This is the beginning of what I hope will be a series of posts that take you through a Drupal 7 page load line by line.

Introduction

Before we begin, I want to share a story. Its the story of how I accidentally (or rather incidentally) became a Drupal developer.

A few years back I decided to be my own boss. I'd been working as a web application developer for a few years and it was time for me to strike out on my own. One of the first things I needed to do after writing a business plan was to launch my own website - the modern day hanging of a shingle.

I had a basic set of website requirements common to many businesses. I needed a flexible web based system that only needed to be install once and decorated (themed) very infrequently. Once installed it should allow me to enter and organize content via a web interface. I needed to be able to have it up and running in a relatively short period of time and I needed it to cost next to nothing.

Based on my own requirements, I knew I was looking for a modestly featured open source CMS or content management system.

I researched the available open source products that were available at the time. I read feature lists and reviews and eventually narrowed my choices down to Mambo (then soon to be Joomla) and Drupal. I installed both. Then for whatever reason I uninstalled Mambo and kept Drupal 4.4.

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