Writing on Nerdstein

A litmus test of an AI application

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Two years ago, if you had asked me to build a conversational chatbot that leveraged AI, I would have been discussing hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and run it. Today, I built a prototype in one hour that cost me six cents of a SaaS service. It is astonishing to know how far this space has come in such a short timeframe. While it’s rare I blog at this point, I want to share more about this experience.

DrupalCon 2022 Recap

Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It has been a while since I wrote a blog post and it’s an acknowledgement that I dialed back some of my normal Drupal community involvement. Between several years of maintaining and rebuilding SimplyTest.me on top of my personal and professional obligations, it was good to take a break. I have since been promoted at Acquia and invested a lot there. I’ve also enjoyed time with my family, and recently got a puppy. I feel it is now time to look ahead.

Evaluating the Landscape of Drupal Competition

Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal is not alone in the space of digital tools. Competitors like Wordpress, Joomla, Wix, SquareSpace, and more all offer similar content management features. Other products like Contentful and Webflow offer specific capabilities that also compete with Drupal.

SimplyTest.me From The Ground Up

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

When I took over as the project lead for SimplyTest.me, the previous lead shared three primary things with me:

The system had a non-trivial amount of technical debt and was rising more with time

Weekend Thoughts, 9/11/21: A legacy

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

On the 20th anniversary of 9-11, it’s hard to ignore how fleeting life is. What we accomplish during our time is up to us.

What do you want your legacy to be? Are you fulfilling it? Do you maintain awareness toward your goals and what impact you want to have?

Weekend Thoughts, 9/4/21: Leading through change

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Changes to teams, organization, structure, or process should be thoughtful and done with patience. Change can take time to materialize. Teams often don’t like change. Making changes too frequently often doesn’t allow a team to get past the storming, norming and performing phases and therefore doesn’t allow for the expected investment to be realized.

Weekend Thoughts, 7/15/21: Get into details

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I am going to start posting blogs for a semi-recurring, weekly post I make on LinkedIn. I’ve been more active there with shorter, summarized thoughts. They often summarize something I’ve learned or some perspective I’ve gained during the week. The first was posted around 7/15/21. As follows:

Weekend Thoughts, 8/1/21: Growth Mindset

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week I gave a brief presentation on mindsets. The contrast between a fixed and a growth mindset can be significant. I believe a growth mindset is critical for leaders. You must be able to see the potential in others without a perception of threat. It’s not about you.

Weekend Thoughts, 8/14/21: Focused Priorities

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Organizations that are able to focus on priorities get things done. While this sounds simple, it requires the discipline to not change priorities rapidly. Priorities can’t just be the flavor of the day - even if the organization learns of more priorities.

Weekend Thoughts, 8/28/21: Where there is chaos, there is opportunity

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Companies are dynamic. Needs can arise on a moments notice. But these needs can present opportunities for employees to deliver when called upon. Where there is chaos, there is opportunity.

SimplyTest.me Partners Program

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

SimplyTest.me, like other large efforts in our community, requires many types of contributions to be effective. Effective today, I am announcing the creation of a new partners program. While this program will evolve with time, we wish to kick off the effort of recognizing both the individuals and companies that helped us get here and are helping us transform. All types of sponsors will be recognized through ongoing social media campaigns. This is especially important as we look to formalize a roadmap and need trusted partners to help us execute.

Drupal, Identity, and the Road Ahead

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the wake of the poor leadership demonstrated by the FSF, there was a sharp contrast displayed today at DrupalCon. Passion, interest, and innovation around open source software seems to be at an all-time high. One of the most prevailing open source projects, Drupal, just turned twenty years old. You can’t help but recognize Dries and other long time community leaders for choosing open source before it became cool and helping to push the boundaries of what a large, open source community is capable of doing. Today’s Driesnote was an inspiring message fitting for now and the road ahead.

SimplyTest.me Welcomes Matt Glaman

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

SimplyTest.me is a labor of love but it has been one of the most unique, satisfying contributions I’ve made to the community. Most of that labor has been dedicated toward maintaining the Drupal 7 version. Our maintenance was massively improved with the introduction of Tugboat.QA, but this year found major changes in the Drupal community with the launch of Drupal 9, the major changes to Composer workflows, and the Gitlab integration. All of these things are of high impact for Drupal and required major changes to SimplyTest. This has been especially hard to keep up with for me. Our latest incident showed the limitations of the current system, where SimplyTest.me was blocked from the Gitlab infrastructure due to updates in Drupal.org’s patching workflow. Much of this pulled my attention away from our aspirations to launch a new version. Until very recently, that is.

