Using Drupal
posted on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 12:06 by
theshadow
For those not in the know I recently was in need of learning how to modify, administer, and build a website using Drupal 6. Which is a very powerful and feature rich CMS framework. The downside is that in trade for all that complexity the learning curve is more like a cliff face than anything. So I decided that I would migrate Shadowpedia away from my custom CMS to drupal to help with my learning.
I poked around and asked some friends who did professional Drupal development for some advise. The two books recommended. This one and Pro Drupal Development (2nd ed) which I will post a review about on a later date.
As for Using Drupal the book used a case study type of approach. Each chapter presenting a fake organization needing a site for one reason or another with various feature requirements.
The book builds from one chapter to the next starting off with simple site setup and administration, moving onto adding content and customized content types and views of the content and finally ending up with a fully functional e-commerce site. The progression was steady and they didn't make any assumptions about the users experience level with Drupal.
I had only one complaint about the book and that was that the book was a bit dry at times. It was definitely a technical book. Also because they made no assumptions about the reader the book did feel a bit like spoon feeding. But, again being an introductory book such things are to be expected.
For an introductory book it was a great read. By the end of the book I was proficient in setting up a site and ready to step into the world of custom module and/or theme development. Which is a completely different beast all together. Its one thing to learn how to drive a vehicle and a completely different thing to learn how to augment one.
But I'm excited about the adventure and look forward to challenge.
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