[drupal-docs] New book about Drupal?

[Roland "Bryght" Tanglao]

I am totally down with the Kieran "why" approach. And I'd love to  
help in any way I can (co-author, proof read, write a chapter, sorry  
but I don' t have the time to write an entire book myself, don' t  
know how Djun does  it :-) !)

I am also down with a book that has Drupal community recipes (my user  
friendly word for best practises)

...Roland Tanglao, Chief Blogging Officer, Bryght, www.bryght.com
HOSTED 'Web 2.0' websites for organizations and communities
+1 604 729 7924 Skype/AIM/iChat: rtanglao
  rolandtanglao.com UrbanVancouver.com
this email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private


On 9-Aug-05, at 10:12 AM, Kieran Lal wrote:

> 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 ]
>>
>
> -- 
> [ drupal-docs | http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/drupal-docs ]
>