On August 13th, I had the pleasure of enjoying another Drupal Camp Asheville. This has become one of my favorite Drupal camps because of the location and quality of camp organization. It has the right balance of structure, while maintaining a grassroots feel that encourages open discussion and sharing.
The Mediacurrent team at DrupalCamp Asheville
I didn't make it up for the training sessions or sprints on Friday, but from what I hear, they went well. I did drive up early Saturday morning to make a long day of it. The first thing I noticed was the diversity of session topics. I think the planning committee did a great job of placing the sessions so that each block had something for everyone.
While I did attend some sessions and presented on Guardr, I find that BoFs and hallway shop talk (or as my coworkers call it “shrop talk”), to be very valuable. Google defines "Shop Talk" as "conversation about one's occupation or business at an informal or social occasion." I had a great time talking shop with Drupal friends that I have known in the community for years and some who I met for the first time.
When sharing with others about daily work challenges and successes, it becomes obvious that we all have so much in common. Many of us run into the same challenges with time estimation, development workflows, keeping up with tech, technical hurdles in a project, physical and mental health, etc. When sharing openly about struggles and challenges, solutions to seemingly impossible problems can emerge.
The real win is being able to share and help others. Helping others comes with benefits. Simple acts of sharing personal experiences, podcasts, web links, and getting to know someone can help someone regain confidence for their work, solve a problem, and start a new friendship.
So what kind of shop talk did I have and enjoy?
- Caught up on Backdrop CMS progress, usage and some new security related modules being back-ported from Drupal 7.
- Shared tools for auditing Drupal sites for standards and security.
- Met up with some coworkers and Drupal camp attendees at the Mediacurrent event booth.
- Learned about some command/standard security questions used in RFPs.
- Shared some questions I had with improving Composer usage with Guardr for Drupal 8 and received some great suggestions.
Drupal Camp Asheville was a lot of fun. I want to thank the Asheville Drupal User Group and the sponsors for making this camp a reality and allowing me to have some dedicated time to enjoy a part of the Drupal community in the North Carolina Mountains.