With the first official release of Drupal 7 imminent, the first books on Drupal 7 start appearing everywhere. Some of them are first editions, others are updates of their Drupal 6 counterpart. One of those updates are "Drupal 7 module development", published on Packt and written by some of the most brilliant contributors to the Drupal project: Matt Butcher, Larry Garfield, John Wilkins, Matt Farina, Ken Rickard and Greg Dunlap. Oh my. I'm also very proud to be one of the technical reviewers of the book.
In the past the bible for Drupal module development has been "Pro Drupal Development". Let's see if this new book is as good, or can be a nice extension to this epic title.
The book starts of with a nice overview of Drupal's architecture, the stack it is running upon and the tools needed while developing Drupal websites, modules and themes. Don't expect a long theoretical but just the stuff you need to get your feet wet and take a dive into the wonderful world of Drupal develpment.
You are then guided to writing your first module. Yay! I was happy to see that Drupal's coding standards and writing tests with Simpletest were already introduced in the second chapter. You have to set your priorities. This proves this book has been written by some hard core experienced Drupal people.
Directly after introducing you to module development, you are being introduced to Drupal's theming functionality in two chapters that make up 60 pages in total. A lot has changed in the theming subsystem in Drupal 7, so this will also be a welcome introduction to people having developed and themed sites with older versions of Drupal.
One of the biggest changes in Drupal 7 is the introduction of the Fields API, or what used to be CCK. You are explained how the Fields API is architectured and are taught how to write new entities, widgets (the UI part of the fields API) using your own modules. This might be one of the most advanced subsystems in Drupal 7, so expect your head to spin if this is your first introduction to the matter. But all in all, the authors succeed in offering you a nice introduction.
The main advantage of this book over all other Drupal development books existing right now and soon to be published are probably the hefty 2 chapters written on Drupal's security and permissions systems. Roles, users, permissions, securing forms, securing ajax requests, node access, ... It's all covered in a length 75 pages writeup. If you need to work on a site where user management and security are key topics, don't skip reading this.
The final chapters cover the usual stuff like Drupal's JavaScript's layer (Drupal uses jQuery and adds some extra stuff like translatio, theming, ...), writing installation profiles (a very hot topic) and working with the new File API and Image API.
The book concludes with two appendices: one covering Drupal's new Database API and on covering some extra security topics.
If you want to take your first steps into Drupal 7 module development and you know your way in Drupal's interface already, this is a great book. It's not the easiest one, but you'll learn a lot.
If you've been developing for Drupal 6 and want to see what's new in Drupal 7, this book is a great read too. I bet more than 50% in the book will be new for you if you've never seen any Drupal 7 stuff.
In the past, Pro Drupal Development was the only good Drupal development book I would recommend to people. Both will be recommended material from now on.
You can buy the book at Packt's store.
Comments
I have read your review, It describes the book very well. I am a beginner and keen to learn.
@June: You can set this on the content type setting page : example : admin/content/node-type/story
Hi Davy,I have a easy question.
after I install Drupal7,the default comment form only has three fields,"Your name","Subject","Comment".
Why does my comment form have "Homepage" and "E-mail"?
I know it can be solved by adding custom fields.But I see your comment form seem to be implemented,only by the comment module.
Sorry for my English,Thanks.
June
The blog is good for the beginners who are learning drupal development. Hope this book would be a great one to learn and understand them easily.
The information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. We are also Drupal and TYPO3 development company based out of India. Thank you for all of your time and work.
Thanks
Rishika
Thanks, the real value for me hides in your comment ("My rough guess is that the packt book I'm reviewing here has better coverage of theming and security").
I ordered Drupal 7 module development as I liked its predecessor.
Drupal 6 module development was a great book and one of the best -if not the only one- in the market 100% useful about Drupal development. I'm going to wait for Drupal 7 still several months, but this will be the book to buy then -if nothing new emerges-
I haven't read Pro Drupal 7 Development but owning the first and second editions I can say it's really good. I would just take the table of contents of both and see if some topics are covered in one and not in the other. My rough guess is that the packt book I'm reviewing here has better coverage of theming and security.
I have pre-ordered the Apress book Pro Drupal 7 Development, Third Edition, the reincarnation of Pro Drupal Development mentioned at the end of your article.
Now I don't know if I should order this one, too. This book (Drupal 7 module development) seems to cover a little more than just module development, giving a wider description of Drupal in general. I don't know if that means Pro Drupal 7 Development being more focused on development and thus offering more for module developers.
an unbiased comparison between these two books would be nice.
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