Beginning Drupal, the book

In 2007 I made a small comment on Dries' blog that what Drupal needed was a book on Drupal for the end user. Fast forward three years and I still haven't written that book although J. Ayen Green wrote something close to what I had in mind. Instead I wrote a book designed for new developers coming over to Drupal, it is entitled Beginning Drupal (7).

I wrote the book while living and working in China in late 2008 and 2009. A lot of my work in China was training others how to use Drupal from the perspective of a site builder and architect. These folks were primarily developers that had transitioned to Drupal as their full-time job. They didn't need to know how to build a specific website or how to get a specific module working. They needed to understand Drupal and have a reference to all of its working. These folks would not be building a single site in Drupal but many, many sites in Drupal. It is this audience that I wrote the book for.
Beginning Drupal (7) is a book designed to pick apart Drupal's different areas and thoroughly examine them. It mimics my own personal method of training. In fact the book is primarily a collection of several of my personal lesson plans and exercises that I used in class. The chapters and exercises are organized by an area of Drupal such as Content management, User management, and Internationalization. Each chapter uses exercises that build upon each other starting small and then working to a robust website but the chapters are not necessarily connected. For example, you could learn all about User management on one day and skip ahead several chapter and learn about Internationalization.

Drupal 6 or Drupal 7?

When I began writing the book I was training developers on how to use Drupal 6 and many of the exercises and chapters were initially written on Drupal 6. Drupal 7 was on the horizon and was more interesting to follow and write about. Drupal 6 is awesome but Drupal 7 is downright amazing. It was a great journey to watch the development of Drupal 7, the Drupal community is absolutely amazing.

Drupal 7? Its not even out yet!

Yes. The book was written on Drupal 7 even though Drupal 7 is not yet stable. The vast majority of the book will require no revisions after Drupal 7 is released although the sections on Views, Workflow and Rules may require some minor updates. These areas have been highlighted in the text and we have a plan to revise the book if and when necessary.

Who is the intended audience?

Students of Drupal. The book was primarily written from my course materials and notes that I taught from. If you want to build a single website and never see Drupal again this book is not for you. If you are new to Drupal and want to really understand Drupal then you are the intended audience. This book is for long-term Drupal users. I have already begun to use this book in my courses and I hope that other Drupal instructors find it as helpful as I do.







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