Sonnet Summary: Rendering HTML with Drupal

In 2014 I felt like my co-workers, and the Drupal world as a whole, were losing the thread of how website building worked. At a very fundamental level, we had competing pictures in mind for how a website came together. That energy culminated in a presentation I delivered about a half-dozen times, including to a packed audience of about 500 people at DrupalCon Los Angeles.

The last iteration, and best recording, was from Twin Cities DrupalCamp in June of 2015:

As a sonnet:

In Drupal's first decade, FEDs made the sites
Look like the Illustrator designs with
Heavy styling. Responsive design fights
Squished and squashed out the pixel perfect myth.

We must ask again: what are we doing?
The theme() function could return us plain lists,
Or 10 preprocess layers for viewing
More divs than should possibly exist.

Now in twenty fifteen, living style guides
With markup matched in Drupal loading files
Of the same CSS preps us to ride
Toward the headless future off of our isles.

Worry less about the destination.
Make better moves now. Make the foundation.