To be precise, I just added an entity reference item to 20,263 webform submissions in 449 milliseconds to verify that statistic 😀. This post is a technical but hopefully readable description of how you can add entity field items, en masse, without the need for a batch process, and how I arrived at that solution. But first, why did I need to figure that out in the first place?
Continue readingThis is a follow up to an earlier post titled Using Drupal for Digital Experiences; that post attempted to illustrate an abstraction for thinking about digital user experiences generally and suggested that Drupal could evolve into a tool for creating them. At the end of it, I asked readers to imagine practical applications for Drupal in that role as an experience builder. In this post, I share a story about a practical digital user experience IRL! Then, the post breaks down that experience and connects it back to how Drupal could power the same kind of experience. Finally, it highlights a contributed module that has the necessary functionality already.
Continue readingBuilding decoupled applications is hard. This post tries to explain why. It suggests that the predominant idea that decoupled applications have two elements, content and presentation, is wrong. The post introduces a third element—mechanics. It argues that most decoupled Drupal applications try to handle too much of an application’s mechanics on the front end and this leads to unnecessary complexity and difficult-to-maintain projects. It suggests that decoupled projects would be simplified if more of an application’s mechanics were handled on the back end. Finally, it makes concrete proposals for how Drupal core could do a better job promoting this architectural pattern.
Continue readingDrupal’s continued relevance looks to be in doubt. The way information is disseminated over the internet isn’t the same as it was when Drupal took on its present form. Information now makes its way to an organization’s audience via many different internet-connected mediums. The traditional website is just one of many mediums an organization has to be concerned with. Moreover, organizations want better ways to interact with their audience digitally. It’s not a one-way street any longer. This post argues that Drupal already has all the abstractions for this new world, but they’re hidden underneath optimizations made for the era of websites. It suggests that by removing these optimizations, Drupal could become a pivotal, free and open source tool for organizations to create digital experiences.
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