We're doing several presentations at DrupalCamp Colorado 2009 this weekend

Jun 23 2009

DrupalCamp Colorado 2009 is happening this weekend in Denver. (Registration is still open!)

And we at pingVision have been preparing several presentations.

For programmers and developers wanting to get into Drupal development but are unfamiliar where to start, Lead Developer John Fiala is presenting the basics of Drupal Module Development:

Views, Panels, CCK, token, and the rest are great for getting most of any project done, but sometimes you need a little custom work to get the last 4% of your needs covered. When that happens, it's time to break out a code editor and write your own module.

[This session covers] how to set up a blank module, the usual basic hooks that you will implement, what to watch out for for security, and ideas on how to nudge and override Drupal to do what you need without having to kill a kitten, aka hack core.

If the Drupal API is new to you, this will be a session not to miss!

That's not all we're covering regarding the Drupal API. Senior Developer Ben Jeavons will be presenting on Drupal Web Services:

In this session I'll talk about how you can use Drupal as a web service for providing and communicating data for third-party consumption. I'll talk about some of the available solutions such as XML-RPC and RESTful applications. This won't be an overview of the properties of web services but rather a discussion and demo on implementing web service endpoints and clients with Drupal.

Ben will also be on a panel on Drupal Security.

For themers and front-end developers, Lead Themer Al Steffen and Senior Developer and Themer Matt Tucker are presenting on the Studio theme, which generated much attention last week at Design4Drupal:

Studio base theme gives a whole new array (pun intended) of capabilities for themers. By re-structuring some of the key aspects of the theme system such as preprocess functions, and keeping attributes as arrays until output, Studio provides a sustainable theme, making it easier to make incremental changes without the need to create additional template files.

People wanting a deeper understanding of the Drupal theming layer will want to see Matt Tucker's other session, Preprocess functions: what, why and how:

Template files are meant to be simple, with simple php conditional logic, and minimal code. As a general rule of thumb, logic should be placed within preprocess functions and the output assigned to variables which are then printed within the template file....

...Preprocess functions simplify a theme drastically by greatly reducing the number of needed template files.

This session will be highly focussed on samples, providing 'real-world' examples of how preprocess functions can be utilized to save time and energy while theming.

Kate Lawrence On the project management side, COO and Co-Founder Katherine Lawrence will be presenting Project Management: 'Agile' is not 'cowboy' spelled backwards. In it, she'll be sharing some of the things we learned as a company over the past four years handling dozens and dozens of projects.

In Project Management, what elements are critical? How is success measured? What are the benefits of well-executed Project Management to the developer and client?

How can a firm increase productivity without long hours and cost over-runs? Over the last four years we tried a range of approaches in this ever-evolving area.

These principles apply across the board, from the one-person shop to the larger firm.

I will be doing a presentation on Functional Interactive Design, and why good design is more than simply aesthetics:

Ever walk up to a door and pull on the handle, only to discover the door is push-only? Do you really know how to operate your clock-radio? Doors may be pretty, clocks may look cool, but when we have to actually use them, the measure of their design changes.

Same with websites. A website may be pretty at first blush, but can you find what you're looking for? Can you do what you want to do? Can you even figure out what you're supposed to do?

This presentation is on functional design concepts and how they apply to websites and web apps.

I will also be leading the closing plenary, where I hope not to do the talking at all — rather facilitating a general discussion where we'll all talk about what happened, what was great, what's happening next, etc.

And that's not even close to all that's happening at DrupalCamp Colorado this weekend!