The Curmudgeon's Guide to Building Drupal Websites

so welcome this afternoon to the

curmudgeons guide to building Drupal

websites I will be your collection today

first readings I am the director of

Drupal engineering at bounteous I have

been with bounteous since about 2009 and

working with Drupal 8 long as well I've

been a professional developer since 1994

but I've been whinging for far longer

than that and I like to go to Brewers

fantasy camp so if you need something

for your bike spokes I'll get you a pair

later you know who is funny is we create

big picture digital solutions we were

founded in 2003 and it's really awesome

because there were lots of talented

individuals and we do everything from

strategy to experience design analytics

and insight there's a bunch of us that

have spoken this weekend or it's this

week so we are also looking for a Drupal

architect so if you'd like to work with

me do you track me down so this is my

over hopefully it fits in 30 minutes you

know we'll do some talking about how I

think we can be effective as dribbling

and running projects efficiently and I

have a slide there too I'm growing as a

developer if I get that far so my goal

and every sort of project really is to

by the end of it to have the client be

happy and a lot of the sales folks will

say you know on time on budget that's

all great but project even have a way of

not sticking to the original designs

when you're first talking about these

things so I'm really focused on being

having the client be happy

Ament to do this we need to be efficient

we need to be effective but we also need

clear communication

so let's talk a little bit more

effective drooling if you fail to plan

you're planning to fail I think Ben

Franklin said that and I think it's very

true when we're building Drupal websites

we need a solid foundation for the build

so we need a really good plan to get us

there so instead of thinking about

preparing for the bill I think there are

a few key things for us what is to be

involved as early as we can so back to

the first started doing the drilling

thing the design agency with design

stuff and then they wouldn't live it

over to you and they usually didn't know

a whole lot about Drupal or CMS's in

general so we want to get involved as

soon as we can because we want to help

guide the design right we really want to

take advantage of Drupal and all that it

can do for us it doesn't necessarily

mean when you tell them what to do right

we don't want to skim the design they're

really tempted folks and they know what

they're doing but we want to make sure

when they're making a decision that's

going to you know impact the build make

it take a lot longer cost more money

that they're making it with them

you know they're being mindful about it

when we're preparing and we're involved

early on we also want to determine what

can go wrong

and we want to identify those risks

because we want to you know be prepared

for them we don't want to think that

they're going to happen but if something

does happen to go wrong we want to be

prepared you know to adjust to whatever

happens going wrong and I think a lot

you know about this when it comes to

like scope budget with timeline right if

something does go wrong what are we

going to do about it what can we change

and we work with a variety of customers

and clients and some are like the budget

is the most important thing you know

here is $100,000 and we can't go over it

right and that's that's fine it's it's a

you know something that we should be

mindful of as we're doing the bill but

what that tells me is that it's go and

or Taiwan I have to be able to get right

you know if we run into issues or

something it doesn't work as we expect

it to

and we're really constrained by the

budget then we need to adjust the scope

before it likewise you know Thailand can

be the driver so I think of one of our

clients at Domino's Pizza and they will

have you know television campaigns right

and those let's say are going to be the

first week in the NFL season that all

that work is committed to way in advance

and that's happening from whether or not

you're ready so what needs to you know

the counter to that then is that now we

get to my throne with scope for budget

right maybe I need more developers to be

done on time but regardless we have to

be done with you know when the TV

commercials are ready to go

so another thing I think about when I'm

preparing to build is the tech stack

because often this can give us troubles

especially as we get started early on in

the project one of the first things I

want to know is where's this thing gonna

be hosted where is my website get me

hosted you know if we're lucky and so to

do that in places like actually a

Pantheon

we know the tech stack we know they know

what they're doing they've optimized the

text after Drupal that's great but what

happens if it's not that right you know

is an internal IT department going to be

giving us our text ad do the understand

varnish and how to optimize it do they

understand how to build my sequel server

you know when a patch you serve our

internet server do they know how to

write traffic to the police you know

those types of things and we want to be

you know I'm the ready for it the local

development environment is another thing

that I think a lot about I finally have

all of our projects have local

development environments we largely

depend on Drupal do and using vagrant

but what happens when your client says I

want to be involved and by the way we

run Windows machines right you know that

that you can't do it but you will run

into unexpected problems if you have not

tried this in the past another thing

that seems to me to be important and

often the gadget projects that we want

to be prepared for is how the data is

going to flow through the system

specifically I'm thinking about when

we're trying to integrate with various

other platforms it's really easy to

intake manager rightly install module

early we do our configurations but what

happens if it's an internal system or

it's a third-party system that's fairly

old and doesn't have robust API

we still probably need to do that

integration but we just want to know