Drupal CI/CD with TugboatQA and Github Actions

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Vacation this year has been amazing. I’ve caught up on some of my long-standing to do list, like launching this new nerdstein site and digging into some of the newer technology I’ve wanted to explore. SimplyTest has some great new contribution I am excited about. I’ve spent a ton of time with the kids coloring, playing, and just enjoying these moments while they are young. It is shocking how quickly they have grown. I’ve cooked a lot and those close know how much I enjoy doing that. I’ve blogged more - finally - after a long hiatus and lack of motivation. I am currently enjoying an Eight & Sand Brewing - Loco Mo Sim DDH and listening to the Gravity album from Our Lady Peace. The kids are currently asleep. I wanted to share some things I’ve explored today.

Finally! A website refresh

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Let me welcome you to the new nerdstein.net. I’d like to thank Ana Laura Coto for help with the design. I’d like also thank Jonathan Daggerhart for being there when I needed an assist. I am really happy to finally share this project with the world.

Getting Started with Drupal Rector Development

Tue, 05 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal 8 introduced a lot of changes. Its usage of best-of-breed dependencies, like Symfony, represented a major shift for Drupal. Drupal 8 also moved to a more nimble release cycle with its major and minor releases, allowing a major version of core to get new features in minor releases. Between dependencies releasing updates and changes to core being more common, Drupal needed to evolve to manage change. One way this happens is through deprecations. This provides a way for Drupal to evolve, identify old code as deprecated, and offer guidance on a replacement. Deprecations were especially common as Drupal evolved from a largely procedural approach to one leveraging more object orientation and some of the design patterns Symfony uses, like controllers, services, and more. But, the great thing about this approach for deprecations is that deprecations do not get removed until the next major release of Drupal. This buys the community time to progressively fix deprecations within their code and is somewhat expected between major releases. But, what if addressing deprecations could be automated?

Drupal Community Care Packages

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Our community has always meant more than just code. These last several months have been difficult to make the same kind of connection we have come to expect from things like in-person events. And, during this time, many of us are having to juggle new challenges, may have sick loved ones, face professional or financial uncertainty, and more. I’m choosing to do something about it.

SimplyTest.me OpenCollective Update

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

An update from SimplyTest maintainers AmyJune and Adam:

In late 2019, simplytest.me joined OpenCollective (https://opencollective.com/simplytestme), allowing transparency around accepting donations and creating expenses. The Open Collective Foundation (https://opencollective.com/) is a 501(c)(3) organization collecting these contributions on our behalf. Because of this, contributions to simplytest.me through OpenCollective are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.

Drupal 9 Deprecations with SimplyTest.me

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal 9 readiness is as easy as cleaning up deprecations for your Drupal 8 project. SimplyTest is well positioned to help with this.

Deprecation Reporting

You can generate a report of the deprecations by performing the following steps:

New Beginnings

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When change comes, it’s often a time of deep reflection for me. Things are rarely as black and white or cut and dry as we would wish things could be.

SimplyTest.me release welcomes TugboatQA, Centarro, and Linode

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On the evening of September 13th, SimplyTest.me launched a major new release of the product. The product release achieved three major goals:

Replacement of the backend with TugboatQA
A new one-click demo framework

A DevOps Primer

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I just closed about 100 browser tabs from an early year activity. While it’s embarrassing I left those tabs open so long (going on five months), I wanted to leave them open to reflect on what I learned. And, what a better way to reflect than a blog post.

SimplyTest.me and Google Summer of Code 2019

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

SimplyTest.me is a project I continue to lead and volunteer my time to. I’m driven to help lower the barrier to entry for people in our community to contribute, use Drupal, and be a part of our community.

My 2019 Aaron Winborn Award Nomination

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Last year, I read Jim Birch’s blog post outlining his Aaron Winborn nomination of (now) award winning Kevin Thull. As a community, we need to do our best to celebrate accomplishments and I love that this award exists. We need to tell more of our stories regardless of who gets the award. I see no reason not to share my nomination for this year’s award publicly.

