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■ INTRODUCTION
This book will not teach you every bit of HTML, nor will it teach you every bit of CSS, PHP, MYSQL,
or Apache. But it will teach you absolutely enough so you will be empowered to easily learn the details on
your own. If you know how to make text blue with CSS you can easily use the same concepts to make the
text bright purple, and to make the text a bit larger in headers, and so on. My point is, you simply need a
primer, and this book is exactly that. If I forget the syntax to float an element to the left, and have text float
around that picture on the right, I look it up. But I know how to look it up, I know where to look it up, I have
enough of a background that I can read any technical writing and figure out what I need to get done, and I
have enough background so that even though I’m usually more of a back-end programmer in my job role, I
can easily double as a themer and decorate a page to mimic designs I’ve been asked to implement for web
pages. The point is, this book is a primer, giving you enough, teaching you to fish, and teaching you where
to go to get work done. After I’ve taught you enough so you get the primary concepts for a web technology
I’ll provide links to info on the rest of the details, links that I often have used and continue to use. Even when
you know this stuff, you will use the Internet as your manual to get exact syntax, or to remember how to use a
command.
KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGY
Before you take on any new skill, it’s important to understand why you’re doing it or how that skill
might take you further in your career. In the Drupal classes I teach, I’ve been starting off by showing this
great video: http://youtu.be/nKIu9yen5nc. This clip is an awesome video from some famous people
exposing how important technology skills are today, and the video highlights that those with knowledge
of how to program are “rock stars” in today’s working world. The future is now, and I hope this video
will inspire you to work hard to learn.
I also should call attention to this page on code.org: http://code.org/stats. Note that even today
there is a tremendous shortfall of programmers—and as of this writing it’s expected that there will be
1,000,000 more jobs requiring programming skills than students by 2020. I firmly believe that every
young person should learn basic programming skills. Programming is an awesome tool to have in
your tool chest and should be as ubiquitous as a hammer or screwdriver. Programming skills fetch the
highest-paying salaries for young graduates, as the http://code.org/stats page points out.
I love the quote from Einstein, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” Having deep
knowledge of programming I often feel like one of the most useful people in a company boardroom, and
the joy of feeling useful, higher wages, and great jobs and companies looking to attract my skills makes
it quite a worthwhile endeavor to learn this stuff.
Ready, Set � � � Let’s Learn
So. . . get yourself into a good, comfy chair, ideally with your computer in front of you, and let’s learn some
Drupal. I’m confident that this book will jump-start many careers, and I have evidence of this already,
having succeeded in getting internships and jobs for many of my students in the Boston area with some top
companies that provide Drupal services. I’m excited to be able to contribute toward helping folks learn the
skills to find and maintain great careers in the technology space.
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