Sun BoF workshop room

Any business or consultant using Casetracker. We will compare notes, discuss use-cases and helper modules.

This was rescheduled.

Overview

Semantic web is a popular buzzword in Web industry today. Some even call it Web 3.0. There are a number of different ways to extract meaning from content. Some of them will be discussed with a more detailed case study of Zemanta, a tool for automatic suggestions for content while it's being created.

Agenda

* Short overview of semantic web
* Tools and API's
* Zemanta, UI decisions and things to think about

Goals

The goal of this session is to learn a few things about current state of startups in this field and to see how one of them did integration into Drupal.

Resources

* Freebase Parallax - http://mqlx.com/~david/parallax/
* Zemanta Drupal module - http://drupal.org/project/zemanta

Overview
In this roundtable format we'll discuss the unique challenges of penetrating the enterprise IT market for CMS. An architectural approach is essential to overcoming these challenges. We'll discuss our experiences in delivering solutions in large enterprises and try to identify a handful of architectural best practices for positioning Drupal as the right choice.

Agenda

Technology adoption patterns within large enterprises are complex and often focus on risk mitigation over value creation and agility. Breaking out of this trap and presenting Drupal as ready for the enterprise requires some knowledge of Enterprise Architecture. We'll discuss experiences using different techniques such as

* Requirement Analysis
* Decomposition
* Modeling
* View point hopping
* Benchmarking
* Running Proof-of-Concepts

As a jumping off point, we'll reference certain tools and studies sponsored by Sun Microsystems for benchmarking and designing Drupal architectures.

Goals

Attendees will meet others interested in enterprise adoption of Drupal, and can build the community focused on this market. Ideally, a set of best practice architectural approaches to positioning Drupal in the enterprise will come out of this session.

Overview

A survey of open source tools for improving efficiency of Drupal coding, deployment, testing, and system resource utilization.

Agenda

In this session, we'll walk through some typical uses of:
* NetBeans PHP and Drupal plugins
* Deployment to cloud computing service (Network.com)
* DTrace PHP and MySQL probes
* OpenSolaris Zones, ZFS, and integrated AMP stack

Goals

Attendees will get a good intro to the open source technologies coming out of Sun that are most relevant to Drupal.

Overview

Storage and retrieval of RDF data represent significant departures from traditional relational database semantics. While many APIs exist for storing RDF data in a relational database, they tend to be slow, lacking in data integrity enforcement, or difficult to query.

In this session, we'll consider options for a scalable, easily queryable Drupal RDF system.

I'll bring some of my own ideas, but everyone's invited to bring their own, as well as RDF use cases to consider.

Overview
This talk gives an introduction to Bazaar (bzr) - the distributed source code revision control system developed by Canonical Inc.

Agenda
In this session, Lenz will provide an overview about the general concepts of distributed source code revision control and how Bazaar (bzr) fits into this picture. The bzr terminology and most useful commands will be explained as well as examples on topics like:

• Creating a repository
• Adding files
• Editing files and commiting changes
• Branching
• Plugins and extensions, Interoperability with other SCM systems

Goals
Attendees will have a better understanding on how distributed revision control works in principle and how it can be utilized with Bazaar. The basic commands needed to get going will be covered, so users can get familiar with the concept by themselves.

Resources
Some basic understanding of source code revision control systems (e.g. CVS, Subversion) is probably required to make the most out of this session and to understand why Bazaar (or any other distributed revision control system) is superior to these.

Overview

Coding standards matter. Why? Because they free the mind to get to the more interesting bits of programming. Programming is more than just problem solving, and it is best when you can contribute patches and modules which provide the most elegant solution. With help from the audience, we can share our experiences of successes, rabbit holes, and hitting brick walls (and how to get past them too). This talk is aimed at programmers of all levels of experience.

Agenda

* Creative: it's not just for graphic and UX designers
* Code Quality: standards, coder, devel, api.drupal.org, code examples
* Creativity Killers: deadlines and budgets
* Rabbit Holes and Brick Walls
* Resources to Help You Stay on Track
* Further Reading and Recommendations

Goals

After participating in this talk, people will walk away with inspiration to write high quality code. In addition, more experienced programmers may take heart when seeing a beginner show their first contributions.

