New book: Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers

My new book, Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers, is now available in electronic and print form. I think the potential to draw more Windows programmers into the Drupal community will benefit all of us.

The book is a programmer's introduction to Drupal, coming from a Windows developer's point-of-view. I cover the Drupal page lifecycle and how it differs from the .NET page lifecycle. I talk about the hook model and how it differs from .NET's event-driven architecture. I also have an introduction to PHP for the C/C# programmer, since PHP might be new to a lot of Windows developers.

The book is centered around Drupal 7 and getting it to run on a WAMP stack. I focus on shortening the learning curve by going through a series of exercises that create a real module, define it as a block, configure an administration page, and write theme functions for the content. I also cover permissions, testing, the database abstraction layer, and the process for creating an installer.

The book highlights the $100 VS.Php add-in for Visual Studio, which provides Intellisense, breakpoints, and step debugging for PHP and Drupal. There is an appendix where we go through the installation of the Microsoft SQL Server driver for PHP PDO and get everything running on IIS. Another appendix covers the process of taking a photoshop mockup and getting to a production theme using the excellent Omega starter kit for Drupal 7.

If you are a Windows developer and you are here on Drupal.org reading this post, then this book is definitely for you. And if you know someone who prefers Windows to other environments, or is compelled to use Windows because of a job or contract, they could probably benefit from the content of the book.