Promiscuous Drupal
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A cheeky look at building Drupal web sites out of external web services. Drupal as a mashup engine? It can happen, but there are some important issues to consider.
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Promiscuous Drupal
- 1. Promiscuous Drupal Imagine a daringly racy subtitle Monday, March 23, 2009
- 3. this is why we love drupal http://www.flickr.com/photos/herzogbr/2274372747/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 4. this is what we make it Monday, March 23, 2009
- 6. Drupal as one tool among many http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladyada/3039492078/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 7. Enlarging the Toolbox* • Spam Filtering (Mollom, Akismet) • Searching/Indexing (Solr, Google, Aquia) • Feed Generation (Feedburner) • Content tagging (Calais, TimesTags) • Authentication (OpenID, etc.) • Sending bulk mail (Mailchimp, etc.) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladyada/3039492078/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 8. Enlarging the Toolbox* Farm out services that... • Benefit from centralization (auth, ads) • Require expertise (bulk mail wrangling) • Demand massive processing or sample data (fast indexing, spam filtering, auto-tagging) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladyada/3039492078/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 10. Getting Dangerous http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_diesio/2548025554 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 11. Takin’ it up a notch • Posting links? Use Delicious. • Shoutbox/short updates? Use Twitter. • Photos and galleries? Use Flickr! • Video? Youtube, Blip.tv, etc. • Reviewing books? Amazon, Goodreads. • Comments? Disqus! • Blogging? Use Wordpress. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_diesio/2548025554 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 12. I… but… my forms! • You will never enter product information as accurately as Amazon. • You will never be as popular as Flickr. • You will never write a Firefox Plugin for Link Field. • You will never enjoy transcoding your own video. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_diesio/2548025554 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 13. Become the crossroads, or enhance native content http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidelong/542906832 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 14. Become the crossroads, or enhance native Link to content Content http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidelong/542906832 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 15. When does it work? • Common on social sites • Ever used Facebook? • News sites (CNN, etc.) • Personal Aggregators (FriendFeed, Tumblr) • External content is treated as something that lives out there http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidelong/542906832 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 16. How can you do it? • Good ol’ aggregator (it’s themable now) • Activity module (it supports views!) • DayLife API, NowPublic’s new service • Native modules (delicious, flick, etc.) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidelong/542906832 Monday, March 23, 2009
- 17. Gobble up content Monday, March 23, 2009
- 18. Gobble up content Use external sources as your primary source Monday, March 23, 2009
- 19. Does this make sense? • How hardcore are you? • How badly do your content producers hate the node form? • External content is treated as something that lives in here. • Drupal becomes a presentation engine • Drupal becomes a… mashup? Monday, March 23, 2009
- 20. How the..? • Native modules • FeedAPI + Feed Element Mapper • Nodes become flexible wrappers • Lay your own pipes (we’ll see this later) Monday, March 23, 2009
- 21. Drupal PHP Apache MySQL Operating System Monday, March 23, 2009
- 22. Flickr Drupal Delicious PHP Google Apache MySQL Stuff Operating System Monday, March 23, 2009
- 23. Flickr Delicious Google Drupal Stuff Amazon Monday, March 23, 2009
- 24. Flickr Delicious Google Drupal Stuff Amazon Monday, March 23, 2009
- 25. Are you insane? http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaub/2424695862/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 26. Maybe a little insane • Filtering the firehose (tagging helps) • Importing the Internet • 8192 auth methods (OAuth helps?) • Even Amazon goes down. • Magnolia (moment of silence) http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaub/2424695862/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 27. Yeah, kind of insane. • Congratulations! You’re an integration specialist! • How much do you trust the Internet? • You can’t form_alter someone else’s site. • You’re assembling data streams instead of modules. http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaub/2424695862/ Monday, March 23, 2009
- 28. Monday, March 23, 2009
- 29. Rolling your own integration Monday, March 23, 2009
- 30. Doing it with Drupal • drupal_http_request() • PHP 5 - SimpleXML & JSON • drupal_write_record() • Expose your tables via Views • Wrap local vs. remote • (See “Building APIs That Rock”) Monday, March 23, 2009
- 31. If you release it... • Support the full API (or as much as you can) • Fail gracefully • Don’t force data into nodes • Cache data whenever you can • Don’t write a SQL query builder • PHPDoc, PHPDoc, PHPDoc! Monday, March 23, 2009
- 32. Don’t forget… • Respect API policies (Limits, Caching) • Don’t trust the data you get back • There are cutting-edge options • Custom Views queries (Flickr?) • In Drupal 7, remote fields • NowPublic’s Aggregation system Monday, March 23, 2009
- 33. Leveraging our Synergy • Drupal is a great tool • Its strengths can be weaknesses • Outsource services • Drupal can be a mixer • If you roll your own, think ahead Monday, March 23, 2009
Editor's Notes
- I got started in Drupal 'cause it was very flexible, lots of stuff in one integrated package.. Wanted a blog that had wiki links that had image galleries and timelines and… While other systems integrated, Drupal emphasized native systems and interconnections The dark side: Not Invented Here syndrome. If it’s not made of nodes, it’s unclean!
- This is what it can produce. Talked to a client building a web app, data warehouse with drupal with firefox plugin. They listened to the community, heard “Build it in Drupal: CCK, Nodes, Views!” “OK, we’re trying to figure out how to do that and scale it to a billion or so records.
- We need to see Drupal as one tool in a big toolbox The LAMP stack is already designed this way! We’re used to some things, like memcached, analytics, heck -- the database! Web services and web APIs are starting to fill important roles, too. Spam protection? Advertising?
- Lots of people, lots of sites, are starting to rely on these services. These aren’t controversial, and there are big wins.
- Lots of people, lots of sites, are starting to rely on these services. These aren’t controversial, and there are big wins This is the first step: Drupal supported by services