About the instructor
acting as Dries' proxy behind the podium
Welcome!
I'm excited you're here because when I was getting started with Drupal development, I sure wished there was a site like this around. My main goal with Build a Module.com is to help developers get comfortable with Drupal at a much more rapid pace than I did. Drupal has a lot to offer (a lot!) but so much of it is buried in code or documentation that you can go years without learning everything that really should be in your essential Drupal toolbox right now. Books are great - I learned from them in the beginning - but well-crafted videos can help you connect the dots in a way that's impossible with anything but in-person training. Videos are a much more affordable option, and are accessible world-wide. I've had developers contact me from all sorts of places I've had to look up on a map to thank me for these videos. I'm excited to play a part in your learning, wherever you are!
Before I started Build a Module.com, I'd spent several years climbing up the Drupal learning curve, and it was well worth it. In a matter of a few months, I switched over all of my client projects to Drupal and instantly was able to offer a level of value that I hadn't come close to before. Thousands of vetted, well-established modules, a network of developers with a common workflow, and a culture of sharing solutions to common development problems are all tremendous assets I suddenly had available to me. But it wasn't easy. I had years of development experience under my belt and learning how to tackle problems the Drupal way was a serious challenge.
Since then, I've contributed a number of interesting modules, presented at Drupal events, started a local Drupal users group, and have even made a few contributions to core Drupal. My entire livelihood is based off of providing Drupal services. Build a Module.com is my way of boiling down some of the lessons I've learned into bite-sized bits. My hope is that for every minute a viewer spends watching a video, they'll save 10 minutes of trying to dig up answers some other way. So far, the feedback I've gotten has been very encouraging. Viewers have written to tell me that even though they've read nearly every Drupal book they could put their hands on, it was the videos on this site that really helped make things click, and that makes me very happy.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope you learn some valuable lessons while you're here. And if we run into each other at a Drupal event, be sure to stop me and say hi, it would be great to meet you.
Cheers!
Chris Shattuck