Didn't Make DrupalCon Paris? Get the Lowdown Here

If you are in any way a Drupal (news, site) web cms fan, then the conference you need to attend is DrupalCon. The event is held twice a year -- once in North America and once in Europe -- and brings together, developers, designers and decision makers from across the community.

Of course, the Drupalcons of '09 are now history. The most recent one was in Paris, and the good news is that there's still a chance to see what went down -- a number of the conference sessions are now available online. As a plus, Drupal consulting firm Lullabot has pulled together some tasty interviews from the show floor, including chats with project founder Dries and Drupal 7 co-maintainer Angela Byron (aka webchick).

Watch and Learn Online

DrupalCon Paris had over 100 sessions. That has translated into over 85 videos online to watch. Here is a sample of what you will find:

• The State of Drupal (watch it)
• The Social Stack for Fun and Profit (watch it)
• Drupal 101 (watch it)
• How to Contribute to Drupal (watch it)
• Drupal Software Design Patterns (watch it)
• Performance and High Availability Best Practices (watch it)
• Open Atrium Building a product with Drupal and the Power of Decentralized Features (watch it)
• Semantic Web Fundamentals (watch it)
• Drupal 7 Status Updates and Next Steps (watch it)

This is just a small sample of what you can see. Get the full list on archive.org.

Drupal 7 with Dries and Webchick

Once you've had your fill of DrupalCon Paris videos, you can turn your attention to the upcoming Drupal 7. Lullabot has done a number of podcasts on Drupal that may interest you.

In particular, there's a discussion with Drupal Founder Dries Buytaert. In it he summarizes his keynote address on innovation cycles in Drupal 7. He also talks about the architectural changes in the upcoming version that he is most excited about.

And, Angela Byron, aka webchick, talks about being a co-maintainer on Drupal 7, what she's most excited about in the new version and the different strategies she has used throughout the development cycle.

Drupal 7 in Code Slush, Nearing Freeze

As you know, Drupal 7 has now entered its five week code slush period. During this phase you can still submit patches, for the most part. If your patch includes new functionality or features, unless it relates to one of the 10 key exceptions -- which we cover here -- then you may be out of luck.