[drupal-docs] New book about Drupal?

[Laura Scott]

It seems we're talking about two different books now. I'd been trying to 
broaden the original book idea, which seemed to be one of those books 
relevant today but not two years from now. Such is the lot for software 
books. (And in that context, phpTemplate, which is moving into core in 
the future, has more staying power as a topic than, say, admin control 
panel settings for blocks [which is certainly going to continue evolving].)

But perhaps of the two book approaches, Kieran's is more on target, 
taking the community aspect of it all and making that its own book, 
rather than trying to make one book for everybody.

Perhaps the question then is how does this book become about Drupal 
specifically and not a sort of, erm, Cluetrain Manifesto 2.0?

When talking about community building, again, how do you get beyond the 
fact that the web is changing as we have this exchange? A book written 
last year most likely would have had little or no discussion about 
tagging, for example, and certainly would not have much of a clear 
picture how tagging would play into inter-site interaction. Cultural 
adoptions of technology are unpredictable. (Who'd'a thunk that 
songs-as-ring-tones would outsell all music downloads?) Meanwhile, 
trackback is so 2004. Spammers have all but killed it on any site with 
any respectable traffic. So that trackback chapter isn't so interesting 
any more....

I guess I'm saying that anything "we" or anyone here writes is 
necessarily going to be a snapshot in time, so unless it's a history, 
most content will get stale with time.

I'd be delighted to contribute on both book projects.

Laura


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 <http://pingv.com>
>>
>> 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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