Sevaa Group looks forward to DrupalCon every year! Not only is a great chance to connect with the community, but it’s also a great reason to visit a new city! Although we didn’t present any talks this year, as we did in Nashville, but there were still a lot of great sessions that we learned from. Some of our favorites include:
1. Gatsby & Drupal
Gatsby was a hot topic at the Con this year, with multiple sessions discussing the framework. Joe Shindelar, lead developer and trainer at Drupalize.Me, described how Gatsby and Drupal work together to create decoupled applications and how to handle private content within a decoupled application. Gatsby allows developers to pull data from Drupal and other CMSs to generate static pages. This allows for efficient deployment, updates, and a more user-friendly editorial interface. In addition, combining Drupal and Gatsby can be used to create sites that handle aspects like authentication and personalization.
Our developer, Ed, wanted to learn more about Gatsby in mind this year, “This seems like more and more of a good idea each time I learn about it. Joe went a little further into how the Gatsby/React internals work than I have typically seen with other overviews e.g. that React initially renders its templates statically as an unauthenticated user then surgically rerenders any authenticated stuff again once the JSON API response comes in. Probably the best overview I’ve seen so far, he’s got a website as well!”
2. Delivering Headless Commerce
“Headless” was another buzz word that we heard at DrupalCon. As Senior Drupal Consultant at Commerce Guys Matt Glaman describes, headless commerce “separates the customer experience layer from the core business application.” In 2018, the Commerce Guys research ways to deliver headless Drupal Commerce. This lead to the Commerce Cart API to power progressively decoupled “Add to Cart” forms and shopping cart interfaces. In addition, Matt went through several functions of an e-commerce site (cart, auth, etc) and showed examples of how to handle them with a headless setup with both the JSON API and GraphQL.
3. Ignore the Naysayers: Your RFP Can Be Brilliant!
RFPs are a primary part of any project manager’s job, and it’s important to stand out from the rest. Joe Crespo, Director of Accounts at Aten Design Group, discussed how to be prescriptive, and how to make use of initial goal-setting – a great way to integrate OKRs! In addition, Joe talks about what to include in an RFP. Although most RFPs are pretty straightforward about their requirements, it’s important to be upfront about timeline and budget.
Exploring the Emerald City
Outside of the conference, we enjoyed various seafood meals and sightseeing. Although a rather gray city, the community was very welcoming and the city’s architecture was amazing! Here are some of our favorite moments:
Sevaa Group supports the Drupal community in any way we can, whether it’s sponsoring DrupalCamp Atlanta or working with Drupal on a daily basis. Talk to us about how we can help you with your next Drupal project!
