I have found the web site (drupal.org) to excellent even better than the books. Instead of adding a new source I think we should add to the ones we already have.
David A. Shaver D. A. Shaver Web Design Web Page Design for Small Business www.dashaver.com PO Box 594 Galesburg,IL 61402-0594 309.343.0027 On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:39 AM, James Benstead <[email protected]>wrote: > Thanks for the comments. > > Drupal Dojo is great, when it's running - but it does seem to me that it > lacks a little organisation. What I am suggesting doesn't necessarily need > to be new documentation, per se, but instead *the organisation of existing > documentation under a useful structure*. > > Perhaps calling it Drupal University is a bit misleading as I don't forsee > there being any formal assessment or accreditation, but there would be > structured courses to work through. For example, "Drupal 101: Beginning > Drupal" which could teach complete newbies how to set up a core installation > on a local or remote server; or "Drupal 201: Basic Theming" which could > explain how .tpl.php files worked and how CSS works in Drupal. > > The Packt books are great, but they are short and sweet and they don't > offer an overall structure. Pro Drupal Development is superb and offers a > great structure, but it has its limitations: in short, *it's a book*. > First off, you have to buy it, for real money. I have no problem with people > making money out of open source software (especially when their work is as > brilliant as in the case of PDD), but I do think there should be a free, > "open source" alternative. If for no other reason, the cover price of PDD is > huge for developers in 2nd or 3rd world countries (i.e., the majority of the > population of the planet) and they should have an alternative. Secondly, you > can't interact with a book: having a structured set of web resources would > mean people could comment on and discuss the resources, kind of like > students do on a real university campus. > > I suppose the resource that gets closest to what I'm thinking is the Drupal > Cookbook - this could be Drupal 101. It fits my proposal because it doesn't > provide new documentation, but just organises what's already out there. But > more importantly, it answers the question, "I am at stage X in learning > Drupal, what should I do next?". Granted, it answers the simplest version of > this question, and for more advanced developers the answer well may be > multi-faceted - "if you want to specialise in X, go and learn Y" - but it > does crystallise what I'm proposing. > > Again, anyone got any more thoughts on this? > -- > Google Talk/Windows Live Messenger/AIM: [email protected] > Yahoo! Messenger/Twitter/IRC (Freenode): jim0203 > Jabber: [email protected] // ICQ: 7088050 > Skype: jimbenstead > > > > 2009/12/28 Yani <[email protected]> > >> http://www.drupalbook.com/ >> >> That looks like a good one. I'll make that my first D7 book. >> >> Yani >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] [mailto: >> [email protected]] >> On Behalf Of Andrew Schulman >> Sent: Monday, 28 December 2009 7:37 PM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: [development] Proposal: Drupal University >> >> > Shell out some cash on books by Matt Butcher / Packit Publishing. >> >> The Packit books are fine as far as they go, but are usually short and >> basic. >> For a detailed look at Drupal's big picture, I highly recommend Pro Drupal >> Development, 2nd ed. by John VanDyk. 2nd ed. is for D6, but I see that a >> 3rd >> edition for D7 is due out in April. >> >> >
