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A gentle introduction to Drupal coding

add1sun's picture
Submitted by add1sun on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 04:24.

Session recording

Attached files

Placement
Session time: 
08/27/2008 - 11:00 - 08/27/2008 - 12:00
Conference booklet summary and bio
Article for conference booklet: 
This session is made for folks that are new to coding in general or new to Drupal coding in particular. The goal will be to cover the concepts invloved in working with Drupal code. We won't be doing any hands on work nor diving deep into PHP. There may be code snippets in the presentation to illustrate some of the topics but this is more like a lesson on what tools you have in the woodshop and basic carpentry concepts, rather than a tutorial on how to build a cabinet. This is specifically targeted at people who do not know what FAPI or a "hook" is and are trying to wrap their head around these new concepts. We'll start off with some basic discussion about working with Drupal as a framework and what that even means. What exactly is an API? How is coding with Drupal different from just using plain old PHP? Then we will go through an overview of how Drupal's code is set up and the various APIs and systems you can work with. We'll look at the various pieces and how they relate to each other. Specific things to be covered include: - What exactly is a hook? - How does the theme system work? - What is FAPI and why does it rock? - What is the menu system and how does it differ from the menu module? - How do you interact with the database? After the review of the major pieces, we'll touch on important, related things like coding standards and security. Then we'll finish up with community resources to help you on your coding journey.
Bios for conference booklet: 
Addison Berry has been involved with Drupal for about 2.5 years and now works with Lullabot, where she codes and teaches Drupal full-time. She helps maintain drupal.org and is a permanent member of the Drupal Association General Assembly. In addition to her focus on documentation, both written and video, she's provided core patches, maintains several contributed modules, and has been involved with the Drupal Dojo and Google's Highly Open Participation (GHOP) program.

Overview

This session is made for folks that are new to coding in general or new to Drupal coding in particular. We'll start off with some basic discussion about working with Drupal as a framework and what that even means. Then we will go through an overview of how Drupal's framework is set up and the various APIs and systems you can work with. This is specifically targeted at people who do not know what FAPI or a "hook" is and are trying to wrap their head around these new concepts. We'll finish up with community resources to help you on your coding journey. The only prerequisite is a curious mind. You don't have to be a l33t hax0r.

Topics to be covered

- How is coding with Drupal different from plain PHP/MySQL?
- Overview of Drupal code base
- What is a hook?
- What is the theme system?
- What is FAPI?
- What is the menu system?
- What about database stuff?
- Coding standards
- Security
- How to learn/get help

Goals

Give people a strong foundation in Drupal concepts from a code perspective as well as pointers to good resources for continued learning.

2ndMile's picture

Lecture Podcasts

Are there any plans to post the audio for these lectures?