Dries Buytaert

Drupal core developer summit at DrupalCon SF

On Saturday, April 17th, before DrupalCon San Francisco, I'm helping to organize the very first Drupal core developer summit. The goal of the Drupal core developer summit is to talk about ways we can improve Drupal core, and the core development processes, all while having a good time socializing with fellow core developers.

To make it lively and fun, we'll do a series of 10 minute lightning talks. In between the lightning talks, we'll have a number of meatier discussions or breakout sessions. The lightning talks will be divided in two categories: the first 8 lightning talks will take the format: "Why X sucks and how to improve it" where X can be anything in Drupal core; the last 8 lightning talks will take the format "Wouldn't it be awesome if ...". The idea behind the lightning talks is to educate core contributors about problems that need to be fixed, to present foundations for solutions, and to bootstrap collaboration.

The event is open to all, but ... in order to attend, you must be prepared to do a 10 minute lightning talk. To secure a ticket to the Drupal core developer summit, you have to submit a 4 slide presentation by March 17th, 2010.

We expect one background slide to provide context or to talk about the history of the problem, one slide with a clear problem statement, and a couple of slides to propose a solution. You can focus on big things (i.e. How session management can be made more scalable) or smaller things (i.e. Why drupal_get_schema() is slow and how to make it faster). Everyone who submitted slides ahead of time will be invited to attend. All slides will be shared publicly, but not everyone will be invited to present as we'll only have time for 16 lightning talks. Some talks will be hand-picked because they are important or particularly intriguing, other talks will be randomly selected the day of the event.

This should be a lot of fun!

State of Drupal (September 2009)

Two weeks ago at DrupalCon Paris, I gave my traditional state of Drupal presentation. The video of the presentation is available from archive.org, and you can download a copy of my slides (PDF, 8 MB) as well.

I don't want to give away the spoiler, but essentially, the state of Drupal is strong. :) We should be really proud of what we have accomplished with Drupal 6, and what we're about to accomplish with Drupal 7. In the presentation, I also talk about what it means for Drupal to grow up, and what the next phase of our life will most likely look like.

DrupalCon Paris wrapup

I took a few days off from work to spend some time with my family -- I haven't had more than a 3 hour break in the last 4 weeks and was away from home during the weekends. DrupalCon Paris ended about 48 hours ago, so I'm sitting here with post-DrupalCon blues, staring at the waterfront, thinking about how fun and exciting the conference was. As usual, I wasn't able to attend more than a couple of sessions, but nothing beats talking to Drupal users and brainstorming together. And I talked to many Drupalistas ...

Looking back at DrupalCon Paris, it struck me that sometimes we can generate ideas faster when we work alone, and that sometimes creativity happens best in groups. The same is true for solving problems. The time leading up to the conference, the time at the conference, and the weeks after the conference provide a unique blend of individual and collective idea creation and problem solving that is so important for Drupal. Let's not underestimate that. I certainly value the retrospective that seems to be part of the post-DrupalCon blues (and the waterfront Mojitos that help fuel it).

With 850 Drupalistas attending DrupalCon Paris, I wasn't able to talk to all of you -- I feel sad about that because we have such an amazing community. To those people who I have been able to talk to and brainstorm with: thanks for inspiring me!

As always, DrupalCon is largely driven by volunteers, and many of them have a full-time job. It takes a lot to coordinate an event like this and it is not something we should take for granted. Everyone involved -- from the local volunteers to the Drupal Association to the event planning staff -- has my thanks! Great times!

© Jeff Eaton

© Jeff Eaton

State of Drupal presentation (March 2009)

Last week at DrupalCon DC I gave my traditional state of Drupal presentation in front of 1400 Drupalistas. The video of the presentation is provided below, and you can download a copy of my slides (PDF, 20 MB) as well. The video is available in alternative encoding formats from archive.org. Topics I talked about: the history of Drupal, the Drupal 7 release, the future of Drupal, etc. Have a look!

Usability work at DrupalCon DC

I recently announced that one of the ways in which Acquia is contributing to Drupal is by providing funds for Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt to help the Drupal community improve usability in Drupal 7. Mark and Leisa are beginning their work at DCDC this week!

One of the things they're hosting, with the help of Jeff Noyes, are "Blue Sky Design Workshops". The workshops are Wednesday 3-4pm and Thursday 9-10am and 11:30-12:30am. The "Blue Sky" part of the title notes that these sessions are designed to push the boundaries of usability in Drupal, to get the community together, to brainstorm about new possibilities and to dream up solutions.

Furthermore, the Drupal usability team has just completed a second round of formal usability testing at the University of Baltimore and I'm really looking forward to learn more about the results of their work.

To keep up the involvement after DCDC, or if you're following along from home, consider joining this Mark Boulton D7 UX group as well as the regular usability group on groups.drupal.org for updates. Make sure to tune in!

Usability is one of those areas where we can really break new ground with our next release. We've already done much work, but have more to do. Through activities like this, and with the feedback from some "fresh eyes" through research and user testing, I'm very hopeful and excited about where we're headed.

DrupalCon DC

Drupal has thousands of contributors. About twice a year, we stop contributing long enough to have a beer together. We call that DrupalCon. ;-)

DrupalCon DC, or DCDC for short, is this week, and I'm leaving in a few moments to attend. DCDC's official events are held March 4th through the 7th at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. There is little doubt that this will be our largest DrupalCon yet. In fact, the conference has been sold out at 1,300 ticketed attendees since early in February (before the conference program was online!). With guests and volunteers, around 1,500 in total are expected to attend.

The conference schedule is great, featuring multiple tracks of workshops, presentations, and birds-of-a-feather meetups on all the important topics in our community. Special presentations include keynotes by David Weinberger and Chris Messina and a recap of the Drupal.org redesign by Mark Boulton. My regular presentation on the "State of Drupal" is Wednesday at 10:15am.

Acquia is a DCDC platinum sponsor, and Jay Batson, Tom Erickson and I are leading a presentation on Wednesday at 1:45pm providing an overview of Acquia's Drupal support model, our vision looking forward, and the newest products and services that we're launching this week. I'd like to invite everyone to attend, ask questions, and learn more about how Acquia intends to keep participating in the community.

Of course, DCDC is largely driven by volunteers, and many of them are hard at work already. It takes a lot to coordinate a huge event like this, and everyone involved -- from the local volunteers to the Drupal Association to the event planning staff -- has my thanks!

I'm looking forward to meet you all!

State of Drupal presentation (August 2008)

Last week at DrupalCon Szeged I gave my traditional state of Drupal presentation. The video of the presentation is provided below, and you can download a copy of my slides (PDF, 11MB) as well.

The presentation discusses the results of the recent survey that I conducted; the survey ran for 30+ days and collected more than 1300 responses so it should provide a good idea of the community's current thinking. I'll provide more color and details about the survey results in a number of follow-up posts.