Hi Internet,

I know it's a bit late but better than never. Several Days ago I went to the Vancouver Drupal User Group March Meeting. I had a good time! My main objective of course was to network but I really learned quite a bit about how I can increase efficiency on my Drupal site deployment as well ways to reuse parts of older projects with some development tools.

The presentation topic was Reusable & Deployable Drupal Sites with Shawn Price. It was very informative and very technical. The bread and butter was all about how to do things well once, and only once. The techniques used Drush heavily and involved the Features Module and Install profiles. To avoid breaking the DRY rule he showed us the advantage of keeping a basic drupal installation profile as well as a set of features for any occasion.

I took away some new techniques as well as things to aspire to and research. My next Drupal project will definately make use of Subversion(SVN) to help me organize with collaborators and keep track of project progress/revisions. I've never been one to use the command line but the advantages of Drush are too good to pass up. The ability to update all modules on a site with the command "Drush Update" makes my mouth water. I am also going to look into Install Profiles to give me a more advanced starting point then the basic drupal install. Next on the list is the Features Module. I really want to start keeping some custom prebuilt features so that I can quickly deploy a "News & Updates" feature (or whatever I'll regularly need) on any Drupal site quicky and easily. Shawn was using an Administrative Menu module called Admin. I usually use the Administration Menu module but it seems like a good module as well, I'll have to install that too! I'll have to research/use/test all these modules to make sure I'm properly describing them.

If I have got the wrong ideas or if I missed anything about these modules don't hesitate to chime in. I unfortunately won't be attending DrupalCon San Francisco but I'll stay on top of the news.