
Madison PHP - Madison, WI - September
DrupalCon Amsterdam - Amsterdam, The Netherlands - September
Symfony Live - New York, NY - October
Higher Ed Web - Portland, OR - October
BADCamp - San Francisco, CA - November
php[world] - Washington, DC - November

In all, I flew 64,082 miles (103,130 kilometers for the metric fans in the audience), presented 29 times, with 13 distinct presentations at 20 conferences and user groups across 3 continents, and spent 82 days on the road (not counting non-conference travel). You know what that means?

It means I created about 10 metric tonnes of carbon pollution.

On Drupal's Leadership

Submitted by Larry on 25 October 2014 - 9:20pm

My DrupalCon Amsterdam Core Conversation on Managing Complexity has generated quite a bit of follow-up discussion. That's good; it's a conversation we as a community really need to be having.

There are a few points, though, that I feel bear clarification and further explanation as I fear the point of the talk has gotten lost in the details.

Before continuing, if you haven't yet I urge you to watch the session video as well as the background resources linked from the session page. This is not a new conversation; it's the latest chapter in a very long-running discussion that is larger than the Drupal project, and it behooves us all to be aware of the history and context around it.

An open letter to conference organizers

Submitted by Larry on 19 July 2014 - 6:51pm

Let's be honest, I spend a lot of time at conferences. Over the past 2 years or so I've averaged more than one speaking engagement at a conference per month, including a half-dozen keynotes. I've also helped organize several conferences, mostly DrupalCamps and DrupalCons. I'd estimate conferences make up more than a third of my professional activity. (Incidentally, if someone can tell me how the hell that happened I'd love to hear it; I'm still confused by it.)

As a result I've gotten to see a wide variety of conference setups, plans, crazy ideas, and crazy wonderful ideas. There are many wonderful things that conference organizers do, or do differently, and of course plenty of things that they screw up.

I want to take this opportunity to share some of that experience with the organizers of various conferences together, rather than in one-off feedback forms that only one conference will see. To be clear, while I definitely think there are areas that many conferences could improve I don't want anyone to take this letter as a slam on conference organizers. These are people who put in way more time than you think, often without being paid to do so, out of a love for the community, for learning and sharing, and for you. Whatever else you may think about a conference or this list, the next time you're at a conference take a moment to find one of the organizers and give them a huge hug and/or firm handshake (as is their preference) and say thank you for all the work that they do.

The Functional PHP tour

Submitted by Larry on 13 April 2014 - 11:35pm

Ever heard of functional programming? Not procedural programming, but actual functional programming. Probably, as some fancy academic thing that no one really uses, right?

Did you know you can do it in PHP, too? It's true. In fact, I'll be speaking about it four times in the next couple of weeks!

Dropping forward

Submitted by Larry on 17 October 2013 - 10:37pm

A little over a month ago, a few Drupal developers announced something new: A fork of Drupal called Backdrop. There's been quite a bit of talk about it, of course. While I don't plan to be using it myself, Backdrop has raised a number of valid points and criticisms of Drupal that are worth discussing.

The Drupal 8 Track in Portland

Submitted by Larry on 5 May 2013 - 10:15pm

You can either get on the Drupal 8 bus now, or get run over by it later.

It's true. Drupal 8 is coming, and it will be big. Not just lines of code (that too), but big in the sense that Drupal 8 changes more of Drupal than any major release in the last 10 years. The adoption of so many 3rd party components (from Symfony and otherwise) is only part of that picture. That offers challenges for many, but also enormous opportunity. Drupal 8 will allow Drupal to expand into new types of application and new markets, which is a great thing for those who make their living off of Drupal. But where do you get started with learning about Drupal 8?

At DrupalCon Portland, that's where!

There are many sessions slated for Portland at both DrupalCon and at Symfony Live that deal with Drupal 8, either directly or indirectly. Below is my recommended hitlist for Portland for those wanting to get the lowdown on Drupal 8.

What, you're not already signed up? There's still time! Go register for either DrupalCon or Symfony Live, and be sure to get a Combo Ticket so that you are able to attend both conferences as well as Web Visions! (The combo ticket is the same price either way.)

Getting off the island in 2013

Submitted by Larry on 31 December 2012 - 12:13am

And so 2012 draws to a close. The world didn't end, to the disappointment of many. In some ways it was an eventful year, in others rather ho-hum follow-ups to the excitement of 2011.

In the Drupal world, though, 2012 will go down as the year Drupal finally began replacing NIH with PIE. Compare Drupal's 8.x branch a year ago with it today. A year ago, we had one class of 3rd party PHP code, in an uninteresting corner of the update system. Today, it contains 3rd party code from no less than five different projects: Symfony, Doctrine, Guzzle, Assetic, and Twig. Those libraries are included via Composer, the new and ground-breaking PHP-library-management-system-that-actually-finally-works. Code from at least one more should be landing soon.

Drupal developers, working on Drupal, have contributed to a number of other projects, including Symfony and Symfony CMF, and because of the degree of code sharing happening in the PHP world now have indirectly contributed to a half-dozen other major projects, too. Drupal 8, aside from the technological advances it will offer over Drupal 7, also represents perhaps the largest cultural shift in Drupal or PHP history.

Are you ready for 2013, Drupal? Really?

Top Ten Reasons To Go To DrupalCon Denver

Submitted by Larry on 24 January 2012 - 10:38am

You mean you aren't already attending what will likely be the largest web developer conference in the Western US this year? What are you waiting for? Not sure if it will be worth it? It will be. Oh, it will be...

If you still need some convincing, or if your boss still needs some convincing, here's the top ten reasons you want to be at DrupalCon Denver: