Finding Creativity in Structure - Lessons on Technology from the Haiku
This presentation will look at how, similar to the Haiku, the UC Davis IET WebDev team has provided opportunities for creativity and innovation within a tightly regulated framework. Haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry, traditionally focusing on Nature and capturing a moment of time. It's structure is rigid and exact, consisting of three lines, with the first having 5 syllables, the second having 7, and the third having 5 syllables. While it's structure and form can be challenging to work with, it can be the source of remarkable creativity and heart felt beauty.
古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音
furuike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water
by 17th Century poetry master Matsuo Bashō
While it may be a strange comparison, it's applicable in this case. Using Drupal, to create the custom SiteFarm Install Profile as the backbone of the UC Davis web ecosystem, the SiteFarm team has had to find a balance between locking down the structure and framework of Drupal to provide guide rails for our users, but at the same time finding opportunities to allow flexibility and creativity to shine. As most people know Drupal is famous for its flexibility, but with that flexibility comes the ability to break things badly.
In order to have a robust system that delivers content and publishing functionality to over 1000 sites, many specific and non-negotiable steps have been taken to minimize the inadvertent danger of ignorant users with full permissions, and to protect the integrity of the SiteFarm sites. Core content types and views are locked down to keep users from unintentionally removing or customizing them. While sub-theming is an option, custom module development is not. However, sometimes that structure can frustrate more advanced users and often eliminates the availability of community contributed modules within SiteFarm sites.
Much like a Haiku, with its rigid structure the SiteFarm team had to find ways to access the inner creativity and re-expose the famous Drupal flexibility. As a way to combat the inherent inertia and static nature of a tightly managed system, the SiteFarm team has implemented a small set of key functional components like the PDB module and Vue.js to allow new and creative displays of modern Front End functionality within the safety of the regulated SiteFarm system. We will look at three examples, Unitrans scheduling, Air Pollution particulate graphing, and the Fruit/Nut nutrition calculator, that show the flexibility and modern usage of data possible in the SiteFarm systems.
古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音
furuike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water
by 17th Century poetry master Matsuo Bashō
While it may be a strange comparison, it's applicable in this case. Using Drupal, to create the custom SiteFarm Install Profile as the backbone of the UC Davis web ecosystem, the SiteFarm team has had to find a balance between locking down the structure and framework of Drupal to provide guide rails for our users, but at the same time finding opportunities to allow flexibility and creativity to shine. As most people know Drupal is famous for its flexibility, but with that flexibility comes the ability to break things badly.
In order to have a robust system that delivers content and publishing functionality to over 1000 sites, many specific and non-negotiable steps have been taken to minimize the inadvertent danger of ignorant users with full permissions, and to protect the integrity of the SiteFarm sites. Core content types and views are locked down to keep users from unintentionally removing or customizing them. While sub-theming is an option, custom module development is not. However, sometimes that structure can frustrate more advanced users and often eliminates the availability of community contributed modules within SiteFarm sites.
Much like a Haiku, with its rigid structure the SiteFarm team had to find ways to access the inner creativity and re-expose the famous Drupal flexibility. As a way to combat the inherent inertia and static nature of a tightly managed system, the SiteFarm team has implemented a small set of key functional components like the PDB module and Vue.js to allow new and creative displays of modern Front End functionality within the safety of the regulated SiteFarm system. We will look at three examples, Unitrans scheduling, Air Pollution particulate graphing, and the Fruit/Nut nutrition calculator, that show the flexibility and modern usage of data possible in the SiteFarm systems.