Jean Gazis Copywriting & Content Services

I love this! It's from Nick Lewis: The Blog (with a little copy editing by me), and I should point out it's actually about learning to do Drupal theming, not just learning the basics. It's all good advice for trying anything new, really.

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A "Quick" Sermon for Beginners

The best metaphor for learning how to build a Drupal theme is learning how to play an instrument. If this introduction seems long, then I caution you: you have a long journey ahead of you. The truths about learning a new musical instrument are identical to the truths of learning how to theme for Drupal. So, be forewarned:

1. You must be motivated to learn by a passion, a dream, or a need to escape a present reality. Without that, you are unlikely to have the patience, and diligence that is required to finally be able to "play for enjoyment."
2. When you first start, it's going to suck: its' going to be both boring and confusing. Can you endure the unpleasant experience of watching yourself suck, while both confused and bored?
3. There are no shortcuts, YOU MUST LEARN THE FOUNDATIONS. Anything you perceive as a shortcut is going to cost you more time in the future than just learning it the right way now.
4. The single biggest barrier between your present reality and your future goal is practice, practice, practice.
5. It's going to take time. And it takes time for everyone. Go easy on yourself, don't expect yourself to grasp CSS floats in an hour's time.
6. Like anything worth doing, getting there requires sacrifice that most people won't be willing to give.
7. Even when you get to my level, you will still remain deeply unsatisfied with your present skill and knowledge. And that in itself becomes a great reward in the end.

This is just the honest truth. It's 2006, and building things on the internet is still an occult art. That is why so few people can do it well. If it were easy, and straightforward, then – there wouldn't be so many terrible web pages.

Everyone begins with no clue as to what they are doing -- I coded my first HTML tag in the summer of 2004. My knowledge has been entirely gained from a rigorous program of aimless experimentations, disasters, and the lessons I've learned from them.

Trial and error is not merely the best way to learn – it's the only way. Luckily, you can jumpstart your process by learning from web designers all over the web. And, web designers love teaching.

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One thing I must say is that the Drupal community is phenomenal! There are many people willing to teach, troubleshoot, explain, and help. They're all over the internet, as well as on drupal.org and Drupal Groups, and if you can find a local Drupal meetup, or attend a Drupal Camp, even better.