QED42 has always been an ardent participant in the Drupal community. We pride ourselves for contributing to the Drupal community via modules, code patches, Drupal initiatives, DrupalCons, DrupalCamps or hosting Meetups!

Drupal Meetups play an integral role in fostering community. Dries Buytaert was quoted on Drupal.org’s getting involved page:

It’s really the Drupal community and not so much the software that makes the Drupal project what it is. So fostering the Drupal community is actually more important than just managing the code base.

We hosted the Pune Drupal Group monthly meetup on 18th May 2019 at our office. The healthy turnout to the local meetup was a reflection of how connected the Pune Drupal Community was.

Packed with people, plenty of snacks, and laptops our Meetup commenced. After a brief introduction from all the attendees, the lights dimmed and Meena Bisht from QED42 started her session ‘ Be Ready for Drupal 9!’

It was a highly interactive session that pivoted around Drupal’s ever-evolving nature. She spoke about how long Drupal 7 will be supported, Drupal 8 end of life, and how it would impact businesses. Drupal 8.7 features - Layout Builder and Media Library and challenges faced while moving from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8.

We welcomed the newest member to the family, Drupal 9.

The session also covered the Drupal release cycle, which justified the difficulties faced while moving to Drupal 8. We were relieved to know that upgrading to Drupal 9 would be a lot easier thanks to the minor upgrades.

The session shed light on why an upgrade is required, and what to expect out of Drupal 9. We ended the session with useful tips on tools for checking our deprecated code while preparing for Drupal 9.

Post session, we discussed the hurdles faced during the earlier version releases, our inhibitions, and expectations from Drupal 9.

After a quick break with refreshments and offline chats, we gathered back for the BoF session on the configuration management system. We discussed the origin of configuration management, as a Drupal initiative, the different configuration issues faced by us and identified solutions.

Lastly, we chalked out a map for the DrupalCamp Pune. All the attendees brought helpful ideas to the table, location, sessions, sponsorships, etc.

After an informative and super lucrative agenda of sessions, BoF, and DrupalCamp Pune planning, we wrapped up our Meetup.