The Season of SimplyTest

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Last year was spent primarily learning about SimplyTest. We did make some progress, but I think “keeping the lights on” for a system of this complexity was quite a feat after the project transfer. It’s a unique and fairly complex endeavor that bridges all elements of an open source project, a completely free service, and underlying infrastructure. I see all of the good and the bad that comes from each aspect: system maintenance, feedback from community members, customer service (Slack, Twitter, etc), system outages, and more. I recognize how valuable this service is to the community and I strive to offer the best service possible.

Custom REST Resources in Drupal 8

Sun, 16 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Drupal 8 is a great platform for storing structured data and exposing web service endpoints. This offers Drupal a competitive advantage when creating a decoupled application or building Drupal as part of a larger enterprise of systems. Core offers many complementary out-of-the-box features to publish web services and configure them in different ways. This includes roles/permissions, Rest Web Services, Serialization, Views, and more.

Static and Dynamic Capabilities of Design Systems

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a classic computer science concept: Static versus Dynamic. This fundamental concept is what separates content management systems from static HTML, as a practical example. But, how does this apply to design systems like Pattern Lab and any system(s) that consume Pattern Lab artifacts?

Mid-2018 Drupal Coffee Exchange Updates

Sat, 26 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We are about to start another quarter of the Drupal Coffee Exchange. Personally this has been a lot of fun to see this start from humble beginnings and an off-the-cuff idea posted to Twitter to now have a growing membership and have been running for over a year now. We now have international participation and are looking to expand that. For me, it’s yet another reminder our community goes well-beyond the commits. Now we have a way for community members to stay caffeinated and share our favorite coffees between community enthusiasts. It’s unique, it’s fun, and it’s become a creative and complementary way to participate in our community.

Achieving Clarity in Component-based Best Practices

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Here we are. It’s been over a year now that our community has explored design components (integration of design systems, pattern libraries, etc) and Drupal. The community has shared different tools and solutions, presentations from many individuals representing different companies and perspectives, and processes/workflows that enable the different teams and disciplines. I would classify the time spent to date as research, exploration, and innovation. While this is expected for something new, we need to define best practices. The purpose of this blog post is to help us start a conversation to have guidelines and principles we can use to have better discretion when developing component-based solutions.

LeVeon Bell and Saquon Barkley

Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of both Penn State Football and the Pittsburgh Steelers teams. The Steelers have shown favoritism to early-round Big Ten players (e.g. Shazier, Cam Heyward, Artie Burns) but they don’t seem to routinely select Penn State players based on what I believe to be differences in systems and/or philosophies (Jesse James being one recent counter-example to this). Saquon Barkley is a generational talent that all teams should be vying for. The Steelers recently announced they were putting talks on-hold with LeVeon Bell so their staff could focus on the upcoming draft. Is there a chance the Steelers have eyes for Barkley? Let’s look at the not-so-far-fetched reality of Barkley to the Steelers.

SimplyTest.me Roadmap (Early 2018)

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this blog post is two fold: 1. To be clear on what and how we plan to address issues with the current system. 2. To address where the service is going.The service has a bright and promising future ahead as an open source platform that will serve people well and give people a chance to learn through contribution. The service will remain free and will be community sponsored.

2017 Conference Review

Sun, 14 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

2017 has been incredible and a year of both personal and professional growth. Events like camps and conferences are critical for me to be active in the community, as I don’t have a local group or regional meetup. In 2017, I gave more presentations than I ever expected to. I travelled to many awesome cities. I had a personal goal of giving a keynote/featured talk. I ended up giving three. I went to many places I had never seen before (both at work and through community events). I’m astonished by how much effort and care volunteers put into these events. I shared meals, craft beers, and locally roasted coffee with countless amazing individuals. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a supportive family and to work for a company that truly cares about participation and contribution to free and open source communities, like Drupal. Not only was I able to share things I’ve learned with the community, but I was able to spend time with old and new friends. I’ll have many fond memories looking back on this time and am just as excited for 2018.

The Future of SimplyTest.me

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

SimplyTest.me

PatrickD, the maintainer of SimplyTest.me, recently expressed interest in transitioning the application to a new maintainer. Let me first acknowledge how valuable this tool is for the community. It helps first time contributors who want to rapidly test a patch. It helps community members prototype modules or distributions without the concern of standing up a server. It’s really helped people, especially those not deeply technical, and should continue to as far as I’m concerned. I’ve used this at code sprints, I’ve tested patches on d.o, and generally point people to this in lieu of setting up a formal sandbox. I have been and will continue to be a big fan of this tool and what it does for the community.

