Developer Karma

A Modest Drupal Proposal

Andrew M Riley — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:39:34 +0000

I am often presented with visions of poor and haggard open source enthusiasts walking the streets in disarray and varying degrees of sanity. These programmers, artists and content managers could be working for upstanding corporations earning an honest dollar, instead they sit around working on projects with no monetary value. It's bad enough that we have hordes of these people already but sadly they are training a new generation of open source zealots to tread in their meaningless empty footsteps.

It is commonly agreed upon that the only software worth producing is "enterprise" that is controlled by a single corporation. The unguided masses swear that a large distributed developer base is an alternative and possibly better solution to proprietary software. Why have thousands of people from various backgrounds work towards one goal when you can't fire them? How can you trust the aim of an unguided group that isn't driven by fear or money?

It is with this proposal that I suggest a solution to these problems. We need a comprehensive plan that will segment off the existing community along with those they wish to teach. I propose we create a meeting intended to draw in the masses with promises of openness, education and networking. Once these misguided souls are all corralled into one location we'll leave them there for a weekend. A weekend together in their own chaos and squalor will surely show them the errors of their good natured ways as well as scare away potential followers.

This solution is not immaterial, it has a name, a time and a place. It is called Florida DrupalCamp and it will be hosted at MindComet on Feb 20th and 21st. If you know someone who needs to understand the dark and dangerous path they are heading down, please send them. This is a problem we all need to help fix. For more information: http://2010.fldrupalcamp.org

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Just in case you took me seriously, this entire post is satire/sarcasm and based off of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in an effort to get people to pay attention to the FL Drupal Camp.

This is the second Florida DrupalCamp and it is shaping up to be bigger and better than the prior years. This year we'll feature three separate tracks of learning, have speakers from all over country and did I mention it's catered?

In addition to us doing our standard *camp activities we'll be hosing a special second day that isn't in camp format. Instead of covering topics we'll be building a website in one day for a Florida based nonprofit. While we're building the site we'll be pairing up Drupal experts with people who are new to Drupal in an effort to help a charity as well as teach the next generation of Drupal Experts. To find out more about Coding for a Cause please visit http://2010.fldrupalcamp.org/coding-cause-application

Drupal API should not require hook_facepalm

Andrew M Riley — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:11:27 +0000

How many times have you been coding something and it doesn't work even though you've used an api/function call hundreds of times before? I ran into this the other day with node_load(). For those of you use the node_load function, can you tell me how many arguments it has and what those arguments do (without looking at api.drupal.org? I know, some gurus can, but can the average module developer do it?)

In this instance, I created a module that was updating data from a MSSQL install on existing nodes. After I did my node save I needed to do a node_load of the node I created/modified (some steps happened in between with other modules), modify some of the data and then save it again. The only problem is, when I did my second node_save() my first save's data was wiped out. After turning on debugging I found that my first (SQL) update worked properly but my second update was using data from before my first update. How could that be, I did a second node_load (they were in different functions)? It turns out that node_load was using a cached version of the node.

I'm not dogging the internals of node_load, it's a fine function and if I was a sailor on leave at a bar, I would ask it to dance. In fact, I've had to employ it's caching abilities quite often so don't take this as some type of Drupal sucks post, I hate the core developers or cheesy link bait.

What I was doing isn't really the point of this post nor is how node_load works. It's the argument order and the default argument that I'm against. Yes, I'm writing a ~200 word post about three arguments in one function. I don't like the fact that the third argument, "reset" is defaulted. There, I've said it. The entire problem I had (yes, it was my fault) would have been much easier to debug if the argument did not have a default value. This way, when I called node_load(123) I would have received a PHP error stating that I was missing an argument for the function. Think about it, if there is no default, you would have to put true or false there (in this case, it would have forced me to read the documents).

I am aware that having an API use sane defaults is SOP and this issue affects a fraction of a fraction of developers but I believe it's a bad practice that encourages programmers to not pay attention (I know, I know, I rush, I'm the king of this. On the other hand don't most developers have some type of impending deadline?)

