Florida DrupalCamp 2025: 5 Must-Attend Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss

Florida DrupalCamp has unveiled its much-anticipated session schedule for the 2025 event, set to take place from February 21st to 23rd at the Florida Technical College campus in Orlando. Renowned for its dynamic community and top-tier content, this year’s camp is poised to provide an enriching experience for Drupal professionals and newcomers alike. Attendees can look forward to insightful sessions covering cutting-edge Drupal trends, best practices, and real-world case studies. The event kicks off with hands-on training on Friday, offering a deep dive into technical topics led by expert trainers. Here are five must-attend sessions to check out.

What a front of the front end developer brings to your team

A front-of-the-front-end developer brings essential expertise in CSS, semantic HTML, and presentational JavaScript, ensuring accessibility and maintainability in modern web development. This session highlights the continued relevance of these skills, offering insights on how to advocate for their value within teams. It also explores collaboration strategies between the front and back of the front-end developers to create robust solutions, particularly in Drupal. Emphasizing their impact, it reaffirms their crucial role in shaping user-friendly experiences. The session will be led by Aubrey Sambor, Lead Engineer at Lullabot.

Drupal CMS now and beyond

This session provides an in-depth look at Drupal CMS's current state and future, covering development progress since its 1.0 release and what lies ahead. Cristina Chumillas, Lead Engineer at Lullabot, explores ongoing feature development, contributor opportunities, and the strategic processes that have shaped the roadmap. Attendees will gain insights into the role of research in defining the product vision and how the Drupal community collaborates to achieve shared goals, drawing lessons from initial development tracks.

Self-Hosting at Home: Taking Back Control and Building Your Skills

This session empowers attendees to take control of their digital lives by self-hosting services like Nextcloud, Immich, and Jellyfin, using tools such as Docker, NixOS, and Tailscale. Discover with Josh Fabean,
Technical Director at Code Koalas, how self-hosting enhances privacy, fosters skill development, and maximizes old hardware, such as Raspberry Pi devices. From managing smart home systems to exploring server management, this talk provides practical steps to reclaim your data and build valuable technical expertise, whether for personal use or career growth.

Drupal Recipes for Themers: How to Leverage Default Content Among Other Items

This session introduces Drupal recipes and their potential to enhance the out-of-the-box theming experience, making it more intuitive, similar to WordPress. Attendees will learn from Bernardo Martinez how to leverage default content and reverse engineer complete examples to streamline site architecture. The session focuses on improving feedback loops and accelerating project kickoffs by applying the YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) principle. Expect an interactive session filled with practical examples and thought-provoking prompts to explore new possibilities.

Follow the Drupal Brick Road? Is Drupal Just Complex or Becoming Too Complicated?

This session critically examines Drupal's growing complexity and its impact on users, administrators, and developers. With an increasing number of third-party dependencies like Drush and Composer, has Drupal become too complicated for newcomers? The discussion led by Michael Goldsmith of Platypus Media, LLC explores how these changes affect usability, whether they alienate users, and if the benefits outweigh the added complexity. Comparing Drupal’s learning curve to competitors like WIX and Squarespace, the session delves into balancing power with accessibility while addressing potential solutions to simplify the user experience.