Becoming a Drupal Core Contributor is an awesome personal achievement, but it doesn't come without a cost. There are some emotional stages one must go through before becoming really hooked on Drupal and joining the force!

I used to be a Java developer, and like any other of my kind at the time, I was brainwashed to hate PHP and everything that is built on top of it.

Today, I’m Drupal addicted, and during this session I will talk about the six stages I went through that led to my addiction:

1- Denial - When a friend tells you to check out Drupal
“What the heck is Drupal?”
“PHP? Come on dude... That’s just not my thing.”

2 - Anger - When you’re forced to work with Drupal
“Why the hell is that damn drop always smiling?”
“If I have to clear cache ONE MORE TIME, I’m gonna murder whoever invented this thing. Seriously.”

3 - Bargaining - When you try to make Drupal work the way you want it to
“What if I hack this hook system...”
“Please Mr. Dries, I will never curse at Drupal again if you make it object-oriented.”

4 - Depression - When you’re coding while listening to emo songs
“Now it’s just too late, and we can’t go back...”

5 - Acceptance - When you realize that Drupal makes sense
“Hello Drupal community!”

6 - Addiction - When you’re hooked on Drupal and you need a fix every day!
Submitting patches and modules back to the community.
Contributing to D8’s core.
Motivating others.
Joining and presenting conferences.
Sharing the joy!