development

To innovate, you often have to risk getting out of your comfort zone. The last several years, I have had varied needs which have required me to evaluate new text editors that offer more robust functionality. For years, I used Dreamweaver primarily as a text editor. I never used (or liked) the fancy GUI HTML editing. But, Dreamweaver provided three primary features that I loved. The syntax highlighting for PHP / JS / HTML really worked for me. The code could be split up into different Dreamweaver projects (with some directory as the project root). And, it has an integrated FTP manager to push

What happens when there are a lack of open problems? On the surface, it seems to make it more difficult to have impactful contributions. I just think it requires you to think outside of the box. Drupal is a great platform to look at this issue. A few nights ago, I was using my online banking system which required me to answer security questions as a form of two-factor authentication. I thought this would be a great problem to solve in Drupal. However, this is a solved problem: https://drupal.org/project/security_questions How does one contribute when problems are already solved? Let's consider

Scale and performance are major issues for high traffic websites. The design of the Drupal system poses many challenges to building a distributed system that can support load balancing. In Drupal, the design of the system has three principle components: code, database, and files. I will be sharing potential solutions in later blog posts. Code: This includes Drupal core and the modules that run on the web server. By running multiple web servers, you need to ensure the code is consistently maintained during deployments across all of the servers (see: continuous integration). The issue of timing

You've heard it all before. "The old programmer did this and it's crap" or "This person used this tool and it's no good". It's the age old grudge match between the old and the new. And, it doesn't help anyone move forward. Ultimately, people don't care about the how or why. They want results. What can be done to help limit this scenario moving forward? Standardization (frameworks, design choices, etc) and common practices help, especially when they are documented. Team members can come and go, the work remains consistent. But, this has been well adopted and this issue still exists. Let's try a

If you spent hours solving a problem, what is the likelihood you will remember exactly what you did the next time it comes around? Don't solve the same problem twice. Find a way to automate routine tasks so you can focus on other challenges. What are some strategies used? Let's start by proposing a frame of reference: We have features, representing software requirements or components We have tools, which create or support features We have configuration, which sets options or behaviors of tools for use in features Let's consider the following example. A restaurant has content management needs