Impacts of Drupal and Ambitious Digital Experiences

Fri, 17 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This terminology has never sat well with me. I haven’t had the time really to articulate why. Allow me to explore my thoughts further.

I fully recognize that people need to use the right tool for the right job. But, this philosophy suggests Drupal is not the right tool for less ambitious digital experiences. What about sites for local non profits, web presence for a local restaurant without any digital staff, or local religious organizations that desire a straight forward way to communicate their mission to the world on a shoestring budget. Drupal was built on the backs of people creating websites for causes they supported. I would argue that some of these sites don’t need or even care about something ambitious. My philosophy of Drupal and its community is one of inclusiveness. It should be a platform for all, not just the ambitious.

Retrospecting on the Legal and Technical Ramifications of ReactJS

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few years, there have been substantial discussions around ReactJS, especially with regard to its former license. This has little to do with the fact that ReactJS offers an attractive and innovative front-end development framework and that it has the backing of a major commercial entity. While I’m not an expert, the most controversial bits do not appear to be driven by copyright concern, but how their license applies to patents.

Exploring simplicity in Drupal design components

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Component-based architectures have become both a popular and fairly crowded space in the Drupal community. For over a year, I have followed the progress of some tools created by those leveraging Pattern Lab as a component based design library. I can’t claim to know the full breadth of problems these individuals encountered, many of which are experienced technologists in our space. But, every solution I have seen has been complex and demonstrates some architectural red flags. I wanted to take a fresh look. I paid a designer to redesign my blog for a migration to Drupal 8. This presented the perfect opportunity to try this out. Consider the following post a simple approach you might be able to use.

An Analysis of Drupal Governance

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In my earlier blog post, I researched community governance in other open source communities. While it was not exhaustive, I identified a set of trends and practices communities use to serve community members. The question remains: what can Drupal learn from other communities?

Local core development environments

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In an earlier blog post, I described my ideal local environment for developing Drupal based projects (DrupalVM). My primary objectives included separation from the host OS, persistence in config (affording disposable sandboxes), and extensibility to customize around project specific configuration (mirroring other environments). In those respects, DrupalVM has spoiled me and I’ve likely saved hundreds of hours in large part to these efforts (thank you, Jeff and other contributors).

Promoting Community Toxicity

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Something has been bothering me and I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. I hesitated writing this. By doing so, I fully understand that some will choose to twist or misinterpret my words to further instill doubt into the community. While this is one’s right and often turns into a lengthy Twitter debate, many in the community have shied away from sharing their voice for fear of retribution.

A Drupal Contribution Non-Profit

Thu, 08 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Jrockowitz’s recent blog post on crowd sourcing, found here, sparked so many ideas for me. I wanted to discuss the most prominent idea in this blog post, the idea for a company that nurtures community contributions. Such a topic has often been on my mind and Jrockowitz post might have helped me to connect enough dots around this idea. Community members (especially maintainers) often volunteer their time and energy to community projects with little incentive aside from their will to do good.

Community Governance Considerations of Open Source Projects

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

DrupalCon was a great way to connect with the community and gauge the pulse from recent events involving Crell. After writing blog posts, I engaged with many people to share thoughts and hear perspectives. One common question that came up: what do other communities do for governance?

What Gets Me Up In The Morning

Thu, 25 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It is safe to say that people like talking about themselves. I’m guilty of that, but I don’t think I have actually given any real consideration or focus to the matter. That changed this morning.

Removing Site Building From Drupal's Vocabulary

Tue, 23 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal has a full vocabulary of Drupalisms. While I think that is fine for Drupal-specific features, it also is a sign that we seem to promote our own island when there are similar concepts that exist in the technology space. When possible, we should try to align with more conventional terms that others outside of Drupal understand. If anything, this can make Drupal more approachable and better understood in broader context. I think I identified one such term: the term “Site Building” has never sat well with me - both as an activity and as a role.

Communal Action in Self and Others

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes situations take time to resolve. This situation is complicated and the goal is to treat everyone respectfully. We’re beginning to see things play out now.

I want to offer some of my recent thoughts. By no means are they right or fully informed, but I wanted to share (please don’t shoot the messenger).

Civility is Community

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For a moment, may some of the hurt and fearful in the Drupal community take a moment to pause and reflect. Take a deep breath and slow down from the continuous retweeting, reddit posts, or the most recent Drupal Confessions. (By the way, does anyone else think “Drupal Confessions” sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit or a bad emo song?)

