Burying the lede: oh, by the way...

This isn't necessarily big news, or even new news, but it's important to me: last June I became a Drupal module maintainer. I had previously submitted a couple of patches to one of the modules we use at work, and after some time without any comment, I decided to ask the module maintainer about it. He immediately offered me the position, since he hadn't been able to give the module the attention it wanted, and, with trepidation, I accepted. I've cleaned up the code and accepted my own patches, and I'm working on some longer term goals for the module, though I also have not been able to devote the time to the module it deserves.

This is all part of my goal of immersing myself more into the Drupal community. Their software powers this site, as well as 19 others at work, and it is my software of choice when it comes to freelance projects; I wanted to go beyond answering a few questions in the Drupal forums or occasionally making myself useful on IRC. I've also attempted to ramp up the social side of the Drupal equation, and though I haven't been able to make it to the various DrupalCons since DrupalCon Boston back in 2008, I'm holding out hope that 2012 is my year. In the meantime, I've attended Dries' State of Drupal talks at MIT and various Drupal user group meetups both in Massachusetts and down here in Georgia.

And now that Drupal 7 is out, I'm itching to take it out for a spin. I've been so focused on 6 that I haven't had a chance to look into what it would take to upgrade my module, though I imagine a trip through the Coder Upgrade module would go a long way toward building a Drupal 7 branch. I've been learning a lot of the Drupal 6 API, building modules for work, but I've also tried to keep an eye on where the API differs from Drupal 7. I'm even toying with an attempt to design my own theme. I'd probably still build off of Zen, but try to take a structured approach to the design: wireframes, palettes, intelligent/consistent typography, icon design (gulp), the whole deal. This is inspired by an article about the BBC's own Global Visual Language, which, though a year old, continues to resonate in my mind.