Nate Prouty

Recently I found myself in a catch-22 with a Drupal site I have running locally as a sandbox for development. A module I had enabled (SecurePages) was working great. Later, though, when I went to start up the web server after I had taken it down, I couldn't establish a connection to the SSL that the module requires. The server wouldn't start because of this. I first tried turning off the the "Secure (SSL/TLS) Connections" includes call in httpd.conf.

The last couple of months I've been working on a new website using Django. I'm back to working with Drupal, and that was always my intention. This was my first Django project and I have to say I really enjoyed developing on the platform which, for this particular project, I feel was a great fit. Python, the language on which Django is built, is a beautiful programming language.

I just downloaded Drupal 6 so I can play around with it a bit and check out the new fancy features. I'm not sure when but at some point I'll be upgrading this site to the latest version of Drupal. One new feature I definitely like is the drag and drop functionality for weighing items such as menus. I need to explore it some more, but so far I like it.

Drupal is a very powerful platform for developing dynamic websites. A lot can be done with it and so it can be a bit overwhelming to see all that's possible before having a set plan of what one actually wants and needs. That said, the first thing for me to do in redeveloping the Pickett Hill Guide Service website is to determine exactly what it is the site needs to deliver. Knowing that, going forward, I can then look into which modules I should use.

It has been said that the best way to really learn something is to try and share your knowledge with others. To that vain, I will be documenting my experience with developing a website using Drupal: the issues I run into, my approach and reasoning behind development decisions, etc. The ultimate goal is going to be to create a website at a relatively rapid pace. There are certain ideas I have in terms of what the site will eventually become and it's my aim to prove to myself that Drupal will be the right tool for the job.