Code-driven Development: Use Features Effectively

Training Details

Date: Monday, March 19, 2012
Session Time: 9:00am-6:00pm
Room: 210
Breakfast and Lunch will be provided.
Need more info? Check out the Training 101 page for more!

This training session is sold out. Unfortunately, we do not have a wait list. However, the Drupal Association is collecting names for interest in future training sessions.

In a full-day training aimed at Drupal developers we will show how to improve the Drupal development workflow, especially regarding traceability of changes, smooth upgrade of production sites and distributed team workflow, by using code-driven development techniques and Features.

We will assume familiarity with Drupal development and with a workflow based on code versioning and database dumps. Then we will briefly recap the benefits and basic usage of the Features module before moving to the more advanced topics of achieving a solid, clean, efficient and sustainable workflow.

We will see:

  • how to put the whole site configuration in code, even when a module does not offer a proper Features integration;
  • the usage of a controller feature to manage site updates;
  • the update process and the difference between structural and incremental updates;
  • tips to deploy features faster by using Drush and an optimal shell configuration;
  • how to write reusable features.

Who will gain the most from this course?

The target audience is Drupal 7 or Drupal 6 developers (the course will address both cases) who want to improve their development workflow.

What will you learn?

Participants will improve their Drupal development workflow, by learning how to:

  • Keep track of all changes to a website
  • Work in a distributed team with no risks of overlapping during development
  • Reusing components and settings
  • Updating production sites cleanly

What will you receive during the course?

We will be using slides, meant to give an overview of the subject and to allow the audience to envision how the proposed workflow would fit in their working environments.

Students will receive handouts with the slides and a printed "Code-driven development cheat sheet" containing synopsis and description of all the Drush commands and command-line utilities shown, as well as a list of "do's and don'ts" in code-driven development and tables with the structure to use for .info files, .install files and field/views naming conventions.

Practical examples featuring elements taken from real Nuvole projects and adapted as courseware will be used as assignments.

Pre-requisites for the course

Some PHP and Drupal development knowledge is required, as well as a basic understanding of how the Drupal hooks system works.
Familiarity with version control systems (GIT, SVN) can be helpful too.

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Company: 
Nuvole
Instructor/s: 
Experience level: 
Advanced

Register

  • Cost (in combination w/conference admission): $450.00
  • Cost (w/o conference admission): $550.00
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