Drupal 7

Maps can be a powerful tool for sharing information.

A well built map can make data and ideas accessible to people in a way that is not always easy to do in words. Most of us use maps on our phones and in our cars to help us get around. What you don’t see everyday are maps being used to share dense amounts of information in easily accessible and highly informative ways. Maps can tell a story, or help influence the way we think, even motivate us to help with a cause.

In Part 1 of my article on The Drupal Maintenance Challenge & How to Manage It, I raised some interesting problems inherent to planning out and executing a Drupal website project. Now in Part 2, I will give some advice on how to address these challenges based on what I’ve learned in my time as a web developer.

One of Drupal’s greatest strengths is it’s huge catalog of modules and themes. At the time of this writing, Drupal boasts over 15,000 modules and almost 1,500 themes on Drupal.org. The challenge is knowing which modules, themes to use and how to maintain them with custom code and other customizations throughout the life-cycle of a website.

The attendee list at this week’s Atlanta Drupal Meetup group ran a wide gauntlet. There was a mix of business owners, newbies, marketers, and even someone with a Drupal.org ID under 1000. We broke up our normal presentation format and had informal talks about Drupalcon Denver, the job market, and trends. As usual, we went around the room and allowed for introductions and announcements. When one of the attendees, we’ll call him “Jack”, was in the hot seat, he gave a typical hello, but then broke the introduction format and asked a question back to the crowd. He asked, “I’ve only been working with Drupal for a few weeks, what tips do you have for those that are just starting out?”