18.10.2016 Views

Drupal 7 Module Development

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Chapter 1<br />

We assume that you have your own web server stack and your own PHP<br />

development tools. The authors of this book each use different editors, operating<br />

systems, and web server stacks, so we collectively understand that there are many<br />

good tools for developing PHP applications. And <strong>Drupal</strong> itself doesn't require<br />

anything special.<br />

If you are just getting started, you may want to look at Acquia <strong>Drupal</strong><br />

(http://acquia.com). They offer entire application stacks to get you started on<br />

Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X.<br />

While running a PHP debugger is certainly not necessary, you may find running<br />

Xdebug or the Zend Debugger to be useful. (One of the authors of this book first<br />

learned how <strong>Drupal</strong> worked by stepping through an entire page load.)<br />

Version control with Git and CVS<br />

Managing source code is a major part of any software development lifecycle. In this<br />

regard, <strong>Drupal</strong> 7 coincides with a major transition period for the <strong>Drupal</strong> community.<br />

In years past, <strong>Drupal</strong>'s source code has been maintained in the venerable old CVS<br />

(Concurrent Versioning System) tool. However, <strong>Drupal</strong> has grown and the needs of<br />

the community have changed. <strong>Drupal</strong> is now moving to the Git distributed version<br />

control system.<br />

As we begin working with <strong>Drupal</strong> code, it will help to be able to have the tools<br />

necessary to work with Git. From command-line programs to full-featured desktop<br />

applications, there is no shortage of tools for this.<br />

The book's code and Git<br />

The authors of this book have been working with Git for some time (one, in fact, is<br />

leading the CVS-to-Git conversion). We have done our best to make sure that all of<br />

the code contributions in this book are available from a Git repository.<br />

You can access the code for this book, view it online in a web browser, submit<br />

patches, or even branch your own copy and build your own tool. All the code is<br />

located at GitHub:<br />

http://github.com/Learning<strong>Drupal</strong>7<strong>Development</strong><br />

From there you will be able to access each chapter's code—and in some cases,<br />

multiple versions of the same code.<br />

[ 21 ]

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!