drupal

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

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 &

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. This has been a long time coming. Three years. Yes, you read that correctly. Three years. Why? I prioritized learning. And, I am slow and methodical. This website is a culmination of many things I learned over a three year span. But, three years?!? Yep. I have a rewarding and challenging full time job at Acquia. I have a family with two young kids

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

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. I am announcing free community care packages for Drupal. I care about our community and I care about the wellbeing of all of you. I recognize this is basically nothing at a time when people are dealing with much larger

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. Supporting our project through the collective allows us to make strategic investments and maintain our critical infrastructure. It also

Drupal 9 readiness is as easy as cleaning up deprecations for your Drupal 8 project. SimplyTest is well positioned to help with this. Deprecation ReportingYou can generate a report of the deprecations by performing the following steps: Go to simplytest.meUnder “Enter a project name:”, start typing the name of your project and select itSelect the relevant 8.x branch (not release, as this will also scan unreleased commits)Expand “Additional Options”Click “Add Additional Project”Start typing “Upgrade Status” and select itClick “Launch Sandbox”Go to “admin/reports/upgrade-status”Select your

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 TugboatQAA new one-click demo frameworkA new development environmentAll efforts could not have been possible without the generous sponsorship from TugboatQA (a product created by Lullabot), Centarro, and Linode. And, community time offered from Hook 42.The rest of this post outlines the release and its significance.TugboatQA BackendHow did we get here?The backend infrastructure of SimplyTest.me was one server running as a

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.For me to be effective, I need to keep my eyes open for unique ways to help the project. Much like our larger community, we must be opportunistic to remain sustainable. Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is just that. I previously participated as a mentor, helping students port security-related modules to Drupal 8. I was approached by Matthew Lechleider (slurpee) to see if there would be a fit for

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. Contribution takes many different forms. Our community recognizes many aspects of contribution, but I believe the spirit of the Winborn award is to “think bigger”. Community members find creative ways to have impact well beyond just