How Drupal 7 Fields are changing the way you write modules

Drupal 7 introduced the notion of Fields, small pieces of data you can add to several kind of Entities. In this session we will show how Fields are changing the way we write modules, for the better.

Note: this is an (revised and improved) version of the session I gave at Drupalcon San Francisco.

From columns to fields

In the beginning, there was tables and columns. Now here are fields, a dynamic way to build data models.

From nodes, users and comments to entities

In the beginning, there was separate realms. The concept of entity unify those realms and bring them to a whole new dimension.

Case study: A Case Tracker in 100 lines

Spanning across entities, fields can be used to easily build powerful data models. Here we will see how to rewrite, from the ground up, the Case Tracker module in less then 100 lines.

Guidelines for using fields and entities efficiently in your modules

We will describe how to use fields and entities efficiently in your module, and take the example of Drupal Commerce module as a case study.