Evolving Clarity of Conduct in Technical Communities

Sat, 25 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous two blog posts [one] [two], I shared my concerns and open questions over the recent events surrounding Crell and discussed my initial efforts to become informed even when full transparency does not and likely will not exist. I have formed the opinion that those seeking answers and specifics may never get the level of detail they desire, both for legal and privacy reasons. I continue to engage with others in conversation out of respect for those processing these events and out of my desire to form a well-rounded and bias-free stance. With the complexities involved, there is no one right answer and we most importantly need to respect the broader discourse in participation of moving this forward.

A Troubling Situation Indeed

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

When I was checking Twitter last night, a prominent community member posted a “TMI” message with a link to a blog post. This was totally off-character for a man regularly promoting thought leadership in technical capacities (why I was following him on Twitter). I was quite curious and I was immediately appalled by what I read. The post can be found here: https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing

Follow Up: A more informed opinion on our community crisis

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was struggling to make sense of this situation. Was Crell treated fairly? Was he being discriminated for his beliefs? How is this possible in the confines of a community that supports diversity and inclusion? I spent parts of my day participating in discussions with team members, engaging community members, researching relevant topics, and reading responses of others that had their own questions and concerns. We are all still processing this and I ask you to please respect the diverse opinions from members in the community. In my post yesterday, I made it clear that I was not informed about the details nor the subject matter being discussed. I feel better informed and feel a level of obligation to respond to some of my earlier points in the spirit of helping others to process this highly complex and sensitive issue.

"First" based approaches need to die

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Off the top of my head, I can name several “first”-based approaches. Do any of these ring a bell? Mobile first, content first, API first, user first, design first, experience first, modeling first, security first.

Not A Victim

Mon, 06 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The Trump team has been saying they are victims from attacks of those on the left that don’t want them in office. While it is fair to say that those in the left indeed don’t want them in office, this is a direct response to their policies. There has been a growing lack of confidence founded on the wrecklessness of the administration’s words and actions. In response to the criticism they have received, members of the Trump team are claiming to be victims.

Commits on Drupal.org

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a huge advocate for finding ways to encourage more Drupal participants. Due to the complexity, it’s unreasonable to expect people to initially pick up programming-heavy issues. This is the motivation behind the “novice” label, providing a means for identifying potentially low-complex tasks new contributors could safely pick up. The end result is usually one or more commits which are credited to you and/or your organization on Drupal.org.

Just Another Varnish and Drupal 8 Blog Post

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Since both core caching continues to evolve in Drupal 8 and contrib modules are maturing, I wanted to capture my steps for configuring Varnish 4 to properly work with Drupal 8.

Lessons Learned: The "Why" and "How" of Drupal Contributions

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Why

I am ashamed to admit, for the longest time I used Drupal (heck, even complained about it) but contributed absolutely nothing back. It occurred to me that, not only did I learn technical and marketable skills thanks to Drupal, my Drupal experience directly corresponded to opportunities that supported my livelihood and viability for me and my family. And, all of this occurred without one line of code from me contributed back.

Balancing Theory and Practice

Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

When you are building a tool, how do you measure the success of your efforts? There are data driven approaches around adoption, like number of times your tool has been downloaded or installed. Similarly, success could be defined as how effectively you solved the problem. This could be measured by the number of issues filed, the (hopefully) lack of vulnerabilities, or the number of feature requests created. But, in any measure, success is actually defined by other people. And, as an engineer, it’s such a difficult task to put yourself in their shoes. How do you deal with that?

Setting up your system for Drupal coding standards

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As a bit of background, my main objective is to integrate Drupal coding standards into PHPStorm. I would imagine similar steps can be taken with other IDEs. I’m mainly writing this blog post to remind myself of these steps if/when I need to do this in the future. But, it occurred to me others might benefit from this as well.

The Technical Lift of Drupal 8

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal 8 has been widely praised for improving the developer experience (DX). The “best of breed” adoption of tools (see: Symfony, Guzzle, PHPUnit, Composer, etc) clearly positions Drupal to mature and evolve beyond that which one community is able to do alone. But, there are many different considerations of DX that need explored. And, what lift is required for the community to grasp this new version? And, what is the impact?

Theming Drupal 8 Field Collections

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of Field Collections. It provides a high level of flexibility in setting up an auxiliary (and potentially shared) data structure that can associate with another entity. As such, it’s a highly customizable way to do relational data in Drupal. This shouldn’t be confused with Inline Entity Form which helps embed an entity within another entity (and is also an amazing project).

