All Drupal core initiatives with leads attending DrupalCon Amsterdam took part in an experimental PechaKucha-style keynote format (up to 15 slides each, 20 seconds per slide):
2007 is the year of my first DrupalCon, and the year the #1 most wanted end-user feature was Better media handling. 2019 is the year that Drupal will finally have it. Doing things right takes time!
Back then I never would’ve believed I would someday play a small role in making it happen :)
Reusing and embedding media, using only the keyboard.
The text editor assisted in producing this HTML:
<p>Let's talk about llamas!</p>
<drupal-media alt="A beautiful llama!" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="84911dc4-c086-4781-afc3-eb49b7380ff5" class="align-center"></drupal-media>
<p>(I like llamas, okay?)</p>
If you’re wondering why something seemingly so simple could have taken such a long time, read on for a little bit of Drupal history! (By no means a complete history.)
The RESTAPI only got fairly small improvements in the 7th minor release of Drupal 8, because it reached a good level of maturity in 8.6 (where we added file uploads, exposed more of Drupal’s data model and improved DX.), and because we of course were busy with JSON:API :)
The benefits of backwards compatibility (BC) are clear: no users are left behind. Which leads to higher adoption rates because you’re often getting new features and you always have the latest security fixes.
This means users of the JSON:API 8.x-2.x contrib module currently on Drupal 8.5 or 8.6 can update to Drupal 8.7 on its release day and simply delete their current contributed module, and have no disruption in their current use of JSON:API, nor in security coverage! 1
I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. I’m excited to see more projects use it. And I’m confident that we’ll be able to add lots of features in the coming years, without breaking backwards compatibility. I was blown away just now while generating release notes: apparently 63 people contributed. I never realized it was that many. Thanks to all of you :)
I had a bottle of Catalan Ratafia (which has a fascinating history) waiting to celebrate the occasion. Why Ratafia? Mateu is the founder of this module and lives in Mallorca, in Catalunya. Txin txin!
The first half dozen years as a volunteer contributor/student, the second half as a full-time contributor/Acquia employee. Which makes this a special Drupalversary and worth looking back on :)
2006–2012
The d.o highlights of the first six years were my Hierarchical Select and CDN modules. I started those in my first year or so of using Drupal (which coincides with my first year at university). They led to a summer job for Mollom, working with/for Dries remotely — vastly better than counting sandwiches or waiting tables!
It also resulted in me freelancing during the school holidays: the Hierarchical Select module gained many features thanks to agencies not just requesting but also sponsoring them. I couldn’t believe that companies thousands of kilometers away would trust a 21-year old to write code for them!