Howto: Build Something Amazing with Drupal 8

Using the example of a recent project I completed creating a core Drupal 8 architecture for a well-known UK specialist holiday travel company, this session will cover four simple questions to ask before you write any code which, when completed, ‘magically’ provides the “How?”:

1. What exactly are you building?

2. Who is building it and who for?

3. When is it going to be built?

4. Why is it being built?

With Drupal 8 moving us 'off the island' it makes it even easier for those used to existing languages but new to Drupal to get up and running with it, however the issue of what to do next has not changed much. Drupal is a community of people building and maintaining a constantly evolving Rapid Web Application Development Framework not just an off-the-shelf CMS product with a set number of features and ways of doing things, and as such there are many different ways to achieve similar things with Drupal but how do you know which approach to take? Many start to code way too soon - in the 15 years I've been delivering CMSs, 10 of those Drupal, no-one has *ever* asked me for rocket science, it's all the same thing - the three "C's" of the internet - Content, Commerce, and Collaboration. Every client thinks they are a special snowflake but in reality they share many similar functions as their industry peers, with just a layer of their own specific business logic on top, and by building Drupal itself instead of forking it we will grow the project - at the moment Drupal is modular on the code side but when it comes to real world implementation there needs to be much more collaboration on industry verticals, and Drupal 8 makes this a much easier process, hence this talk. 

Over the past ten years of delivering Drupal to digital agencies, local government, and enterprise clients I have developed a simple process which, when adhered to, provides a 'birds eye' view of what you are trying to build with Drupal in order to see how best to achieve it leveraging core, contrib, custom code, and community. By using this method we also scale Drupal organically instead of forced through selling it as a product and putting strain on the well-meaning but oft over-worked community.

This talk is appropriate for all skill levels.