migrating content is the you know is a

similar problem is your replant forming

a site you know I have to think about

where I'm getting this content and how

I'm going to migrate it and then I going

to migrate all the content you know what

you know do I really want to migrate the

homepage or do I only want to migrate

the 40,000 blog posts right you know

what you know where is the spend gonna

be best there and how am I going to do

this so we thought a lot about what's

going on with the you know migrations

and all the good stuff and we know the

technic and we've helped the design team

come up with the plan now I want to

document so I always write some sort of

architecture plan in the document this

plan you know provides a fair amount of

detail but I also want to keep it high

enough level so that the project manager

can read it and understand what's

happening the business analyst can do

this a client you know whether the

internal external anybody that comes on

to the project should be able to read

this and understand that you know

basically this is the vision I have for

how we're going to execute the project

some of the things I like to defining

there are things like the development

workflow so how does something go from a

requirement to into production there's

lots of moving parts that are there

there are several people or roles that

have you know responsibilities to do

this but I want to know how I'm going to

do this and and make sure that it's well

documented so everybody's aware of how

we'll do this I also talked about the

theme that we're going to use so the the

sites that we build all have custom

themes but we're always basing those off

of you know some kind of beast thing so

I really need something like classy out

of to procore or are we going to use

something to exert foundations because

we want to take it you know take

advantage of the foundations I also

think about the modules that will

connect back so I don't list every

single module because no one really

cares we're using shield to keep you

know prying eyes away early on but you

know I do care about things like panels

and panelizer or layout builder like

those give us clues and give you know

whoever is reading you stack to me who

is this - how I'm building the site or

how I envision the site should be though

we also want to describe any key points

of the architecture that are there you

know I touched on migrations and

integrations as you might have a pick up

on you know leave class problems and you

know a few of my projects and so I'm

always after those things but what about

other parts of the architecture you know

one of the projects we've done in the

last few years

depends heavily on varnish and edge set

includes and it's not something that

people do on the DVD basis right so I

want to make sure that whoever's coming

into this project can understand that

part of the architecture you know what

I'm on digging you know that it's pretty

clear to them what we're doing and then

you know as you come into the project

you know and you run into issues you

know this gives you a clue so what's

happening at that point

so we have our plan we're ready to

execute and I think you know developers

love writing code we love coming up with

solutions but it's really important to

me to to emphasize the fact that it's

not really about writing line of code

it's about solving a lot of problems and

so you know that's you know especially

in the community like Drupal you know we

have lots of things that we can take

advantage of to help us solve problems

or writing a whole lot of code when the

build is getting ready to be started I

want the developers to have a framework

to make decisions

so as an architect I don't want to make

every little choice and every decision

but I do want the folks on my team to

understand you know how I would go about

making the decision and they do that

with some guiding principles these are

for that you know I think I'm pretty

common in my projects yours might vary

but you know I think they're pretty good

you know the first one is basically used

core and contribute you can you know the

less you know fewer modules that I write

if you're a toad I write the less I'm

responsible for you know keeping it

secure and keeping it bug free touch

each area the application as few as

times as possible you know it's so fun

building blog section for the site you

know try the group that that work all

together every time I have to touch the

blog section on the site I have QA I

have peer reviews you know

if we're having multiple releases to

production there's new 18 testing that

has to happen but we wanted this to be

concise it'll help us be more efficient

and no nobody has korkin trip or plies

patches but you know assuming you do you

know just do it right so when I first

started ruling everyone's like don't

never do this but you know I think we've

advanced to the point where we and the

way to do it is use attach files right

and if you use Composer you can have it

automatically applying patches for you

so it's great and the last one is it fun

with my favorites that left off and

thought about I just don't write any we

will need this major code developers

have this insane habit of being in code

and saying oh wouldn't it be great if it

just did this and they add that code is

that code just slingers can forever

you tend not to use it again you know

tends to be the place where we find bugs

it's you know just stop doing

controls you know are a great way you

know to stand on the shoulders of giants

and really get a lot of you know

efficiencies I think especially when

we're using the same ones over and over

again

we've been lots of you know mixed oxide

that you know and I was at one yesterday

I talked about you know site building

and talked about bricks and stuff you

know in the point there was like hey

like this module is a plane X with this

module and this might you know and

multilingual is a problem right so you

want to use the same modules over and

over again because you want to know

where the Romans are we want to know

what's gonna you know feed I just you

know this is a list of the modules I can

use you know most of my projects your

