Drupal learning curve
My take on Drupal's learning curve. Inspired by Creating Passionate Users.
Dries Buytaert
Dries is the founder and project lead of Drupal and co-founder of Acquia and Mollom.
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© 1999-2009 Dries Buytaert Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Drupal is a Registered Trademark of Dries Buytaert.
Drupal is a Registered Trademark of Dries Buytaert.
Good view on Drupal Knowledge. Let's hope that today's free training can at least push some Dutch speaking users above the "I suck" threshold.
March 10, 2007 - 13:00It's a nice overview, but I'd like to point out that I started with FAPI early and still can't do locale and internationalization.
March 10, 2007 - 14:18The order is obviously not absolute -- the learning curve varies from person to person based on background and goals. It's an attempt to generalize the Drupal learning curve. Good to see it matches more or less with yours.
March 10, 2007 - 14:45I see one important mistake in your graph: "Contributing documentation and support" is above the "I rule" threshold.
Ideally, this starts immediately after the very first "Installation and Configuration" stage. Why? Because you're still a newbie! This is the very best time to help in these areas!
a) You haven't passed the "I get it now!" threshold, so you know what bits of the documentation are confusing, and how they could be reworded to be more clear.
b) You can also write new documentation to fill in gaps which help your own and other newbies' understanding.
c) You still speak the language of other newbies, and can help them get past hurdles you've had to overcome in the forums, in IRC, etc.
d) It's the fastest way jump-start your path to becoming a Drupal ninja: by explaining things to other people, you help cement the knowledge in your head.
My start to Drupal was a bit different than other peoples'... because I was a Summer of Code student, I had to zoom up well into the "kick ass" threshold ("contribting code, designs, and patches to Drupal") within an extremely short period of time. Hands-down, the thing that helped me the most with this was participating in the documentation team and helping with user support.
March 10, 2007 - 18:25Webchick: I see one important mistake in your graph: "Contributing documentation and support" is above the "I rule" threshold.
I'd say it is in the right place on the graph, but the wrong place in reality. In other words it would be great if newbies got stuck in straight away, but it is nowhere near inviting and intuitive enough to make that happen. There is a learning curve to contributing to documentation which has to be cut to near zero.
I have a couple of ideas on how to improve this; but I just need to figure out how to contribute those ideas!
March 10, 2007 - 21:13Nice graph, though I might argue with where some of the titles land. I was using workflows and actions, using CCK and learning to use the Drupal APIs as I was exiting the 'I suck' category. I am hoping to keep up in the 'good' category and look forward to seeing some true Drupalers at the OSCMS summit at Yahoo (finally something in my neck of the woods). As a full time Drupaler, I definitely need work. Thanks for all the work.
March 11, 2007 - 07:30Interesting graph... it's a nice way to analyze one's progress as we immerse ourselves with Drupal. Right now I am between the "I suck" stage and the "I kick ass" stage. Once I learn how to modify theme template's I'm gonna kick ass. ;)
March 11, 2007 - 11:02I've translated the learning curve to spanish. I hope you like it:
Curva de aprendizaje de Drupal
Thx for Drupal!
March 28, 2007 - 16:14Nice graph, I guess it's official - I kick ass! :)
May 6, 2007 - 22:45Ah. I was rather hoping it might flatten off a bit more towards the right.... Can we prioritize working on the learning curve for Drupal 7? ;)
August 2, 2007 - 16:34It is worth noting that based on the orientation of these axes, a "Steeper" curve would actually be better. It means you learn more (vertical) in less time (horizontal).
as other's have pointed out, the "learning" labels could be re-arranged. I would suggest perhaps a "coder" centric learning curve, and an "application integrator" curve.
On the latter things like CCK, Views, Panels would fall between "i Suck" and "i Kick ass".
October 25, 2007 - 04:22I would like to translate that nice chart to German. Am I allowed to? And what please is "chx" and "unConeD" ?
September 26, 2007 - 17:10Thanks!
Rainer,
you missed it - or better him. Once you join a DrupalCon you will get to know him. He is probably coding all day long and knows everything about Drupal. I only just met him myself. Have a look at his profile at drupal.org if you like. Awesome.
I do not know UnConeD though.
September 28, 2007 - 23:13I created a learning guide for beginners aiming to help my students in learning drupal for their final Project. Comments and suggestions are welcome:
November 5, 2007 - 17:50http://groups.google.com/group/pfc-drupal/web/gua-de-autoformacin-drupal...
@ Toni Canabate - I was pretty excited to see that beginners guide (because I desperately need a good one!), but it looks like it's all in a different language? I know this post is older, but if anyone knows of a good guide I can follow, I would sure appreciate it!
Cheers,
Linux Techology
June 7, 2008 - 14:38@ webchick: I'm still afraid of posting anything to the docs, I'd rather post it on the forums where ppl won't shoot me for spelling "you" as "u"
but nowadays it seems like even the ppl on irc go all anal about chat language :<
October 7, 2008 - 11:43Almost a mirror image of my personal development in Drupal-land.
I was lucky that I had (and still have) a tutor at the workplace to help guide me.
Understanding that this is a general graph, I'm finding the largest gap of time is getting passed the theme and module development stage.
This is a great checklist to becoming a well-rounded Drupaler!
October 27, 2008 - 21:40This is very interesting.. I think I am caught in a redirect loop... Going from I just have no clue, to I Suck, to I Kick Ass, and then back to I Don't have a clue. Is it just me? lol
March 11, 2009 - 19:36I suck. I'm starting to kick ass. I'm kicking ass.
Image galleries, cool. Problems, patience... patience. Aha! Wait, no images. I suck. I try this and that. More stuff gets screwed up. I fix some of it.
Do what with Apache Rewrite_mod?! Study my ass off. Get nowhere. I suck. I hate Drupal.
March 14, 2009 - 02:14I struggled with learning Drupal on my own until I found the Drupal 6 tutorial on Lynda.com. The tutorial takes you through a building a very zen-like Drupal site. By "zen-like" I mean its a site that very much flows with the whole nature of the way Drupal is structured. It was through this tutorial that I started to really "get" Drupal.
I think the major problem with people who come to Drupal is that they think building a CMS is just like building website. Not so!
I think if there was something akin to the Lynda course out there, something free that is handed to people with the installation software, it would help people understand the instrinsic logic and nature of Drupal and learning it would be less fustrating.
April 16, 2009 - 13:56Your ladder is very accurate. I'm just getting there ... at i18n and a few others. Reading through the translation docs was a real eye opener for me.
July 9, 2009 - 18:39I was worried that I still suck. While I don't kick ass yet, I'm glad to see that I no longer suck ass. Very uplifting for me.
September 24, 2009 - 01:14I was pretty sure I sucked at this, but apparently I kick ass without being aware of it.
October 7, 2009 - 01:36Post new comment