A couple of months after reaching 1600, I hit another milestone: Elo 1700! When I reached an Elo rating of 1600, I expected the climb to get more difficult. Surprisingly, moving up to 1700 was easier than I thought. I stuck with my main openings but added a few new variations. For example, I started using the "Queen's Gambit Declined: Cambridge Springs Defense" against white opening with 1. d4 – a name that, just six months ago, might as well have been a spell from Harry Potter. Despite expanding my opening repertoire, my opening knowledge remains limited, and I tend to stick to the few openin ..read more

Recently, a public dispute has emerged between WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting company WP Engine. Matt has accused WP Engine of misleading users through its branding and profiting from WordPress without adequately contributing back to the project. As the Founder and Project Lead of Drupal, another major open source Content Management System (CMS), I hesitated to weigh in on this debate, as this could be perceived as opportunistic. In the end, I decided to share my perspective because this conflict affects the broader open source community. I've known Matt Mullenweg since the e ..read more

Approximately 1,100 Drupal enthusiasts gathered in Barcelona, Spain, this week for DrupalCon Europe. As per tradition, I delivered my State of Drupal keynote, often referred to as the "DriesNote". If you missed it, you can watch the video or download my slides (177 MB). In my keynote, I gave an update on Drupal Starshot, an ambitious initiative we launched at DrupalCon Portland 2024. Originally called Drupal Starshot, inspired by President Kennedy's Moonshot challenge, the product is now officially named Drupal CMS. The goal of Drupal CMS is to set the standard for no-code website building. I ..read more

My HTTP Header Analyzer continues to be used a lot. Last week, I received a bug report, so I decided to look into it over the weekend. One thing led to another, and I ended up making a slew of improvements: Clarified the explanations for various Cloudflare headers, including CF-Edge-Cache, CF-APO-Via, CF-BGJ, CF-Polish, CF-Mitigated, CF-Ray, CF-Request-ID, CF-Connecting-IP, and CF-IPCountry. Added support for new headers: X-Logged-In, X-Hacker, X-Vimeo-Device, and Origin-Agent-Cluster. Improved checks and explanations for cache-related headers, including X-Cache, X-Cache-Status, and X-Varnish ..read more

Setting up a new computer can be a lot of work, but I've made it much simpler with Homebrew, a popular package manager. Making a list of installed software Homebrew manages both formulae and casks. Casks are typically GUI applications, while formulae are command-line tools or libraries. First, I generate a list of all manually installed packages (excluding dependencies) on my old computer: $ brew leaves To save this list to a file: $ brew leaves > brews.txt Next, I include installed casks in the same list: $ brew list –cask >> brews.txt This appends the cask list to brews.txt, g ..read more

We're excited to announce that "Drupal CMS" will be the official name for the product developed by the Drupal Starshot Initiative. The name "Drupal CMS" was chosen after user testing with both newcomers and experienced users. This name consistently scored highest across all tested groups, including marketers unfamiliar with Drupal. Participants appreciated the clarity it brings: Having the words CMS in the name will make it clear what the product is. People would know that Drupal was a content management system by the nature of its name, rather than having to ask what Drupal is. I'm a designe ..read more

I'm excited to share the first version of Drupal Starshot's product strategy, a document that aims to guide the development and marketing of Drupal Starshot. To read it, download the full Drupal Starshot strategy document as a PDF (8 MB). This strategy document is the result of a collaborative effort among the Drupal Starshot leadership team, the Drupal Starshot Advisory Council, and the Drupal Core Committers. We also tested it with marketers who provided feedback and validation. Drupal Starshot and Drupal Core Drupal Starshot is the temporary name for an initiative that extends the capabili ..read more

Today is a big day for Drupal as we officially released Drupal 11! In recent years, we've seen an uptick in innovation in Drupal. Drupal 11 continues this trend with many new and exciting features. You can see an overview of these improvements in the video below: Drupal 11 has been out for less than six hours, and updating my personal site was my first order of business this morning. I couldn't wait! Dri.es is now running on Drupal 11. I'm particularly excited about two key features in this release, which I believe are transformative and will likely reshape Drupal in the years ahead: Recipe ..read more

I'm excited to announce the formation of the Drupal Starshot Advisory Council. When I announced Starshot's Leadership Team, I explained that we are innovating on the leadership model by adding a team of advisors. This council will provide strategic input and feedback to help ensure Drupal Starshot meets the needs of key stakeholders and end-users. The Drupal Starshot initiative represents an ambitious effort to expand Drupal's reach and impact. To guide this effort, we've established a diverse Advisory Council that includes members of the Drupal Starshot project team, Drupal Association staff ..read more

In news that is sure to rock the world (or at least mildly interest a few chess enthusiasts), I'm excited to report that I reached an Elo rating of 1600 on chess.com! For most people, "Elo 1600" doesn't mean much. I understand; it didn't mean much to me a few years ago. According to chess.com, this ranking places me in the top 2.5% of players worldwide. While that sounds impressive, it's important to remember that many users on chess.com don't stay active for long. In the real world, outside of chess.com, an Elo 1600 rating probably means that I'm a decent intermediate player. I estimate I'm a ..read more