I am a Drupal back end engineer. I work to give you control over the technology you use. That means open source technology without vendor lock-in.
This is a bare-bones Drupal 10 site I set up to record things I learn. Many times, I’ve had to learn something a second time because I didn’t keep notes the first time. I hope to fix that by keeping notes here. I also hope the notes help you, whether you’re learning something for the first, the second, or the hundredth time.
I get offers almost every day from recruiters looking for Drupal talent. I appreciate sincere offers, but most fail in ways that are obvious to me as a candidate. I used to write a response to every offer, but that took too much time. Now I delete most offers as soon as I receive them. If you are a recruiter, this may baffle you. Why would I ignore your offer if I’m open to work? For recruiters who have been waiting to hear back from me, consider this my response. For recruiters who want to do better, here are some suggestions.
In Florida’s election we have a constitutional amendment on abortion rights to vote on. I believe that choosing to abort a child is wrong in almost all circumstances. My belief is founded on both moral and religious convictions. Every abortion causes me anguish. Yet I am voting for the amendment to restore abortion rights in Florida. Why?
I am not voting on whether to have abortions. I am voting on whether to harm women and doctors who terminate a pregnancy before a child is able to survive outside the womb. Here is the text of the amendment:
After the second assassination attempt against him, Trump claimed Biden and Harris had inspired threats to his life. Mr. Trump, I have a little advice for you. It might be in your interest to stop accusing your opponents and focus on the real danger. You yourself are inspiring threats to your life. You encourage your supporters to be violent. You tell them elections are rigged. You scam them with lies and false promises. When violent desperate people start to realize you’ve made fools of them, that’s dangerous for you. It’s not Democrats’ fault.
Drupal Forge is a non-profit project of the Drupal community. Our mission is to support vendors that devote a portion of their revenue to sustaining the software and infrastructure Drupal needs to be a great product. Our product launch buttons are part of a business model to sustain contribution. This makes them different from launch buttons that hosting vendors offer on their own.
Due to concerns that the launch button would funnel business to one vendor at the expense of others, Starshot leadership announced that the launch button would use WebAssembly to run site trials in a user’s browser without external hosting. This approach has the advantages of being able to run Drupal off line and not needing anyone to pay for hosting. However, it is technically challenging and will not work for everyone. Sites running in WebAssembly cannot be visited by others and are not persistent.
Dries Buytaert introduced the Starshot initiative at Drupalcon Portland 2024. The idea was to create a product for less technical users, one that could be installed and updated without using the command line, that would have the best content creation tools pre-installed and configured, and that could be customized without writing code.
At DrupalCon Portland 2022 people were talking about makers and takers. The fear was that companies that just take and use free software would outcompete companies that help to make it.
This is a test of the Starshot development environment provided by Drupal Forge.
Lately the technology and economic podcasts I listen to have been filled with speculation about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Friends and colleagues have worried. What if the capabilities of AI continue their exponential growth? If AI became more powerful than humans, could it be controlled? Would AI see humans as competition to be eliminated? What could we do to stop it? These threats sound new. In reality each of us has be dealing with threats like these our whole lives.