profiling

A general approach to debugging Drupal problems will be presented, followed by an overview of a variety of tools such as the Devel suite, krumo, xdebug, and client side debugging such as Firebug and LiveHTTPHeaders. In addition to debugging functionality, approaches to performance related problems will be covered. Some of these techniques apply generally to all web applications or other PHP code.

A structured debugging approach that narrows down problems, rather than making random changes and guesses, is the main goal of the talk. Developers should come away with an approach to debugging as a specific activity separate from ordinary developement, that they can focus on and improve.

The audience will have a chance to share any debugging tricks they have during a question and answer session.

Setting up a development environment is a repetitive, tricky, and time-consuming task. It's a *major* hurdle for any new developer.

Drupal Quickstart uses virtualization (Virtualbox) to offer new and experienced developers a pre-made, downloadable development environment, customized for Drupal development and theming.

Quickstart offers individuals a ready-to-go experience, and teams opportunities for standardization and easy collaboration.

In this session, I'll cover:
1) How to get started (I'll bring DVD's with Quickstart on them)
2) How to download and install Drupal 7 in one command
3) How to debug that project with XDebug and Netbeans
4) How to performance profile code with XHProf and the Debug module

It is possible to do this in a one hour beginner session because the tools are already setup in the development environment. For more info, check out the Quickstart screencasts on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/drupalquickstart

I'll present using the Quickstart 1.0 version. Based on download statistics and 3200 views on YouTube, I estimate between 500 and 1000 people have downloaded and use Quickstart on a daily basis.

Slides: 

Drupal_Quickstart_Presentation.ppt