list might be different but the point is

to have that list of modules that you

know you're gonna go back to over and

over again so what happens if your tool

box is one tool short right and you

might need another module so you know I

think he's pretty easy right we're gonna

suture searching drupal.org and project

modules or Google or you might know a

friend that knows what they're doing

they can help you out but you want to

try to find a module that fits or you

know requirements that meets my

requirements you know I think the

important thing to understand is your

works not done yet you still it's fair

if you want to use that module you know

and when I'm thinking of what we're

going to use a module you know I have a

few questions that I always ask myself

to cover about the security team you

know if it is that's a bonus right we

you know we tend to think that it's ever

you know the best bundles that are out

there the most used modules the

retainers was last time it you know if

it's a well-known person in the

community then the last commit was two

days ago

that's really good well what happens if

there's like seven commits the last ones

two years ago and you don't know the

maintainer is yeah that's saying you

wouldn't use the module right but it

should weigh against using muggle if

you're if you're following my philosophy

you know under lock sites using it is

issue you active you know there's not

it's this isn't a decision tree but when

you answer these questions as if to tell

me you can weave it against you know

what it is you're trying to build and

figure out if it makes sense to use it

another place that developers and folks

working in the project can gain some

efficiencies is with using these other

tools you know composer is weak

dependency management tool I won't think

to it there was a talk I think yesterday

composer 101 that if you're not really

familiar with composure I would highly

suggest checking out but you know we use

it to manage our dependencies brush is

like my favorite tool I use it all the

time I'm a feline guy in brushes my way

to do I would say everything but lots of

things you know I'm sorry I can't

rebuild

I don't remember passwords to sites that

use you alive to get past or you know to

get a one time link you know I don't

remember which aqueous site and how to

SSH into it I just used to rush SSH it

has lots of great tools for you to use

that will make you more efficient it is

the same way for me I use get a lot as

well I think you know two perfect

examples for me are when I'm getting

ready to commit code one of the things

to talk about a little bit there's peer

reviews and how you should be the first

women reviews your own code and I use

get to do this and you get status figure

out what's all changed and I go through

them one by one one line by one line do

and get this and I add them one final

time I don't add you know just

everything that I also use git commands

before I get to find out which commit

broke my website so there's this great

clinical get bisect then if you've never

used it before you might want to look it

up but when you're trying to

what happened your website it's a great

way to figure it out

last time I listened we use triple

console admittedly I don't use triple

console as much as others probably do I

find that there's a lot of overlap

between drush Drupal console but it does

have some really interesting things like

being in pretty dumb nodes dummy text on

these some users things of that nature

you know if you have a change in your

expert on the top three probably worth

checking out another place I think where

we get stuck in the mud is like solving

problems you know during QA and

sometimes folks just struggle with how

to solve those problems you could

probably have debugging itself but a

couple things that I think are really

helpful for me when I try first of all

one is just knowing what you have

available to you

you know Drupal provides a lot of great

things to do debugging logger is one

develop well profile will give you some

good information

dribble Council has a bunch of debug

commands that you can run tweak the

bugger make sure that's turned on so you

can see how you at least locally so you

can see how you're running in the

content and then like just SCR I use

when I have a problem in production and

I don't really have access nor do I want

to have access to like change code and

and add debug code good things and I

don't want to go through the process of

yeah committing code and pushing it

through all my environments sometimes I

can mimic it was just bringing a quick

brush script because it'll bootstrap

Troopa for me and I have all things in

you there

you know don't be embarrassing you

sprint to her Bardo they're great quick

ways to do it but you know anybody's

awesome especially when you integrate it

with your IDE if you work at both yes

and you say Chris I need some help

one of the first questions are going to

ask you is you know let's open up in the

debugger and if the answer is I can't do

it then you go away until you can

because I think it's a great way to

debug um when you're trying to solve a

problem you know I think it's really

important to have strategy now we're

gonna develop a strategy is to assess

the problem so is it only reproducible

production can reproduce in anywhere

does it only happen when you're in an

ominous reason it doesn't happen only on

blog pages like whatever you can

information you can gather I want to use

because I'm gonna form a hypothesis from

what's happened or what is happening now

the key about forming the hypothesis is

that you'll test against it and you're

not married to it I think you're not

trying to prove that it's right in

oftentimes I may try to be proving it's

wrong but it's important have something

that's guiding your your efforts and

then the last thing is you know

eliminating possibilities so what I mean

by that is everything you do should give

you more information that limits the

scope of where the problem is a good

example of this is last weekend was

helping one of the developers with a

local environment problem

we're running docker with Magento and

Drupal and we were trying to call API us

from from a Magento from the

