June PDX Drupal Meetup
I caught wind of a Drupal meetup tonight, and since I’m going to be working with Drupal in the near future I thought I’d stop by and check it out. My main goal was to hear about other people’s experiences using Drupal in a multilingual environment.
This was my first time attending one of their meetings, but I think the turn out was impressive for such an informal get-together (I’m guessing around thirty people showed up). There were several newcomers to Drupal that were just wondering what the buzz was about and how it could make their lives easier. After some introductions, the talk flowed mainly around nodes vs. pages, views and CCK. I think a lot of people got their questions answered and got a jump start on their projects.
On the multilingual side of things, I was not so fortunate. By the end of the night, I didn’t find anyone who was already using Drupal in more than one language. A couple people mentioned waiting for Drupal 6 with it’s pile of i18n additions, but that’s not really an option at this point since I need to get something up and working. So, my plan is still to stride boldly forward, armed with a list of modules people mentioned (I’ll post more on that once I have a chance to use them), and my newfound friend.
After the meeting was over, I lost track of time while meeting people and sharing ideas. Eventually our conversations migrated into the parking lot, and we decided we should all go home and sleep before the sun started rising again.
Overall it was definitely worth going - I didn’t learn what I went for, but I got some good ideas (not just about Drupal!) and met a bunch of new people. If you’re in the area and have an interest in Drupal, it’s a great place to meet others and see what kinds of things they’re doing with it in the real world. Thanks to Sam Keen for organizing and the bus project for providing the meeting space.