Resources

Recommended reading:
* coding standards - http://drupal.org/coding-standards
* http://api.drupal.org

Modules:
* devel
* coder

Overview

"How do you keep your priorities straight when there's so much to learn and so much work to be done?"

A story is being told by the Drupal community, and you're a part of it whether you know it or not. As a Drupal user, developer, or advocate, you are learning what Drupal is all about and how the community around it operates. You're understanding the community goals and desires. You're figuring out where you fit into the big picture and trying to be productive, earn a living, and have fun doing it.

But wait... didn't you have a life before coming to Drupal or diving into a fast-paced, time intensive industry? What happened to all those hours you used to have, or have you not seen them in so long you don't remember what you'd do if you had them again? What is your story and how does it mix and mingle with the community's? How do you want it to?

This session will be devoted to briefly covering the idea of metanarratives (or worldviews), thinking about our own, and thinking about the way ours mix with the "community" (as ambiguous as that is). Being convinced of your own values, beliefs, and distinctives is the first step toward not losing them along the way as you engage with the exciting, global Drupal world.

Or maybe... you don't consider that a bad thing at all. : )

The BoF will be an informal discussion moderated but not dominated by me. I'm interested in folks who know more about the topic showing up and pitching in, and I'm interested in helping people maintain their pursuit of who they want to be apart from and engaged with their work environment and the global Drupal community.

Should the BoF not materialize (since there's so much other cool stuff going on), I'd be more than happy to broach the topic over dinner or drinks on the town.

Agenda

* Define metanarrative/worldview with examples.
* What is yours?
* What would you say is "Drupal's"?
* Gauging your engagement with the Drupal story.
* Understanding how to communicate with others who are more or less engaged than you.

Goals

The goal is to have a little bit of fun thinking thinking outside the code. Attendees should be willing to take part in the discussion or at least not get bored listening to others talk. The goal is not to confront the way people are engaging with the Drupal story, but to spend some time focusing on the unconscious decisions we make that have very real, long term effects on the things we do and accomplish.

(Disclaimer: I do approach the topic from a Christian theistic worldview, but this BoF is not purely interested in religious practice so much as it is actions, priorities, and values. Obviously, for many people like myself, this includes faith, but the discussion will be moderated in such a way that attendees should not expect a religious defense, debate, or Bible study.)

Fleshing out the plans is here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/12972

Looking for co-hosts!

example:
- do a card sort on the admin categories
- discuss the different 'dashboard' approaches people already use
- choose 2 options we want to compare / test

another example:
- let's pick a nice chunk of core interface text: labels, descriptions, help
- rework them for clarity, consistency and brevity.

BoF Usability Sprint Day 2

build prototypes: on paper, in photoshop and/or code
or: further work on interface copy, start documenting the copywriting guidelines we find.

BoF Usability Sprint Day 3

Test conceptcode with the Usability Testing Suite
Or work on concept some more, take it to the Code Sprint.
or: create patch for interface copy and start the guidelines handbook page on drupal.org

Overview

The navigation menu, breadcrumb links, primary links, etc are important for users to be able to navigate your site. Is the way they work in Drupal 6 optimal for usability? Are there better default behaviors we could build for Drupal 7? Could we better accommodate non-standard browsers (e.g. screenreaders)

Agenda

* Fixes up to now (e.g. http://drupal.org/node/270917)
* Default markup
* Your suggestions and input!

Goals

This session will focus on Drupal core, not on contributed modules which can alter or enhance the built-in menus and taxonomy.

By identifying usability problems and possible fixes, this session will hopefully result in some fixes being identified to be addressed in core.

Resources

You should have used a Drupal 6 installation and thought about how you navigate using menus and taxonomy, and how you arrange or assign menu links and taxonomy terms.

If possible, think about "scalable menu parent choosers" and hierarchical select widgets. See: http://drupal.org/node/191360