full container and it wasn't working

we're getting a weird air so we

immediately said we think the problem is

Magento and so we went about trying to

prove you know that that was the case

and it was intelligent to say

turns out we proved it wasn't and so we

shift of course and then we quickly

figured out that it was how we were

calling the other container from the

Google container but without you know

following these steps we really would

have been just spinning our wheels

efficient projects so the key so you

know we definitely need technical skills

to do this and I've listed really five

things I think are really important for

project teams to have pretty clearly

defined roles cycle engine to see if

these super important processes are

important but I'm going to focus today

on communication

so communication we do it daily and the

waves act think about it in the project

team are you know in three ways

why aren't the daily stand-ups were

scrum you know where Angela you follow

scrum so we use stand-up but whatever

your daily status report is I also think

about ad hoc communications so as we

were talking before know it's important

for me to understand how everyone uses

the telephone email and slack and like

if I need somebody what's the right

route to go about giving them but peer

reviews of what I really want to talk

about here so you know one of the things

I think is really important about peer

reviews is you know the way I look at

them a lot of people look at them as a

way to find bugs right and there is no

doubt you might find bugs but I think

the real key to peer reviews is you know

communication and dissemination of

information

so at boniest you know a junior

developer can be purely Mike Mike I

would not be pairing other people still

but it's really important that in the

peer review

as people are learning more about other

parts of the system and what we're

trying to create there is the bus sector

of one problem we don't want one person

to be solely responsible for one during

the application and when they think

about peer reviews I also think about

them you know it's is how they go right

so to meet their conversation I asked a

lot of questions in purely oh hey I

notice you did X but I would have you

know I think Y might be better

why did you do X right and it could be

hated right I talked about why it

doesn't work because of yah yah yah

that's what I'm doing next and so again

if we think about it is a way to

disseminate information in you know it's

a conversation that you know I I can

learn you know yeah and I also might

pointed out in a football I didn't

realize we had a function that did that

yes let me fix my coat so I think it's

really important to do that and as I

mentioned before the first person that

peer reviews your coat is you so you

really need to make sure your reviewer

code is though you're reviewing somebody

else's code so you don't you know throw

what you've junket somebody and waste

their time

really good quote let me skip acid

another way to think about this is you

know in six months you're probably gonna

have to be making right and so when I

think about writing the code from the

future you I have these things in life

again this is another topic that you

could spend an hour on but for four key

things

everybody knows the very principle but

it's like super fun and you would I am

often shocked that developers keep doing

this

like literally funny cut copy paste if

things should do one thing so variables

should hold one bit of information

functions should do one thing uh you

know classes should define one thing

everything should do one thing right if

they do it helps me write structured

code to the self document I want to be

able to write a function that's like

let's say checked account balance and I

want you is the person reading my code

to know that that's all it does because

it also sent an email that says hey you

have a little valence right we really

want to make sure folks can look at the

toilet because I can't trust that the

description functions right now I have

to look at that function to figure

what's happening and then assuming

you've done this commenting were

appropriate it becomes really easy lucky

especially when I was first getting

started I thought it was the right thing

to do to say you know checking the

account balance here followed by a

function that's in jeopardy comp balance

right you know as I've grown I've

learned that that's not really the way

to do it

but I still find that people use too

many comments in the code because

they're doing things you know of this

feel kind of like that I love comments

at the beginning of functions and tell

me what it's going to do I love kind of

you know in the inputs and outputs if

you have complex business logic that's

super important as well

but what I find with comments and the

reason I lean towards mean comment is

people often forget

and now if the people the worst thing

you know the thing that's worse than

having no comments is having kindness

little walk right documentation please

so we have to understand this develop

first that not everybody's gonna read

the documented code the person that just

raised his hand in film unite in three

minutes it's a great documentary Andy is

awesome right you know is he understands

it's important to share information with

the PM's in the views of the world

ensure that information you know

step-by-step instructions are important

to have in documentation and it's a

great way to get somebody introduced to

a different part of the system I'm

learning documented and purely the

documentation some good stuff last

couple slides the best way I have found

in my years of doing this to be Detroit

yourself it's really just to be curious

so congratulations you're all curious

watch webinars I went to but to them

every week reading is still really

important there's great group

newsletters but I also subscribe to

newsletters you know from O'Reilly stuff

works there lots of great people doing

great work that isn't just Drupal I get

an email from Drees every time he hits a

new blog post and they read lots of

clothes I think it's still really

important um you know ask yourself what

