Cleaning up the issue queue with Bug Smash Initiative, Pamela Barone
Pam kicked the evening off telling us all about Bug , a community initiative that focuses on fixing bugs in Drupal Core. The project was set up by Lee Rowlands and is literally smashing its way through the issue queue.
Pam shared some numbers first, to give us a taste of the scale...
7474 open bug reports
1092 marked as major or critical
2254 — marked as ‘needs work’ (which means there’s at least one patch that just needs to be reviewed)
15,021 closed bugs
Pam said the key to the group’s work process is “triage, triage, triage”. She gave examples of going through the old bugs and adding in steps to reproduce; reviewing and updating an issue’s priority; and closing old/outdated issues including duplicates.
The project started on 30 May, and since then they’ve:
Closed 612 bugs (outdated, can’t reproduce, etc.)
Fixed 125 bugs
Pam also gave us a few reasons why she contributes to the initiative:
Australian time zone friendly
Collaborating with core committers and subsystem maintainers
Karma — help others, and they’ll help you
Feels good to participate in improving Drupal
Learning lots of new things through the triage process
Supportive community
Salsa’s developers are also contributing to this initiative by working on manual testing and QA tickets as part of the BugSmash list.
People can join Bug Smash at:#bugsmash in Drupal Slack or find out more on Bug Smash’s Drupal community .
Experience with WordPress vs Drupal as a developer, Queenie Robertson
Queenie talked about how she likes developing in both Drupal and WordPress and sees different strengths and weaknesses (and sometimes just differences) between the two CMSs.
She started off with a quick, high-level table that compared the two CMSs before going into some more detailed analysis. She covered:
Ease of learning — Drupal as steep learning curve
Core file size — WordPress at 14MB vs Drupal at 28.3
Different database — The serialised format of WordPress vs Drupal’s relational database
Security — Drupal’s way better
Updating core modules/plugins — WordPress has auto update, which has pros and cons
Modules and plugins — In WordPress everyone seems to do their own thing (!) but the way they structure the modules and plugins with different tabs is handy
Rest API — WordPress core comes with it already enabled, but with Drupal you need a module
Content migration — Much simpler in WordPress
Media library — WordPress is simple, it’s easy to see thumbnails and it has bulk upload, but you can’t create custom media types or custom views
User roles — Drupal is a clear winner in this area
Content types — Drupal comes with multiple content types and custom fields but in WordPress you need external plugins for content types and new fields
Path auto/permalinks — Drupal is better in this area
Content workflow — Drupal’s workflow is far superior although WordPress’s scheduling feature is handy
Drupal career pathways working group, Kristy de Vries
Kristy started with some background info about the working group, which evolved from discussions at DrupalSouth 2019. The focus is on providing better opportunities for people to come into Drupal or for junior developers to learn more. There is a large demand for Drupal developers, but a clear shortage of talent.
Kristy highlighted some of the areas the working group is focused on, such as:
Training — Train-the-trainer, mentoring and global training days
Materials — Providing resources for learning pathways with Drupal, e.g. frontend skills, backend, DevOps, etc., and a training portal
Corporate opportunities, such as a job board and internships
Events, including uni days, trade shows, roadshows, etc.
The current priorities are setting up the job board, building the internship program and setting up train-the-trainers.
The group is also looking at teaming up with not-for-profit companies, helping them build websites while giving aspiring Drupal developers experience and a project for their CVs.
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If you have any feedback or suggestions on what you’d like to see for future Meetups, or if you have something you’d like to present, please contact kristy.devries@salsadigital.com.au.
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