By robertdouglass on

You are now able to pre-order the upcoming Drupal book that is being written by John VanDyk and Matt Westgate. This book is going to blow you away. It covers the internals of Drupal 5.0 in depths not attempted anywhere else. The diagrams are clear and informative and a real highlight of the book. Anyone attempting Drupal development at any level will benefit from this book, and it will become an invaluable resource to the Drupal project.

[EDIT: The book covers Drupal 5.0!]

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems in use today. With it, you can create a variety of community-driven sites, including blogs, forums, wiki-style sites, and much more. Pro Drupal Development was written to arm you with knowledge to customize your Drupal installation however you see fit. The book assumes that you already possess the knowledge to install and bring a standard installation online. Then authors John VanDyk and Matt Westgate delve into Drupal internals, showing you how to truly take advantage of its powerful architecture.

You'll learn how to create your own modules, develop your own themes, and produce your own filters. You'll learn the inner workings of each key part of Drupal, including user management, sessions, the node system, caching, and the various APIs available to you. Of course, your Drupal-powered site isn't effective until you can efficiently serve pages to your visitors. As such, the authors have included the information you need to optimize your Drupal installation to perform well under high-load situations. Also featured is information on Drupal security and best practices, as well as integration of Ajax and the internationalization of your Drupal web site. Simply put, if you are working with Drupal at all, then you need this book.


Pro Drupal development book by John VanDyk and Matt Westgate

The only bad news is, it won't be out until April 2007 :(

[Note about the Amazon affiliate link: proceeds from Amazon affiliate sales which result from the links in this post and this page will benefit the Drupal association when it is fully incorporated.]

Comments

rszrama’s picture

rszrama commented

Since it's not coming out till April... did you write it using 4.7 or 5.0?

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

- Robert Douglass

-----
Lullabot | My Drupal book | My Digg stories

rszrama’s picture

rszrama commented

Excellent. : )

This would be helpful around the office so I don't have to be the one to train the new guys... just let John and Matt do it for me. ^_^

----------------------
Current Drupal project: http://www.ubercart.org

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

Digg story here.

- Robert Douglass

-----
Lullabot | My Drupal book | My Digg stories

oadaeh’s picture

oadaeh commented

Drupal 6.0 will be eminent by the time the book is released. With the speed of Drupal development, I hope it won't be totally outdated when it hits the shelves.

I've been waiting for this book with much anticipation ever since I heard on one of the Lullabot podcasts what it was supposed to be. I really wanted it last year at this time, before I even knew of it's existence.

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

Drupal 6 will more likely be 3/4 of a year away if history repeats itself. We don't even have a release candidate for 5.0 yet.... this book is perfectly timed. People will have to wait 2-3 months after the appearance of 5.0 for an expert book on the subject. Not bad!

- Robert Douglass

-----
Lullabot | My Drupal book | My Digg stories

dvessel’s picture

dvessel commented

I'll be getting my order in soon. I love diagrams and hope there's lots of it.

–joon

matt westgate’s picture

matt westgate commented

John and I have been including a couple diagrams per chapter to highlight key components such user authentication, cache mechanisms, the search API, node building, etc. So between the diagrams, code snippets and the actual text of the book we're hoping for an engaging and informative read.

***
www.lullabot.com - making open source easy

dsamuel’s picture

dsamuel commented

The funny thing is that I thought this book was already out!

