New Orleans DrupalCon restrospective

05.25.16

This year I have been for the very first time in a north american DrupalCon. After Amsterdam and Barcelona, ​​this time I went to New Orleans from 9th to 13th of May. For those who have never been in a Drupalcon the main event is from Tuesday to Thursday with sessions and other activities, but there are many other activities during the rest of the week and the weekends before and after. While Monday is for trainings, Summits and sprints Friday is basically a Sprint Day where the Mentored Core Sprints and First-Time Sprinter Workshop are really important.

Mentoring

Although it’s not the first time I teach how to contribute to Drupal (we organized some Drupal Ladders in Drupal.cat), this was the first time I participated as a mentor in sprints of this magnitude. After some hours Scott Reeves made a live commit where I coincidentally participated as a reviewer when I was in Heidelberg.

Sessions

I basically attended sessions from the front end track. The talk I liked the most was given by John Albin. It was focused on workflows and tools used in the new version of the Zen theme, which we use at Ymbra: Living Style guides with KSS, process automation with Gulp and, above all, organization of the theme based on components.

I also attended the BoF organized to discuss how to move the logic from the current Drupal 8 Theme System to a more componentized structure using Twig.

Keynote

Another important moment was the Dries keynote talking about the current state of Drupal. He analyzed the point we are now in the adoption curve of Drupal 8 and showed how Drupal is being used today in many industries. He also pointed out various initiatives, including the Theme Component Library Initiative, which could greatly facilitate the life of frontends developers.

Apart from that I want to highlight two other initiatives I contacted these days. Firstly, the group that is working on Drupal Usability: they are doing a lot of work and need more people involved. On the other hand, after having a Community Summit, Sean Walsh and Zsofi Mayor are organizing a new initiative to share useful information among the organizers of Drupal camps.

Finally I would like to thank the Drupal Association to enable me to attend this event through a scholarship, otherwise it would not have been possible for me.

The next Drupalcon I’m attending will be in Dublin this coming September but before I am going to make a stop in Ghent for the Frontend United!

See you at the next Drupal event!

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