[development] Drupal's approach

[luis almeida]

Because Drupal is an open-source and collaborative CMS, I think it is very
interesting if schools start adopting it.
For my school's project I've chosen to work with Drupal and I was hoping to
learn from it, giving my time in return.
So I leave here my (so far) experience with Drupal use.
This is my school project and this is the way it was planned to be carried
out.

==DRUPAL'S APPROACH

1 - DRUPAL| INTRODUCTION: First steps

Reading / viewing tutorials and handbooks..

 >Studying Drupal's API
 >…

Installing different Drupal versions

 >Requirements
 >5 and 6

Install different modules

 >Download
 >Activate
 >Use

Create new simple modules

 >New content types
 >…
2 - DRUPAL| COMMUNITY: Interaction with drupal members

Enter Drupal community:
>Create a user account

>Install development versions: 5.x, 6.x and 7.x

>Entering Forum:

 >>Make some simple forum maintenance: Close old issues
 Critera:version: x.y.z >active/patch/task

  >>>Read all active issues of x.y.z version
  >>>Bump all feature requests (x.y.z), why?

   >This version is no longer maintained
   >Feature requests are placed against the most current dev version.
   >Give these feature requests one last chance of being reviewed
   >Clean up old issues that are no longer useful
   >Understand which of these feature requests have been implemented in more
recent versions

  >>>Review all bumped issues and see community response to them
  >>>Participate on finding solutions to this issues
  >>>Is this useful?

   >It's good for learning
   >x.y.z feature requests become a closed chapter
   >Some good forgotten ideas can be reconsidered once again

  >>>Downsides?
   >Users get spammed with old issues


  >>>"Bug hunting":

   >Read/understand
   >Reproduce
   >Solve some simple bugs by patching



3 - DRUPAL| DEVELOPMENT: Improve or enhance the software
 Two possible ways:

  >Create new contributed modules
  >Start a new Drupal Site

4 - CONCLUSION

My current status is at "bump all feature requests", so I have aprox. 80
x.y.z. issues left.
But at this moment, I can't bring this task to an end using my first account
(because it's blocked), so I would like to have some community
feedback about my Drupal Approach:

 >Is it worth taking?
 >Does it bring any value to Drupal community?
 >What can be done to improve it?


Once this is a community I think this as  place of debate: ideas / work
methodology etc.
So it's my understanding that all opinions and different approaches should
be respected and discussed.
Because of my recent block account experience  (which I'm having a
difficulty to understand it's reasons) I would also like to know what
the general opinion on blocking user accounts is:

 >Criteria (when does it applies?)
 >Procedures (how should be the process conducted?)


I'll end now, leaving a couple of suggestions concerning the reason that
brought me a blocked account:
By bump x.y.z feature requests, I "disturbed(chx)" Drupal's users. What if:

 >We could add a subscribe functionality in issue posts, in order to allow
users keeping track
of the issues each one was interested in, avoiding to be popped up with old
issues or topics they have no interest in.

              Or

 >Create a forum maintenance routine that places all feature requests from
non-maintained versions against the most current
dev version.
By doing this I hope to bring to discussion some questions I find important
to any person considering using and learning with Drupal.

I appreciate the time you took reading this mail and any opinion/suggestion
or whatever, I consider it valuable to my Drupal's experience.
(Any difficulty understanding my English, just ask me that I'll clarify)
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