“International and multilingual Drupal and Joomla! sites” at LinuxFest Northwest
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 29 Apr 2009 at 08:15 pm | Tagged as: CMS, drupal, i18n, Joomla, meetings and conferences, multilingual, web technology
Last week I gave a presentation, International and multilingual Drupal and Joomla! sites. I’ve posted my slides and handouts at that link for anyone who wants to catch up on them.
The occasion was LinuxFest Northwest 2009, held at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, WA, USA. It was a delightful event. It’s thoroughly grassroots and volunteer, it has a friendly and accessible vibe, yet it attracts very knowledgeable people.
The local Drupal user groups folded in a Drupal track throughout the first day of the conference, and that’s where the LinuxFest team placed my talk. This was great for me, because I had a little to say to the other Drupallers, and I was able to learn a lot from them. The Drupalers also had a Drupal drop-in clinic, which got a steady stream of visitors. On Sunday, there was a gathering that aspired to be an Drupal Unconference, but actually turned out to be a single informative discussion on general themes arising from simple Drupal sites. Some of the tweets on the #LFNW Twitter feed are worth reading.
This was the abstract of my talk. I aimed to fold together my November 2008 presentation to the Vancouver League of Drupalers with my June 2008 Vancouver Drupal Day project update, freshened up with the latest news. Since this was a Linux-fest, I didn’t assume my audience knew either Drupal or Joomla. And though it was a Drupal track, I continued to resist taking sides in the Drupal-Joomla rivalry.
Free software CMSs allow a website or service in any one language — English, Chinese, Punjabi, or whatever. But in this small, flat world, it’s good to be able to offer multiple languages on the same site. We look at the design and technology issues of multiple languages, and how to build them using open source CMSs like Drupal or Joomla.
A lesson learned: don’t let sample sites go four months without looking at them. Both Drupal and Joomla issue updates far too frequently to get away with that.
My thanks to all the volunteers and user groups who put on this wonderful event!