Tips for drupal-beginners

If you've done a lot of Drupal sites, then don't read more. :) But if you make your first website on Drupal - I recommend read and remember this tips.

1. Choise of hosting
Don't feel sorry $1-5 per month, buy high-quality hosting. You have nothing to lose and save your nerves. Drupal is strong and functional CMS/CMF, but it need very good and reliable hosting. The optimal configuration of the server for Drupal:
Apache 2+
Nginx
PHP 5+ with eAccelerator  (Memory Limit - 256Mb)
MySQL 5+
Sphinx
библиотеки: GD2, PECL uploadprogress, Mbstring
ssh, screen, mc, vim.
Drush.
So, ssh and drush is must have services for drupal hosting. It saves a lot of time.
 
2. Setting up themes and modules
Never, never, never put you themes and modules in modules and themes folder at root. All additional themes and modules shoild be located in  sites/all/themes and sites/all/modules. First, it elminates errors when you upgrade the drupal core engine, and second, so it is accepted in the community, and not without good reason. Thirdly, drush module and automatically update the modules and the look is in sites/all, and not the root.
 
3. First thing that is placed on the host, where there are sites on Drupal, Drush. If you do not know how to do it yourself, you can contact hosting support. On my favorite drupal hosting, drush is the default on all accounts and pricing. By the way this hosting to fully meet the recommendations in paragraph 1. Drush good from all angles. Install modules to those modules and update the engine - all done in one short command from the console. Saves lots of time and effort.
 
4. Periodically update your drupal-site. Regular updates and upgrades the engine (meaning security updates and other things within the same branch. For example, 7.0 -> 7.2, 6.19 -> 6.22). After updating the modules run update.php. And be sure to set the crowns. This will give you and your site stable performance, security and convenience.

5. Read this fucking manual. Oh, yes! Before you setup the modules and libraries, read the file readme.txt. It's easier to use instructions and do just right, than to catch the error and other troubles after.
 
6. Use Backup and migrate module. After each successful step of the site in Drupal do database backup - that at any moment could be rolled back to the most successful option. It is useful for keeping your work (you never know in a data center fire?), and to be able to experiment without affecting the modules, settings, and output the contents of the site.

7. Ask questions! Don't afraid to ask something stupid and absurd. Every experienced drupaller was newbie in Drupal-way, didn't understand how to construct this cms and make some mistakes. But you know that learning is most advantageous by the mistakes of others?

Curve of the process of studying popular cms: