[drupal-docs] New book about Drupal?

[Kieran Lal]

When thinking about adopting a trend I tend to look back at human  
history and makes bets based on things that seem inherent in our nature.

Love, Hate, Growth, War, Art, etc.

If I were going to write a book on Drupal, I'd write about  
communities.  They have always existed and likely always will.    
PHPTemplate however, has a limited lifetime.

I'd start with a history of this community, because that story will  
be timeless.   Then I'd write about the types of communities that are  
emerging to use these tools.  Communities that are undergoing  
disruptive changes should be particularly interesting.  Politics,  
artists both have the smell of a great overthrow of the powers that be.

Community members and community organizers want to know the  
principles of building successful communities and how Drupal can  
assist them.  They need decision criteria and choices.  But most of  
all they want the why's behind a successful recipe.  One of my  
favorite technical books is Essential COM by Don Box.  It's a great  
read, even though COM is not hot anymore.  He explains eloquently the  
why of how Microsoft came to tackle the challenges that unix  
wouldn't.   The why last's, where as COM didn't.  What are the why's  
behind Drupal's current choices, that's a story with real value.   
Where did we lead, and where did  we follow, who made those decisions.

If you write a page about the event module, how will you explain to  
the editor that event module is getting a patch every few days.    
You'll get blasted when the book comes from the printers because it  
will be wrong.  In the future, I'll be walking along in the mall and  
see the book in the $0.99 store.  Wow!  Drupal 5.7, that's so old, I  
can't believe we actually had to use that stuff.

There are approximately less than 400 CVS accounts for Drupal right  
now.  There are 6 billion people who are part of a community one way  
or another.

Leave the technical stuff to the docs team and, write the great  
pragmatic Drupal narrative that needs to be told.

Cheers,
Kieran

On Aug 9, 2005, at 9:15 AM, Laura Scott wrote:

> Count me in as one more person who sees a cultural revolution  
> happening, in which Drupal is playing a part. And I think it would  
> be a shame to not look at the possibilities.
>
> But like Jon who just replied as I was writing this, I think "Web  
> 2.0" and "Blogging 2.0" are nonsensical -- the former especially,  
> which seems more of a marketing strategy by big corps to sell their  
> platforms. To me, it's rather ridiculous to try to attach release  
> numbers to the continuous evolution of interactivity. And to add a  
> number simply to say, "This isn't the web of the '90s," I think is  
> an error. I know a lot of web pundits and developers have adopted  
> the terms, but in the end it doesn't capture the kaizen of web  
> evolution, and impiies that there actually is some sort of stable  
> worldwide web in equilibrium, unchanging (and therefore safe to  
> invest in).
>
> /rant
>
> That said, I wonder if the cultural present and the anticipated  
> future of interactivity aren't a bit too big for a book ostensibly  
> about Drupal.
>
> On the other hand, to make the book purely for developers I think  
> misses the boat. There are aspects of administration that could and  
> shoud be included. A discussion of creating and customizing  
> phpTemplate themes I think could be one rather large chapter, at  
> least. And then there are ways to use Drupal in applications -- as  
> a blog, as a photoblog, as a business site, as a community site, as  
> a campaign site, as a software distribution site, as a music store,  
> and so on -- all with existing real-world examples.
>
> I also would like to submit the idea that -- assuming this is  
> intended as a book printed on paper -- that the text then get  
> posted as a wiki, so that it can become a living document as new  
> releases come out, new hacks are invented, new modules are  
> developed, new interactivity patterns of use create new demands on  
> the software, etc.
>
> There seem to be plenty of volunteers. Please add me to the list of  
> potential contributors. I could write or co-write on themes, and  
> applications of Drupal to various uses.
>
> Laura
> pingVision
>
> Liza Sabater wrote:
>> On Aug 09 2005, at 05:58, Jeremy Epstein wrote:
>>
>>> a) be focused towards developers - they're much more likely to be
>>> interested in reading it than layman end-users;
>>
>> Completely disagree.
>>
>> Let me finish writing my notes about the BlogHer conference. If  
>> anything BlogHer shows there a lot of smart and sophisticated  
>> bloggers out there HUNGRY for technology like Drupal but they  
>> don't know it even exists. I am actually saddened that nobody from  
>> the community came to BlogHer to talk about Drupal or CivicSpace  
>> because, especially in my panel, the product would have been  
>> perfect as a topic of discussion.
>>
>> One more thing : The two most successful blogging companies were  
>> co-founded by women. And these women focused on usability and  
>> flexibility. Blogger was bought by Google. SixApart is right now  
>> the biggest blogging company out there, with the capacity to have  
>> gobbled up LiveJournal and spawn poliglot versions of TypePad.
>>
>> They are great tools for people coming into blogging but people  
>> like Dooce [ www.dooce.com ], for example, need Drupal to manage  
>> the communities that have evolved around them. She represents a  
>> whole group of bloggers "graduating" into blogging 2.0.
>>
>> Heather told us during my panel that she closed comments and  
>> trackbacks because of the trolls and spam attacks she was having.  
>> She just could not manage the more than 500 comments a day coming  
>> at her. But she has a posse of devoted readers that could have  
>> managed trolls and kept house for her at Dooce.com if she had a  
>> tool like Drupal. And if she cranked it up a notch with the tools  
>> of CivicSpace, she could have "Dooced" maps of people connecting,  
>> networking. And this, just for what a lot of you would derisively  
>> call a "mommyblog" -- my thoughts about that are here http:// 
>> www.culturekitchen.com/archives/003210.html
>>
>> If you think Drupal is just for developers you have no  
>> understanding of the cultural revolution that blogging has  
>> wrought. That revolution was a metaphor in net art 10 years ago.  
>> What we are seeing here in conferences like BlogHer and online in  
>> places like DailyKos, is a cultural phenomenon agenced by the  
>> technology and changing how we are living and forming communities  
>> online and off.
>>
>> My challenge to you as a developer is to take a step back and  
>> think of yourself as the guy chipping flints off a rock in the  
>> cave. Think of what that did to the development of humanity.  
>> You're the flint chipper, blogs the spearhead. Look how easy and  
>> transparent the development of that technology was. That's  
>> blogging 1.0. The question now is what does blogging 2.0 look lik.  
>> That's what Drupal is poised to be.
>>
>> Making the book just for developers would be like sticking that  
>> spear in your own foot just because you can. Do you really want to  
>> hurt yourself and limp around while others are running away with  
>> this cultural revolution?
>>
>> Best,
>> Liza Sabater
>>
>> AIM - cultkitdiva
>> SKYPE - lizasabater
> -- 
> [ drupal-docs | http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/drupal-docs ]
>

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