[Site Update] Quick Update on My Progress to Update This Site

Over the last week or so I've made some progress towards upgrading this site:

• As I mentioned in a previous post I stood up a new server to look consider Vanilla Drupal 9.0 vs Lightning 9.0, vs Varbase.  All three have their advantages but I have decided to stick with Varbase.  A lot of the sites I build fit in Varbase’s wheelhouse.  The 9.0 branch is far more modular than the 8.0 branch.  Since I’ll be installing things with Composer on this site, this should work well for upgrading.
• I’ve given some thought to content types and built out new content types on for the new site.  Here are the changes I’m making
  • Converting all files (images, audio, docs) to media entities.  Media in core wasn’t ready when I built this site now it is.
  • Merge the Job Position, Portfolio and Case Study content types.  There is a lot of overlapping data between these content types.
  • The Notes content type is renamed to Post.
  • For now I’ll have 2 landing page content types:  One using paragraphs, which I’ll import the current page into, one using layout  builder.  I’ll migrate the current pages to layout builder after I launch so I can get rid of the dependance on Paragraphs by Drupal 10.

Next Steps:

• First I’m working on migration scripts to get data into the system.  I’ll setup JSON:API on a copy of this site to export content and use the Migration API.  I expect 2 challenges:
  • I’ve never had to create media entities from file fields.  I’m sure there’s an example on the web someplace, if not I’ll have to do some hacking.
  • I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to automate merging the content types I mentioned above.  I look at this and figure it’s a half day to do it manually,
• This site that has little logic (a glue module and a module that extracts metadata for links).  I’m pretty sure I build those with Drupal 9 in mind, but I’ll give them a once over.
• A combination of theming and site building.  I’ll be moving to Bootstrap 4 in the process.

Research project:

• Static site? I keep looking at Tome.  With small changes this should be possible for my site (mostly I need to rethink my use of webforms.

In a Facebook covid survivors group someone posted "I heard someone died from the vaccine". Here was my response:

I don't know if someone did but I'm sure someone will die from the vaccine, probably through an allergic reaction. The math says the the risk of dying from the disease is MUCH HIGHER than dying from the vaccine. We've all had this disease, many of us are long haulers dealing the the effects months later. As I'm sitting here 10 months later sill having issues climbing the stairs, I don't know what the long them effects of this disease are on me.

It's risk assessment. On average 10 people die from taking low dose aspirin a day, but it saves more lives for folks with cardiac issues. 100 people will die in car accidents today, but we have decided that the benefits of faster travel outweigh the risk. Nothing is perfectly safe. Everything has risk. The question is, "Do the benefits outweigh the risks".

Disclaimer : I'm a Computer Programmer so you should speak to your Doctor to see if you have additional risks before taking it, especially if you have problems with vaccines, medicines or have other medical conditions.