The office is dead

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I recently made a pass through historic downtown Altoona and I noticed how many buildings appeared to be empty. It actually occurred to me that my definition of infrastructure has shifted radically from the conventional infrastructure companies have adopted. The “office” is hardly a requirement for a majority of jobs.

A slideshow in Drupal 8

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I thought I’d play around with creating this feature in Drupal 8. Here’s the step-by-step run down. This is assumed your logged in with an administrative user.

1. “Slideshow Item” data structure

Create a slideshow item content type with any structure you desire. In my case, I added an image, a title, a description, and a link. This was all done by core provided field types.

Our fights are not your fights

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not one to really dig my heels into politics. I find it divisive and I recently had a clear example as to why.

Earlier, I heard my doorbell ring. It was a Bill Shuster promoter walking door to door in my neighborhood. I have already grown tired of his campaign, seeing television commercials with scathing attacks on Democrats, his extreme views on health care, and the flashing images of Sarah Palin and other off-the-wall conservatives he self aligns with. I was handed a pamphlet of information and needed to look no further than the cover to set me off.

Site Updates in Drupal

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Site updates in Drupal are one of the most critical, proactive things needed to eliminate vulnerabilities on your site. While the open source community strives to make these updates smooth, there are no guarantees there won’t be issues for your specific site based on how you’ve extended your Drupal instance. This is because each site may have it’s own custom code, it may have it’s own combination of contributed modules with unique interactions, and it may have it’s own visual theme. The key point is that it’s not a safe assumption that site updates meet all use cases. Most module maintainers are good about following module version conventions intended to help shed light on if an update could break existing feature or API parity. But, case in point, site updates should be handled with care.

Common DrupalVM Use

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I long struggled with how to effectively do local development in Drupal. Few would argue the merits of doing local development over working directly on a production system. While the problem seems straightforward, nothing seemed to work quite right. It took me quite a while to land on DrupalVM.

2016 Pittsburgh Pirates Predictions

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The annual winter meetings have passed. A lot of GMs have been aggressive in spending or prioritizing their team’s urgent needs. As usual, the Pirates were not big spenders nor would I consider them aggressive. This fits into their typical patient and cost-effective operations. So, what is there to write about? The Pirates made some recent moves and seem to be staging something. Let’s predict what.

"Just Enough" Planning - An Agile Concept

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The Agile framework is all the rage. It aims to solve limitations introduced by waterfall. The framework is driven by value and priority, not fixed scope and heavy upfront planning. But, Agile and its Scrum variant is just a set of theories not intended to fully prescribe practice. There are many challenges that observing strict Agile/Scrum can present in practice, especially for agencies attempting to adopt it outside of a product development process.

Patterns of DevOps Practices

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I read Codifying devops practices, a blog post written by Patrick Debois. This is food for thought. I spent some time trying to identify the patterns I recognize in daily practice. I may continue to update this as I learn more opportunities and categories.

Reliability

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hands down, a huge pet peeve of mine is a lack of reliability.

Let me be clear, this is by no means to say that I am impatient. I often provide people countless opportunities to be reliable. But, I’ve learned over time that the more patient I am with something, the higher my expectations get.

Engineering Tenets of Agile

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Background

I recently changed companies and am going through the process of onboarding. One of the big draws to the new company was an emphasis on people and culture. The whole balance between a for-profit business and a focus on employee needs, in my experience, can be in conflict. I have been learning more about how these goals are achieved.

Simpletests hanging in Drupal 8?

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had a difficult situation in which I could not debug a hanging Simpletest in Drupal 8. Before continuing on, add the dblog module as a dependency to the Simpletest you are writing and rerun it. Your test may be hanging because it cannot write to the error log. If it continues to hang, read on.

Simple beauty of life

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This morning I read this article. It’s a short phrase that stood out: simple beauty of life. This reiterates a common thread from many others with severe illness or little time left. Notably former CMU Professor Randy Pausch, who died of cancer, who left a lasting impression with his last lecture. Mitch Albom wrote a popular book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, about a life’s reflection and purpose.

My temperature is happy

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This evening, my daughter and I were playing doctor. I laid on the floor and she gave me a checkup. She looked at my ears. “Better”. She checked my heartbeat. She nodded her head. And, lastly, she checked my temperature. Her response was perfect and I hope I never forget it: “My temperature is happy”.