So what's the point of this rambling tirade? In the small scope I want the order of node_load to be changed and one of the defaults to be removed (Drupal 8 perhaps). For the big scope I would like to hear from the community about other functions that have defaults that might hide bugs. I'm not just doing this because I'm too stupid to read the docs, I would like to move forward for D8 in reviewing the API for these types of gotchas that can seriously lower the frustration level of non-Drupal-guru developers. Please let me know your thoughts.

I need your help

Andrew M Riley — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:14:06 +0000

Have you ever wanted to give money or services to a charity but you just didn't have the time or the cash to be able to do that? Well, now you and I have no excuses since CommuniCause has now launched and all you have to do is either enter the information on the website or tweet a special hashtag.

CommuniCause is "a campaign that gives America the opportunity to vote online for their favorite 501c3 non profit to win a $25,000 social media makeover" which I think is a great idea since most charities I know are struggling just to keep things going and barely have any type of web presence. By winning this type of contest it allows a charity to get into an arena they possibly never would have been able to enter and really get their name and message out there.

I need your suggestions of charities since I don't know which charity I should nominate/vote for (I hardly know of any charities). Could you, my readers suggest charities in the comments as well as vote on CommuniCause? Once I choose the charity, I'll add the CommuniCause banner to this site so everybody can see it.

My loose criteria for a charity:

It should help children
I would prefer it to be non-religious
It shouldn't be superfluous
In the state of Florida would be nice but not required

"Isn't your blog post just a contest for a contest?" No, I just need help in finding charities out there, I'll admit it, I only know a few charities and I need to expand my horizons. I highly encourage you to go to the actual CommuniCause website and vote for your charity but I also want you to come back here and educate me about the charities.

Disclaimer: I am a MindComet employee (MindComet is the company that is donating the $25,000 of Social Media services) and I'll probably be posting more than one post about CommuniCause over the next few months.

New Drupal Easy Podcast

Andrew M Riley — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:03:33 +0000

Just wanted to let you know that there's a new DrupalEasy podcast (#3) now out there. If you haven't listened to our podcast I'd highly recommend that you do if you do any work at all with Drupal (or if you're interested in working with Drupal). We cover, Drupalcon, SXSW, Setting up a Drupal Theme with Artisteer, the 2009 Google Summer of Code and of course, our module picks of the week!

Check it out, it's free and no animals were hurt in the recording of this podcast.

On my way to Drupalcon DC (2009)

Andrew M Riley — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:44:20 +0000

I'll be leaving for a few days to attend this years US Drupalcon with both the Mindcomet crew and DrupalEasy crew!

If you happen to see me and you follow my blog, twitter or podcast say "hi" (I'll be the guy wearing some type of funny hat with glasses and a soul patch).

Lessons learned from hosting a DrupalCamp

Andrew M Riley — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:25:54 +0000

So you want to create a DrupalCamp by where you live eh? Great, running a camp isn't actually as hard or crazy as you might think. Here are my lessons learned from my experience in co-running the first Florida Drupal Camp for the Florida Drupal Group (I get a nickel every time I mention Florida or Drupal).These lessons are what I took away but please remember to read the Drupal Camp Organization Guide since it has tons of helpful information.

Chicken and the Egg - It's hard to get sponsors without a location/date chosen. It's hard to get a location without sponsors.
Properly label your tracks and make it painfully obvious
Sound systems can be very helpful if you sit down to do a demo
Doing live demos are much more stressful then just presenting
What can go wrong in a tech demo, will
Twittercamp or a similar program is really fun to have projected on a wall
You can plan for everything but something will always slip by, have backup people to run and get things or fix it.
Cheap chairs aren't fun to sit in for hours on end. Slightly more expensive chairs don't really make it easier.
Breaks between sessions are good, make people get up and walk around.
Don't overextend yourself. Choose one thing to do and let others do the stuff.
Being a presenter and janitor at the same time makes for some interesting conflicts (literally having the bathroom run out of toilet paper while I was presenting)
Having a camp/conference that appeals to everybody is close to impossible, pick your target and go for it.

Overall, working on the first Florida Drupal Camp was a blast and believe it or not I will do it again... next year. It is a lot of hard work but well worth it in the long run both for you and the community. I can't stress how important community is to Drupal, even if you can't code, design or do other technical things, you can always start up a local Drupal group or help somebody out with Drupal or other open source software. The point of all my ramblings, go out there, do something and make a difference even if its little, it's worth it.