Mean while, has anyone used Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, And Community Websites? Is it a useful reference for setting up Drupal from the outside (i.e. configuring, not developing code)?
------------------------
Partly Technical
------------------------

vm’s picture

vm commented

@ dsamuel --- yes although Mr. Douglass digs into a few of the contrib modules too.
Ron Mercers Book from Packt titled Drupal also spends quite a bit of time on setup and deployment of drupal.

bduenskie’s picture

bduenskie commented

Will there be a rough cuts available in PDF while the book is in development?

gmackenzie’s picture

gmackenzie commented

I agree with the above. Would be great to be able to pre-order the book with access to rough cut (beta) PDFs. Some of the Ruby On Rails books were released this way. Seems like a good way to get feedback, bug reports, initial sales projections and some cash before the final draft. May or may not be feasible for this book, but it's a cool new trend. I know I'd buy in to it if it were available.

zoon_unit’s picture

zoon_unit commented

Offering PDF beta copies to purchasers of the book NOW would vastly increase early orders of the book, and employ the skills of other Drupal users to proofread text and find potential errors.

I'm an old Foxpro programmer, and the authors of Foxpro books have been doing this for years with great results.

The PDF also benefits readers greatly by allowing them to take their book along on trips, via the laptop. Access to key information and searches on the PDF are also much more useful than the pulpwood copy.

By having readers order the hard copy version, your publisher is guaranteed their revenue.

bryansd’s picture

bryansd commented

Thanks to a bad case of insomnia...I went browsing for Drupal books and pre-ordered the book. Although I'm not sure if John VanDyk and Matt Westgate would be happy, Amazon dropped the price from USD $44.99 to $29.69. For those that may have already ordered this book at a higher price through Amazon...don't worry, Amazon has you covered.

Pre-Order Price Guarantee! Order now and if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and release date, you'll receive the lowest price.

I would be curious to hear from Matt or John as to whether contributed modules are also discussed in this book. I've just started digging into the modules Views and Panels and feel like I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg for these modules. Anyway...I can't wait until the month of April rolls around...

Bryan
CMSReport

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

This book covers how to program using core Drupal APIs and techniques. There is plenty to read, but I don't think Views or CCK are covered.

- Robert Douglass

-----
Lullabot | My Drupal book | My Digg RSS feed

matt westgate’s picture

matt westgate commented

Hi Bryan. Thanks for the book order. I can't wait for April either ;-)

In the "Working with Nodes" chapter we compare some of the differences between the programmatic ways to create a node and its atttributes versus how to do this with CCK and CCK contributed field modules and also mention views.

While we don't cover contributed modules in detail, we do make plenty of references to them when it's apropriate. For example when we discuss image manipulation, besides discussing Drupal's image API we also mention imagecache and imagefield module. The one exception about contrib modules is devel module. We cover quite extensively how to use it for site optimization and debugging.

***
www.lullabot.com - making open source easy

mo3.mo3’s picture

mo3.mo3 commented

Now i can finally learn how to use Drupal to it's fullest!
thank you :)

kdorff’s picture

kdorff commented

Reported by Amazon -- my copy shipped today, a week or so before the official "release" date - I should have it on Wednesday.

zoon_unit’s picture

zoon_unit commented

I may be the first person to receive a copy from Amazon....

anyone else?

jakent22’s picture

jakent22 commented

I got mine yesterday. :)

kiouv’s picture

kiouv commented

Hi,

I'm a complete newbie abour Drupal, could any happy owner telle us about the good and bad points of the book ?

Thanks

vm’s picture

vm commented

The book digs pretty deep into how Drupal woks from the guts out. see: http://drupal.org/node/137201 for the reactions of others who have already recieved the book as well. If you are serious about learning Drupal this book should be in your library.

Bockereyer’s picture

Bockereyer commented

Hi,

I got mine last week, it was worth waiting.

Boy, am I going to need caffeine now, tons of it.
From what I already read, great book!

Everybody who's in web design using Drupal (what else?), buy the book NOW! You can help the Drupal Organization if you order via the book's website http://www.drupalbook.com.

By buying the book you will save yourself lots and lots of time and sleepless nights.

(Hi guys, do I get my reward now?)

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

Very well done. I have just started investigating Drupal. This book points to many possibilities to make a truly custom fit web site. The best part is that it is written clearly enough that non-programmers can follow along and actually implement their ideas. Thanks.