2015 Steelers Draft Predictions

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll try to stay focused on the picks in the first two rounds, as it’s very difficult for a novice like me to be an expert after that.

Background

There are two philosophies the Steelers never deviate from. They certainly will not this year:

Being present

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Generally speaking, I try to be very laid back. I do get stressed out (and continue to try to work on that). However, there is one major pet peeve of mine that I believe is worth sharing. Being present.

Institutional knowledge

Sun, 11 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

No one is irreplaceable, and that is a fact. Teams often find ways to overcome the loss of staff, even creatively. Some losses hurt more than others. One key factor is institutional knowledge. This is one area that often makes employees feel irreplaceable, but should be avoided at all costs by a business.

Imitation is the best form of flattery

Sun, 04 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I personally believe cut-and-paste coding can be one of the sloppiest and least reliable ways of developing a product. Consider the source.

After teaching Comp Sci for several years, I can confidently claim that this is the worst type of coding. Most of the cut-and-paste code comes from the web. Someone goes onto Stack Overflow, slaps in variables and values to meet their use case, and commits their change. Consider the source! You have no idea who posted the code, the merit of the code, or if it follows best practice. There is often a ton of metadata missing as well, e.g. the supported major/minor versions of the software, dependencies of the code, or full contextual code examples that leverage the posted snippet. I can say, it typically is not very good.

Why Keurig Sucks

Sat, 22 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

DRM is a sticky issue. I found this out the hard way recently when my Keurig machine died.

Background

Keurig, made famous for their single-serve coffee innovation, recently released a 2.0 version of their brewing systems. This new release actually has a digital imaging system in place to look for the Keurig branding on all K-cups before brewing. In essence, they are restricting the use of their technology after people purchase it. The only noticeable feature is introducing a “coffee carafe” K cup, which, to me, is not a major selling point since regular coffee makers already do this job effectively and the coffee you can purchase is about a fifth of the price of the single-serve Keurig machine. I guess you pay for convenience…

A plea for patience

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I am a big fan of learning moments. In business, some learning moments come at a cost. Some mistakes are easier to forgive than others. I still believe in exercising as much patience as possible to allow people to learn.

Acquia certification exams

Sun, 14 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Drupal is definitely a framework enterprises can leverage. I think few would argue this. But, the term open source freaks out a lot of people. What it boils down to is how to best leverage this framework. This means that we as a community need to adopt best practices in how Drupal is used. While these best practices may be enforced when contributions are made back to the Drupal community, it certainly is at a developer’s discretion on how to set up Drupal for their specific web property. As such, a tool needs to exist to measure these developers against best practice. Acquia’s certification exams have made a bold step to having a measurable way to evaluate someone’s Drupal prowess.

Routine stifles innovation

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently asked about what separates my company from others I have worked in the past. What immediately came to mind was the relationship with my team, the work we do, and the sheer talent. Those elements alone still make me get up in the morning. But, over a cold beer, something else struck with me. My company has no routine and I love it.

Desirable Short Term Memory

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, it hit me that there are actually benefits to having a short term memory. I don’t think this is broadly applicable. In fact, I think there are more instances in which you do not want to have a short term memory. Allow me to explain…

Social Vampirism in Services

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Companies are very bottom line focused. Even after a high level scope of work is determined, the most appealing bids often are on the lower end. Even if some form of a deliverable can be achieved in a given number of hours, it often does not yield the correct one. Smarter bids allocate more time for damage control, error correction, and proper testing. For low bids, especially really low ones, one has to wonder what part of the product suffers.

Local Drupal development sandboxes

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re doing Drupal development, having a local sandbox is a necessity. Why? No one should be making untested changes on a production or staging server. And, a development server should be free of initial development errors where the developer should execute a small set of engineering tests before deployment. Plus, it can be time consuming to regularly deploy code developed locally onto a development server. To summarize: a local sandbox is absolutely best practice. I hope to summarize how to quickly get up to speed without having to rehash the lessons I have learned.

Serenity of thought

Thu, 24 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Rands’ recent blog post B usy is an Addiction struck a chord with me. It’s made me rethink many aspects of my day-to-day routine.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

It’s so easy to say, I’m busy. In reality, I should be working smarter, not harder. Busy is as much of a state of mind, as it is the items on your plate. It’s a routine, a lifestyle, and a shitty excuse.

A balance of trust and quality