Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Hands-On Way to Learn
Comment: Working through this book is like having a Drupal expert sit down and walk you through everything you need to know to jump into Drupal module development. It's a pleasant read with a really nice balance between information and practical application.
I was surprised at how quickly I was creating my first module. There is some excellent information on how the core modules of Drupal work as well, so there is a lot here even if someone doesn't want to create their own module, but just wants to know Drupal better. Also a must have for anyone who might want to work on an existing module.
This is a really great book and it doesn't hurt that buying it means that part of the money Packt makes on the book goes to Drupal. Readers will be equipped to better contribute to the community and funding it financially while helping themselves out at the same time. Pretty nice.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good developers intro for Drupal
Comment: This book is a good one for people getting into programming Drupal and switching to Drupal 6. Examples are explained in great detail so those without a strong Drupal background will find this book a great choice.
Material is handled in projects - so a project that involves many aspects of Drupal will be covered in a single chapter. This is good for learning how these difference capabilities can be mixed, but could make it hard to use the book as a reference later. For example, while programming practices that cover security are included, they are spread all over the book and there is no index entry for security. So the book is better for reading through than trying to look something specific up.
The book got 4 stars instead of 5 because a few key subjects, like the menu system, were not covered nearly well enough.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A solid guide to drupal, and a good introduction for experienced PHP developers
Comment: Last autumn's release of Pro Drupal Development was a significant moment in the history of the popular CMS, providing for the first time a relatively comprehensive guide for those wanting to do more than simply manage and skin a drupal site. A number of books have followed it but few have delved as deeply or been such a definitive guide.
Like most of the more recent books, Learning Drupal 6 Module Development focusses on a quite specific area of drupal development, but its a key one for any serious developer and touches every other area of the system. Experienced PHP developers may find that this book (in conjunction with some time for experimentation) will serve as a solid introduction to how they might build applications on top of drupal.
The book focusses on a single project--a website providing biographies of philosophers--and builds the modules it needs, introducing the various available tools and techniques along the way. Much of the time is devoted to generating custom content types, but there's very solid coverage of the hooks, filters, and actions that let modules really take integrate with the rest of the framework. Theming your output, using AJAX, and working with web services all get some time and illustrate how your app can be part of the wider web and keep up with its prevailing trends. A number of times I found myself reaching for code I'd written over the past few months to make amendments based on examples in the book.
I've been quite critical of books from packt lately and some of my criticisms apply here--he book itself feels flimsy and the print quality is poor--but this is also evidence that if an author and editor put the work in they do occasionally produce quality material despite the publisher. There are a number of asides that clarify language which demonstrate an attention to detail too often missing. It would have been good to see clearer signposts as to which features are new in Drupal 6 and which were available previously, but the online API docs can provide most of that.
When I reviewed Pro Drupal Development I noted some disappointment that the book didn't devote any time to automated testing of drupal code, and that criticism applies here too. Along with staged deployments, automated testing remains one of the least considered aspects of drupal and that's a serious concern for those looking to build robust well-managed applications on top of it. There are a few good articles online about how to test drupal code, but it would be good to see it taken more seriously as a core part of the module development process.
This book is likely to sit alongside Pro Drupal Development on my desk whenever I'm working on a drupal project and is a worthwhile investment for anyone who spends much time building drupal modules. There are clear areas for improved coverage, but it is as comprehensive an account as you'll find of how to build modules that take full advantage of the facilities Drupal provides.
Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Comment: Extremely well written and easy to read without "dumbing down" any material. This book takes a non-trivial example project and builds it from scratch. By the last page, you will have developed working code in the major areas of Drupal module development from the basics of hooks and localization, to theming, jQuery, exposing web services, administration, content types, filters, and installation profiles. Highly recommended for any developer interested in social publishing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good solid Drupal book,
Comment: It seems every version of Drupal likes to change the API considerably. Signatures change, and many functions are dropped. Backwards compatibility is really NOT a concern with Drupal. This book covers the current version, 6, of Drupal.
It walks you through all of the code ideas of Drupal module and theme development. And really does a great job of doing this. Even if you are familiar with 5, the book examples are such that you can skim and upgrade your knowledge to 6.x.
One nice addition would have been a bit of reference. Maybe list all of the hook functions. List all of the form component types, with every attribute. I often found myself going online for examples of how to do form components that were not covered by this book.
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