First DrupalEasy Podcast

Andrew M Riley — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:54:10 +0000

I'm proud to announce that the first DrupalEasy podcast has been released.

Mike, Ryan and myself end up talking about the Drupal Association election, Drupalcon Europe 2009, Drupal + Mobile, Plug in Manager and Fields in core among other things. I think it's worth a listen even if you aren't a hardcore Drupal person since we try to keep the content at a mid-level but I'm obviously biased.

You can subscribe to it in iTunes (search for DrupalEasy) or you can download it from the DrupalEasy website.

Also, if your going to be at DrupalCon DC and you develop Drupal or Drupal modules and you want to be interviewed for the podcast please contact me so I can setup a time.

Orlando Florida Drupal Camp - Feb 7th 2009

Andrew M Riley — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:22:48 +0000

Florida Drupal Users Group is happy to invite you and your Drupal interested friends to the first Florida Drupal Camp on Saturday February 7th from 9AM to 5PM yes a full day of Drupal love. What could be better than enjoying a day of Drupal in sunny Florida in the winter time?

This event is open to everybody from novices all the way up to experts. Even if you've never heard of Drupal, you're welcome to come.

For more information please visit the g.d.o. post http://groups.drupal.org/node/18169

Why I use Acquia for my professional Drupal sites

Andrew M Riley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:00:12 +0000

Why would you as professional web developer ever want to make it easier for your clients to leave you? Some of you might have thought of this when Acquia announced their Drupal service lineup and it might be somewhat true but that's not the entire story.

As a professional web developer I make money off of creating websites, upgrading existing websites and yes, sometimes fixing my mistakes as well as others. Why would I ever want to make it easier for clients to leave me, costing me money in lost updates/fixes? In truth, I don't want to lose clients, nobody does.

I would wager to say that nobody is going to lose a client just because Acquia now supports all Drupal modules. Yep, I said it. Acquia might be the new foreign exchange student that draws all of the chicks in the lunch room but lets face it, if you are delivering a good service and you have a good relationship with your client, they won't be running to Acquia. They will stick with their tried and true hero. Now don't go too far with this analogy, I'm not saying you should ignore Acquia's services all together. In fact, you should be using Acqua's services to enhance your own offerings (those of you who thought threesome, get your mind out of the gutter).

I now propose using the Acquia Drupal distribution with or without the service offerings from Acquia to all of my clients in order to provide them options and assurances. By giving the client options I'm saying to the client "I'll create the website for you with all of my expertise and at the end of the project, you can stay with me or if for some reason that doesn't work for you, there is a large corporation that has your back". The assurances that there is a large corporation of Drupal experts that are only a phone call away is a huge benefit for most of my clients (even if they don't use it) regardless if they stay with me or leave. Most of my clients see Acquia as an isurance plan, if there's a problem and the generalist (me) can't solve it, they can go directly to the experts.

I now also use Acquia as an exit strategy for troublesome clients. In the past, if I chose not to continue the relationship after developing their site, I pretty much left them high and dry by saying I would do no more work for them. Now with Acquia, I just refer the client and let them know that I won't be working with them any longer. While the end result for is the same for me I generally feel much better of at least giving the client an option.

Did you notice that none of the reasons I listed involved my clients running off to Acquia to create their Drupal site leaving you in the lunchroom crying? I know, I know, I went back to the metaphor. That's because it's not Acquia's focus, they are there to support Drupal, it's clients and it's developers.

In summary, treat your clients right and build a good relationship with them while using Acquia to supplement your own offerings and both of you (the developer and the client) will be much better off. Best of all you can now tell the annoying Microsoft IT guy at your client that Drupal does have "Enterprise" support.

More site launches!

Andrew M Riley — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:54:10 +0000

Congratulations to the Mindcomet team for launching two great new sites, Loch Haven a Florida Hospital site and Healthy Tuna, a site about education and cooking all things tuna (Healthy Tuna is a sister site of About Seafood).
Both of the launched sites were created in Drupal 5 and feature custom modules, new custom themes and flash/views/XML integration. Both sites also use integrated user databases shared between multiple sites to allow for single-sign on (SSO).