James Walker
VERY short powerpoint -- which lists the things to read and the groups to join. Then he talked more after that.
Get Involved! ("Shame on you" if you're not involved in community if you're on an open source project.)
You need to have a presence in the Drupal community if you want to have help getting things done, or getting your modules/patches submitted.
He likes the IRC site.
Free software is "a very social process". Important to get a general feel for the landscape of who knows who, etc.
Things move quickly, so you need to stay involved.
By staying on top of the news, you can design your code so that the upcoming features (say in 4.8) won't break it.
A lot of Drupal modules are about customising note types. But CCK and views are supposed to solve a lot of those problems.
Where to look for good example code:
- Drupal *core*
- Most frequently downloaded (at least these have the most eyes on them).
Choose a good name for your module. "Login Tobbogan" is crypticly named, but is a good module to make it easy to login. A lot of people overlook using it because of its name.
