Lotta links to Drupal learning material
In response to a recent request here, and just the urge to stay awake for a few minutes longer, I thought I'd post a mass of links leading to helpful info on Drupal.
First, let's start with the resources just at drupal.org. All of these pages are linked together, but looking at the links might bring some people just a little closer to feeling comfortable with the big D.
http://drupal.org/getting-started
http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/tutorials - check out beginners cookbook
http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/howto
http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/videocasts
http://drupal.org/handbook/site-recipes: That links to HowTo's, Tutorials, Videos, Snippets, etc.
Snippets for customizations: http://drupal.org/node/45471
Video and info on CCK: http://drupal.org/node/200657
How to troubleshoot: http://drupal.org/node/72108
Enhancing Drupal's functionality: http://drupal.org/node/33958
Developing a government website in Drupal: http://drupal.org/node/27661
Pains of supporting a new site: http://drupal.org/node/137898
Best practices: http://drupal.org/node/17557
Now branching out a little:
http://www.drupalsites.net/ = live examples
http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo - more lessons, etc...
http://buytaert.net/drupal-learning-curve nice chart from "I suck" to "I kick ass"
http://nanwich.info/DrupalCookbook.htm
http://www.drupalace.com/
http://drupalmodules.com/
http://acquia.com/blog - great development info
http://dgtlmoon.com/topic/drupal
http://blamcast.net/articles/drupal
http://drupalmao.com/videos - the MST3K of Drupaldom?
Interesting forum thread where someone finally comes to understand Drupal - good epiphany material here: http://drupal.org/node/214251
Themes and styling (mixed bag, not well organized sorry):
http://drupal.org/node/11810: PHPTemplate theme engine
http://drupal.org/themedeveloper
http://ftp.drupal.org/files/videocasts/moshe-theme-developer.mov
http://drupal.org/node/165706
http://groups.drupal.org/node/8901
http://drupalmodules.com/module/content-templates-contemplate
http://drupalmodules.com/module/content-construction-kit-cck
http://drupalmodules.com/module/views
http://themegarden.org/drupal6/
Books:
http://drupal.org/node/243594 - comments say it's good for beginners
http://drupal.org/node/201685
http://www.lullabot.com/blog/lullabook-status-update
http://www.stevensmedia.com/blog/book-reviews/drupal-creating-blogs-forums-portals-and-community-websites/
Performance:
I have a ton of links for MySQL and PHP optimization. I may post more later but I'm no LAMP jock so some of the data may be old or invalid. I guess I can post it and hope someone here will comment. Anyway, here's just a few focused on Drupal.
http://www.workhabit.org/how-do-you-support-500-000-users-drupal
http://www.johnandcailin.com/blog/john/scaling-drupal-step-one-dedicated-data-server
Related: http://www.johnandcailin.com/blog/john/scaling-drupal-open-source-infrastructure-high-traffic-drupal-sites
One final thing I'd like to leave you with - Drupal is complex and it's not perfect. If you see something that looks weird or broke, it might just be. Just look at the tens of thousands of postings to module support pages and forums. There is a lot of chaos that Drupalites accept just because the environment as a whole is better than some of the fragile parts. If you can approach it with this understanding, that not everything will make sense despite the fact that this CMS is so wildly popular, then you'll be able to roll with the punches a little more easily and make a lot more progress.
Ahem, well, that should be a decent start for anyone. Enjoy your reading...
