Interview: Trevor James, author of Drupal 6 Performance Tips.

Photo Credit: James Mason

Trevor James is the co-author of Drupal 6 Performance Tips which teaches you the ways to maximize and optimize your Drupal framework using Drupal 6 best practice performance solutions and tools.

Trevor is a Web developer specializing in Drupal, based in Frederick, Maryland, USA. He has been designing websites for 13 years using a combination of HTML, XHTML, CSS, and ColdFusion. He has been using Drupal intensively for more than 3 years. Trevor's focus is on building web applications for higher education, public education (K-12), non-profit, healthcare and small business environments. He is interested in the best methods of using Web services with Drupal, Drupal site performance, and using CCK, Views and Panels to develop front-end interfaces to support data-intensive websites. He loves teaching people about Drupal and how to use this excellent open source content management framework. He is also a contributor and community member on drupal.org and related Drupal community projects. Additionally, Trevor contributes Drupal and open source related book reviews to Slashdot.org regularly.

You can follow Trevor’s Drupal musings and work at his Web site here: http://variantcube.com.

Packt: Your book is published now. How is the feeling of being a published author?

Trevor: It’s a good feeling. I always wanted to see my name and my writing officially in print, especially when it comes to a discussion of open source and Drupal technologies. This is a great method of contributing back to the Drupal community of users and developers and I’m happy to contribute my expertise on Drupal back to the Drupal project.

Packt: What benefits did writing a book bring to your specialist area?

Trevor: Writing the book added topics that were missing from the library of Drupal handbooks and documentation that Packt, other tech publishers, and drupal.org are releasing. A book on Drupal performance was needed to get people (both users and developers) started on the large scale and complex discussion(s) of making Drupal sites run better; and this book will hopefully pave the way for more titles on Drupal based performance to be released in the coming years.

Packt: Our authors usually have full-time jobs whilst writing for us. Was this the case for you and how did you approach managing your time?

Trevor: Yes. By day I’m the Webmaster in the Technology Services division of Frederick County Public Schools in Frederick, MD, USA. Writing the book was my part-time and evening-based job. Managing time was challenging as it is anytime you have multiple jobs and projects. But I enjoy multi-tasking and working on many complex projects at once. It helps me to excel in my field and also to learn new skills by the hour. Writing also helps to discern all of the complexities of Drupal, and focus my attention on how to train users and developers to use the Drupal CMS. It’s a nice companion skill to practice alongside coding and configuring applications.

Packt: Whilst writing your book, did you find that it overshadowed personal life in any way? How did you deal with this?

Trevor: Not so much actually. I find that writing a smaller amount of text each day helps to get the chapters completed quicker for deadlines and prevents getting bogged down on weekends. The writing didn’t cut into personal time as much as I thought it would. My advice is to write about 4-5 pages per day while on deadline and you’ll get the material written quickly without sacrificing a lot of personal time. Of course my wife Veronica and our family was super understanding of the time I needed to get the book completed and also very supportive of the entire endeavor.

Packt: Do you have any advice for other authors who may be interested in writing for Packt, but are still unsure?

Trevor: Don’t be afraid to inquire with Packt about what book ideas they have in the pipeline. Ask if you can look at some chapter proposals and don’t be afraid of revising the chapter topics towards your level of expertise if you get taken on as an author to write the book. The adage about writing what you know best is true. For my first title with Packt I co-authored, so I advise new authors to see if you can co-author your first book or work with a team of multiple authors. It will help to speed the writing process up and also organize the workload in a more flexible manner for you.

Packt: Do you have any tips for other authors, or tricks that you learnt whilst writing, that you'd like to share?

Trevor: Take breaks often. Write 2-3 pages and then take a break. Keep your chapter outline organized and updated. I would make color-coded notes on my outline - for example after I submitted each chapter I would add the date of submission to the outline and note whether the chapter was in its first review stage or technical review stage. Keep your acquisitions editor updated as far as your timetable and targets for deadlines. Packt’s team of editors is very flexible and will work closely with you, and keeping an open line of communication with them is very important towards the success of the book.

Read other Packt titles and other books on your subject/topic so you can get used to the Packt style and get other author’s perspectives on topics. Read as much as possible while you are in the writing process.

I’ve found that if I write using a simple notepad or wordpad editor and just add image placeholder notes (of where I know I’ll insert an image in the text) I can write quickly and not get bogged down in style. I can then simultaneously take the screenshot images and save them to the images folder. Then when I have all the text I can copy and paste it into Word, add the images into the placeholder areas, and then format everything before I pass the chapter to my editor. This workflow is smooth and helps me to get the material written and formatted quickly.

Packt: How did you find the overall experience of writing your book for Packt?

Trevor: It was (and is) a good experience. I’m liking writing my 2nd title for Packt even better than the first. I love the topic I’m working on now and I’m much less anxious about the process and getting all the style guidelines down since I’m now used to the process from the first book’s experience. You also learn a lot more about the application you’re working with by writing about it. So you take your level of expertise up a notch when you sit down and write about its functionalities.

Packt: During the writing process, did you come across any issues/ difficulties that affected your writing and how did you overcome these?

Trevor: On the first book on Drupal Performance I ran into some technical issues with specific modules and code that was not functioning correctly. This would cause slight hold-ups in the writing process since I’d need to spend time diagnosing the code and module bugs. I actually had to scrap some discussions of specific modules due to the module not performing or causing bugs that would ultimately affect the book’s narrative flow negatively.

One method I’m using now to overcome these issues is to spend time testing modules and code before writing intensively about them, and making sure to confirm that the module will work without issue for Drupal 6.

Packt: Was there anything interesting that happened during the writing of the book?

Trevor: Many of the Drupal projects I was working on while writing the performance book presented me with performance related issues. So it was interesting to find myself writing about Drupal performance while actively diagnosing Drupal performance problems on multiple Web sites.

Packt: How did Packt’s Acquisition Editors help you - what kind of things did they help you with and how did they support you throughout the writing process?

Trevor: The AE’s made sure I was meeting my deadlines and helped tweak timetable if necessary. Confirmed receipt of chapter submissions. Made sure I was submitting my images and code with the chapter text. Sent back first draft revisions quickly and later sent over technical reviewer’s comments and suggestions. Kept all of these revisions organized and kept me organized ultimately. They were also very flexible with me when I would suggest a change to a chapter outline or topic.

Packt: What projects, if any, are you working on at the moment?

Trevor: I’m working on a new book for Packt on integrating Web services with Drupal sites. It’s going to be a great title and will have a lot of information on integrating Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and other applications and services with your Drupal site. It’s a book that will show off a lot of Drupal’s power as a rich and multi-featured content management framework.

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