Once again php|architect hosted the php|tek conference, a yearly event held in Chicago. Tek has a reputation of being one of the most community-centered conferences, and true to its reputation this year’s conference promoted a variety of social networking activities alongside the usual conference sessions. The presence of various key players in the PHP ecosystem (Core Developers, Community Leaders, Products leaders and various representatives and evangelists from leading companies) was definitively a highlight for me.
The sessions catered for all levels of developers, from basic introductions to advanced and incredibly engaging workshops. Sessions that stood out for me included anti-gaming techniques, in depth looks at the PHP Core, scaling, new technologies like git and xmpp, amongst others.
php|tek also provided a great opportunity for networking. From my personal experience (being a veteran PHP developer of over 10 years) this aspect of a conference can often be more important then the actual sessions. For a seasoned developer many sessions do not dwell deeply enough on advanced topics, serving more as a point of study initiation then as a full injection of knowledge. However the opportunity to meet developers of the very technologies you employ on a day to day basis enables far greater learnings. Simply because during these opportunities you can address your problems – be it by talking to the creator of the tool, or by talking to the developers of renown websites – during lunch, in the hallway or even during after-event drinks.
Let’s take for example the opportunity of chatting with Sebastian Bergmann, creator of PHPUnit. Being able to discuss and resolve issues you have while implementing tests in your application, learning from him how you can automate your environment and implement more QA processes. Or engaging with Matthew Weier O’Phinney, lead of the Zend Framework project to learn how to participate in bug hunting – solving a bug you have found right there on the spot.
Imagine how much you can learn from talking with someone like Eli White, former developer of Digg, getting scaling tips tailored to your scenario directly from someone who has had the opportunity to deal with high traffic and site availability. Or chatting to people like Lorna Jane Mitchell and Michelangelo van Dam – people who have built their careers on contributing to the community. Leaders like these have helped developers to better qualifications and consequently projected their own names into the halls of fame of the ecosystem, opening doors to new opportunities and places. Career advice from such people would prove to be a turning point in any developers life.
All of this is possible and very welcome during the week that everyone is gathered at php|tek. In fact, even before the conference started I was already taking advantage of the great minds around me! Having arrived a couple days before the event and still having work to catch up on (for the official release of my latest project Share My Map), I decided to head down to the lobby to code. To my surprise many of the speakers were there doing the same thing! So I had the opportunity of coding, surrounded by many of the creators of the tools I was using. Needless to say this was amazing – I was able to instantly get opinions on what I was working on – from world-leading experts all very eager to show me alternatives to the code I was writing and provide explanations to the up or downsides of the code in question.
The networking aspect of a coder’s career are often overlooked but in my opinion this is a vital part of a successful professional life. Your network can make a difference in many different stages of you career and industry events like php|tek are important opportunities to meet and engage with industry leaders. I certainly made the most of my time at php|tek – let me know what your best moments were…
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