your friends are doing you know and

that's them right I'll pick down

brownies in the back of the room but

he's been doing a lot of static site

generation stuff and I've learned a ton

about that Scott Weston gave a talk

yesterday but configuration management

and you know I spent the you know 15 20

minutes with him just getting a brain

done so it's really important to know

what your friends are doing

and then lastly stretch your cell phone

project so you don't want me writing a

whole bunch of CSS it's not what I do

you know I can you know I can take a

look at that um you know okay don't go

too far off in the wheat where do you go

from here if you take one thing from

this conversation

make sure your IDP has interacted it's a

great way to learn Drupal especially

with hooks and services and all that

good stuff it's really tough to just

kind of follow but you build this inbox

on your computer shake you experiment

with if I'm looking at a new module all

I have to bring it into the sake that

I'm dealing with because I want to see

what's happening so I'll bring it into

the sandbox and and that's it thank you

any questions

[Applause]

quite often where we work but it's not

always well received trying to be nice

like a I know X Y yeah so the question

is if you have someone that you work

with it is a little bit too sensitive

with the peer reviews you know whose job

is it to fix the problem you know and I

think it's you know sometimes it's

approach you know so you know if you

were in fact to me about that I'd

probably talk to you a little bit about

how you're doing it just to make sure

that I was comfortable with it yeah at

the end of the day you know I think we

all need to be able to be criticized

what are the slides that get cut because

I was sure I was gonna go over with time

was like an affirmation session or you

just say I made a mistake

I find that lots of people can't say

that and it kind of goes back to the

psychological safety thing as well like

the people that work for me know that

they can make a mistake and it's totally

cool and we're gonna figure it out you

know I know it's see if we can solve the

problem so it doesn't happen again you

know but the worst thing for me is like

you're so it makes a mistake and they

bury it because it just multiplies the

problem so you know that thing it's the

case what you're talking about but what

I try to do is the leaders try to create

that psychological safety and hopefully

we have it on on all our project teams

and make that a little bit easier

missionary so I am the only developer at

my job and get how would I go about

puberty also he was your favorite

so two questions one was I am the only

developer can only do peer reviews then

the other question is what's my favorite

ID let's start with the last one and I

use PHP Sora and for a long time I

required it

I think I've gotten away from that but

still most of the people you say you

know you sir so I'm pretty happy with it

that's a good question about how do you

do peer reviews with one person is there

anybody that you can talk through like

talk to them about what you're doing

but

yourself or something

yeah that's the reason I asked to give

anyone else which we talked to also cut

from my slides was a picture of nothing

like you're like the only developer of

that are the University probably the I

mean somewhat big University Games with

other developers and maybe you don't get

together and talk about stuff all the

time but maybe also find some time that

you like get together and talk about

what I know the University of Minnesota

the very big university but they

actually have their own user group

meeting every month you know and well

haven't have stuff like that so I was

actually a similar situation

I was the only developer

in an IT department three point that I

was I reported to marketing and stuff oh

I was sort of like this lone person out

there I'd be willing to wear it wouldn't

work and then I'm gonna wrap it up sure

let's say you get a big project how do

you pick the teens to structure for that

or if you're like a

as a company and how do you pick what

people that you need to complete your

own projects yes the question is if you

have a you know if you have a mid to

large-size project how do you determine

the team you know why I'll always have a

solution architect of the project I tend

not to do any more because other people

are better than me but you know I'll

have some and then I tried to understand

you know the best I can with the work is

so we have a you know if I means we have

lots of really smart back in developers

and front-end developers and then we

also have people that are really good

like they're full staff they're just

really good at the whole set you know

that would if I find there's more front

in the back end they all try to staff it

with more front of those you know if

there's you know in front of them I'll

do that same thing if I'm not really

sure and I try to staff it with full

staff folks and then you give up some

juggling to you know because Drupal

projects a lot of things you're doing

back in work to start we're trying to

give the scaffolding to the folks so

that they can I'm gonna do all the theme

so you might stab that buddy bad as well

like more more back in folks you know in

the front doing more front of folks in

the back

and then just like they use a little bit

of the UI designer project manager QA is

all here yeah we have all those folks on

you know on the project so we you know

we do have a designer to make sure we're

executing their vision for the project

it's going all of our projects and we

have PMS that help us up as well and

then the qyz you know it's our stepped

to along with that the appear users are

done strictly and the dev site so so

this works really well sure yes a visual

cue a I wouldn't trust those developers

right here so yeah it is it's a

consultant in the room the answers

depends but it's you know those are the

types of factors and we also put the

fuse on to establish patterns and then

roll off

the right way

okay last slide contribution day is

tomorrow from 10:00 to 4:00 you know you

don't need to know code to get back so

please help out and thank you

[Applause]