Posts by theme: Palantir
Those who have met us know that it's the team that makes Palantir what it is. Given that, it's understandable that our recent public announcement that we were planning to grow might have made some folks a little nervous. Let me reassure you, however, that this growth was approached with our usual commitment to sustainability and quality. It had been in the works for some time and I think everyone will be excited by the outcome.
Palantir had never done such a public search, and we didn't know what to expect. I was truly humbled by the response we received and very much appreciate the interest from all of the wonderful and talented folks who applied. I am nevertheless happy to announce that our search is closed.
On behalf of the entire Palantir team, I am very pleased to welcome Dave Reid, Arthur Foelsche, Bevan Rudge, April Peck, and Bec White!
There's nothing that we enjoy more at Palantir than sharing our ideas with others. Out of sharing comes collaboration, and out of collaboration comes new ideas and sustainable practices, these are all things that Palantiri are passionate about.
At Palantir we are always looking at ways to improve. In 2008 it was about sustainability in theming, in 2009 we extended this practice into the engineering side, and in 2010 it's about applying transparency, sustainability, and standardization to our process.
The only way to standardize around a process is to take a long, hard, and honest look at what you've got already. We took some time evaluating our current tool set and began weeding out the old and inefficient tools and extended the strong ones.
We recognize that standardizing processes is not an easy thing to do, especially when you don't have the infrastructure to support the research or enough hands to discuss and document it correctly. Because of this we want to share our approach with you in hopes that you'll do the same in return.
I've always found the rock star fantasy alluring, but, alas, that's not my path (karaoke accomplishments aside). Maybe that's why I like Drupal so much: it's a community where even a card-carrying geek can achieve rock stardom.
I've watched enough "Behind the Music" to know that assembling a bunch of rock stars in one place can be perilous and stressful. When you get a bunch of Drupal rock stars together though, it's not like an awkward charity benefit concert or a band that just can't stand the sight of each other. At Palantir, we're more like an orchestra made up of virtuosos who sound kick-ass playing together in perfect harmony.
And it just so happens that this particular orchestra is hiring.
It's no secret that many of us here at Palantir are fans of the science fiction genre, in particular the "Star Trek" franchise. Not only are we obsessed with Trek trivia and memorabilia, but every year for Halloween it's a tradition that at least one of us shows up at the office dressed up in Starfleet uniform. Given that, you can well imagine that we were all very excited when representatives of Paramount Films recently approached us about working on the sequel to last year's hit "Star Trek" movie.
The results are in, and it looks like Palantir will be all over DrupalCon San Francisco, which kicks off in just under five weeks. Nine of us will be on hand to spread the Drupal love (and some great swag) everywhere from the stage to the Birds of a Feather (BoF) room to the hallway. Here's the low-down on the Palantir track:
Right before the holidays, our good friends at Chicago design agency Rogue Element stopped by our office to drop off a few copies of the October 2009 issue of HOW magazine. It turns that out a print piece they had designed for us as a moving announcement/party invitation back in 2008 received a merit award in the publication's self-promotion design annual.
As some of you may have already noticed, we re-launched our Web site right before Thanksgiving last week. This has been a long-overdue project for us; our existing site design dated back to 2005, and received its most recent major update in early March of 2008, when I took responsibility for porting it to Drupal 6, which had only been released only two weeks earlier.
At that point, very few of the major contributed modules, like Views and CCK, had been ported to Drupal 6, so my only choice at the time was to build the site almost entirely from core modules, like the built-in Blog module. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using those core modules for basic site-building, but as the site grew, and we wanted to do more with it, their limitations soon became apparent. Also, the fact that I had put the site together very quickly in a decidedly non-sustainable manner meant that it was very difficult to extend or add new functionality as time went by.
This time around, we decided to approach our own Web site like we would any other project at Palantir, employing our full iterative development process.
Everyone knows the top-tier Drupal modules, but with over 4,000 modules available for Drupal it's no surprise that many useful modules go unnoticed. As part of its mission to make the web a better place, Palantir is presenting this series of articles on modules you haven't met that may yet get you a good night's sleep.
In part 1 of our 4,943 part series, we present: Flashy
It's that time of year again. Time to pack your bags, find your passport, and head off to immerse yourself in Drupal for several days. That's right, DrupalCon Paris is just around the corner!
Seven Palantiri will be attending this year, all staying on the beautiful Ile Saint Louis. It's a small island in the middle of the river where Palantir will be tucked into a spacious apartment for a week. You know where the party room is now. (OK, the coding room. Same thing.) Neighbors welcome!
And of course, as always Palantir will be quite talkative. Here's a rundown of the Palantir track:
At Palantir, we try to be "sustainable" in everything we do. Our office is made from mostly recycled materials and we strive for being carbon-netural. Our approach to employees is to avoid the "long hours and weekends" trap, because we don't want people to get burned out before their time. Our approach to Drupal theming is built around site sustainability, and allowing the theme to grow with the site as it evolves.
It also means building code that is sustainable. That isn't really a new concept; generally it's called "reusable code". But with how straightforward it is to bend Drupal in various ways with form alters and theme overrides, it's easy to miss a rather important little revolution in Drupal development that Palantir has embraced wholeheartedly: Sub-module building blocks.