We were at DrupalCon
David Shorthouse
Here at the Encyclopedia of Life, we are on constant lookout for cool technologies and user groups. One that we have had our eye on for a long time is Drupal, a content management system that uses PHP and MySQL as the backend database. Drupal has an immensely active fanbase and an increasing number of installations throughout the world. DrupalCon was held March 3-6, 2008 at the Boston, Massachusetts Convention & Expo Center. If you’re interested in how the conference was organized and what sessions were held, take a peek at the program (PDF).
Peter Mangiafico and I attended DrupalCon and were floored by the enthusiasm. I was particularly interested in the jQuery and GIS/Mapping sessions. Brian Aker’s (MySQL) plenary was also very helpful. And, this from Peter:
I was at DrupalCon on Thursday, March 6 and the first thing I noticed was that this seemed to be the highest concentrations of laptops per square inch I have ever seen, with a higher percentage of glowing Apple symbols on the back of them than the population in general. You could tell you were in the right rooms just by glancing around and noticing folks coding in the audience in real-time. The sessions I went to were well-attended, with the “Using Drupal with External Data Sources” session spilling out of the room. It was great to see how many folks are using Drupal to solve their specific needs across different domains, from education to business.