Today, Beyond Blocks - the podcast I started last year and has 20 published episodes - passed 1,000 total downloads.

I've had some great guests on the show and discussed some interesting topics so far and I have others recorded and guests lined up for future episodes.

This week's episode will be with Eirik Morland again - the first returning guest - where we discuss the improvements and changes that have been made to Violinist.io since we spoke in January.

The first episode with Erik is here if you want to listen to it beforehand.

Thanks to all the guests and listeners of the podcast, and if you'd like to be a guest or suggest a topic, reply and let me know.

Authored by Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

DrupalCon 2024 is returning to one of the world’s most enchanting cities — Barcelona! As the event draws near, Drupal enthusiasts from around the globe are tapping out the rhythm of Spanish flamenco with their feet in anticipation. Now is the perfect time to explore the conference’s program and select the sessions that will inspire and invigorate you.

This week on the Beyond Blocks podcast, I spoke with George Gordon - a graduate from the School of Code who was recently employed in their first Junior Developer role - about their move into tech and software development, their experiences at hack days and meetups, and their introduction to Drupal.

I've been a mentor for School of Code for the last few cohorts as well as attending on-site events such as the TechConnect meetup and hack days.

I wasn't George's mentor, but I met him at a hackday earlier this year and at a PHP meetup a few months later, so I was happy to have him on the podcast.

Listen to the episode now.

Whilst speaking with Dave Liddament last week, I remembered a slide I've seen in some of his previous presentations, such as Effective Code Review.

On the slide is a graph that shows the amount of time needed to fix a bug at different stages of the development lifecycle.

Fixing a bug is the quickest and simplest when writing code.

It's harder when being code reviewed or QA or client tested, more so when it's being released, and the most difficult and expensive once it's in the maintenance phase.

Once it's live in the production environment, there's additional cleanup work to do which adds to the time and cost, and potentially damages your reputation.

The sooner you can find a bug, the better.

This is where tools such as automated testing, static analysis and CI pipelines shine and make it easier for you to find and fix potential bugs sooner.

Something interesting that Dave Liddament and I discussed was the use of value objects in application code.

Instead of using a primitive type, such as string, you can create a new value object for a specific type of string, such as an EmailAddress or, in my side project, a LicenceKey.

Both are strings, but using value objects of specific types can make the code more readable and its intent clearer.

A value object can contain additional logic, such as validation to execute an ensure the value object is valid, such as making sure a string is not empty, is a specific length or only contains valid characters.

This an approach that I'm going to use more going forward.

I also found a lighting talk by Dave at a PHPSW meetup where he explains this further and, of course, you can listen to the podcast episode after it's been released.

Drupal Forge is a non-profit project of the Drupal community. Our mission is to support vendors that devote a portion of their revenue to sustaining the software and infrastructure Drupal needs to be a great product. Our product launch buttons are part of a business module to sustain contribution. This is what makes them different from launch buttons that hosting vendors offer on their own.

Tags

• Drupal
• Drupal Forge

• Read more about The Drupal Forge business model
• Log in or register to post comments

Discover together with Norman Kaemper-Leymann and Yannick Leyendecker a selection of Drupal contrib modules tailored to specific use cases, including Config Patch GitLab API, Content Templates, Frontend Editing, and more!

Non-code contributions in open source communities attract considerable interest. Join a panel discussion with diverse experts who are actively involved in non-code contributions within the Drupal community to bridge a gap between experienced contributors and those considering their first step!

AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT integrate well with Drupal, but identifying the right use cases can be challenging. Explore together with Christoph Breidert the opportunities and limitations of LLMs and learn how to create impactful AI solutions!

Learn together with Artem and Bruno how to simplify content management using the Drupal modules “Content Templates” and “Frontend Editing.” Discover best practices for managing content at scale and improving the editor experience!