31daysofsimplifyingdrupal

Drupal seems to have its own language for things, which can make communication with the rest of the world confusing. What the rest of the world calls plugins or extensions are called "modules" in Drupal. "Pages" are "nodes," "entities," or even "bundles." A "web developer" everywhere else is identified as a "site builder" by Drupalists. "Front-end Developer?" Drupal calls them "themers." If the VP says they'd like a new template, don't fire up the the text editor and start writing Twig, they're probably just trying to tell you that they need a new content type.
 

Recognize diversity in sites.  Some are bigger, some are smaller.  Some are formal, some are loose.  Some need to be reliable, some need to be cheap.  Everybody has different needs, and almost nothing is going to be true for everybody.  Use what makes sense for your site, and break the roles that don't apply to you.

Let simple things be simple.

It's easy to add things.  More! More! More!  But that's a trap.  More doesn't always mean better.

Sometimes just a little is enough.

31 days of making Drupal simpler and easier to manage, day 18: Subscribe to "The Weekly Drop" Newsletter!

17/31 days of making Drupal simpler and easier to manage: CSS Editor module. It's surprisingly difficult to make small visual changes in Drupal -- things like changing a font, setting a background color, putting a border around something. To make even small changes requires modifying a theme, or creating a new one, then getting it onto the server. While that might seem easy for a full-time themer on a development team, what options are there for the part-timer who just wants to make a little change?

No computer system lasts forever. But the data in the system is almost always more important than the code, and is often still relevant even after the system has reached the end of its expected lifespan. So...Don't wait! Do two things. First, when you load data into a website, keep a copy. Then as you build the site, and the data structures are fresh in mind (and you're building data displays) take just a little extra time and build in some data exports. They might come in handy someday. 

Never name anything "new!" Because someday it will be old. It's OK to name something "old" if you want :)

Project Browser.

Drupal 8 introduced many changes to the way Drupal sites are constructed and managed. One of the more confusing changes has been the use of Composer to install and manage modules and themes. While Composer has some advantages, it has complicated this critical step, which needs to be accessible even to people trying Drupal for the first time.

During his keynote for the (online-only) DrupalCon 2021,
@dries
talked about the need to show some more love for Site Builders, and introduced the Project Browser initiative:

Bootstrap's "Bootswatch" subthemes!

It's movie night! Twice a year, thousands of Drupalistas get together at DrupalCon. The best part of DrupalCon is the presentation given by @dries -- called the "DriesNote". It's always entertaining, as well as being informative. If you're not actually at DrupalCon, you should at least watch the DriesNote; it's broadcast for free as it's happening.