Open Teams
30 Jan 2010
This conference ends with the talk ‘Open Teams’ (http://joind.in/1251) by Cal Evans (@CalEvans). In this presentation he talks about how the different teams of open source developers are being motivated and how useful it is for us to have this motivation as a developer for a private company. His talk was very amusing and in my feeling made everybody go to the open bar (sponsored by ibuildings) with a big smile.
So this is it… And I’m sure I’m not the only one saying that this was a great conference. I am glad that I was being able to do this live reporting and hopefully gave some good information to the people who weren’t able to make it to the conference . Now up to the open bar!
Bad wheater? No problem!
Unfortunately Eric Ritchie wasn’t able to make it to the conference because of the bad wheaterconditions but we were able to set up a connection so he was able to do his presentation anyway. His talk ‘Generating dynamic PDFs using Zend Framework and JavaBridge’ shows how Zend can help you generating a PDF in an easy way. It was quite technical so it is best that you look up his slides on Slideshare when they are available. Next up is the closing keynote on ‘Open Teams’ (http://joind.in/1251) by Cal Evans (@CalEvans).
Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World
After some more advanced technical talks it is time for some thinking about the team behind all those developments. In ‘Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World’ (http://joind.in/1249) Lorna Jane (@lornajane) eplains the 12 questions asked in the Joel Test and how we can interpret them in the PHP-environment. I’ve already seen the other talk by Ivo Jansch (@ijansch) about ‘PHP in the cloud’ on a previous meeting of PHPBenelux so I can say that in that talk he gives a great explenation about what the cloud actually is without all those fancy words. Be shure to also check his slides on Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/ijansch/php-and-the-cloud)
PHP in the cloud with Windows Azure
The next presentation I’m following is about ’Just another WordPress weblog, but more cloudy’ (http://joind.in/1247) by Maarten Balliauw (@maartenballieuw). In his talk he explains what Windows Azure actualy is and what you can do with it. Windows Azure is mostly used for .NET-language but Maarten gives some nice examples about using Windows Azure for your PHP applications hosted in the cloud. The great thing about his presentation is that he shows how he could easy transform typical PHP & MySQL applications like WordPress to the Windows Azure platform and AzureSQL. The presentation about ‘PHPillow & CouchDB & PHP’ (http://joind.in/1248) wich apparently had a complete full room.
Monitoring is important!
As we all know monitoring is very important. The first part the presenation “PHP applications/environments monitoring: APM & Pinba” by Patrick Allaert and Davide Mendolia was about monitoring errors, long loading pages, … using APM (Alternative PHP Monitoring). The most important question asked here was about what the big difference was between APM and standard error logging in PHP. The second part of the presentation was about Pinda, a PHP extension and statistics server for collecting real time performance data. Comments are welcome on joind.in (http://joind.in/1246). Enjoy your lunch everybody!
The State of SOAP in PHP
For the second presentation I choosed for ‘The State of SOAP in PHP’ (http://joind.in/1243) by David Zuelke @dzuelke). Het gave us some background information and some really nice tips and secrets about SOAP. It’s pretty hard to summary everything he said during his talk so take a look at his presenation on Slideshare.
The bad news is that I can’t be at 2 places at the same time so I need choose between 1 of the 2 tracks. So if anyone who followed “Get the most out of Solr search with PHP” by Paul Borgermans wants to contribute something feel free to do so on joind.in (http://joind.in/1244).
Living with Legacy Code
Just heard a great presentation by Rowan Merewood (@rowan_m) about legacy code. After this I think there are 2 things we should remember:
- Split it up: don’t try to do in all the same thing. Splitting it up in smaller parts will make you able to set goals and make sure you are not loosing a lot of time.
- Make it better, not the best: in some cases of rewriting legacy code its better to wrap better code around it.
One sidenote: The comics Rowan used in his presentation were really nice. Comic book guy I suppose? 
You can post your feedback on this presentation on joind in (http://joind.in/1242)
Let the reporting begin!
So, first of all I should send many thanks to Nocus (the company who equiped me for doing this) and also the PHPBenelux team for giving me this chance. I’m really looking forward to doing this all day so (like I already mentioned in my tweet) I’ll be able do to something back to the people who made all this possible.
Ok, we have started the day with Derick’s opening keynote about PHP in the universe (http://joind.in/1240). I must say I was glad to hear about the story behind and around PHP. It was more non-technical wich in my opinion was really great to start the day with.
As last I would to mention that this is the first time I am doing live blogging so tips are always welcome. Now up for the talk about ‘Living with Legacy Code’ by Rowan Merewood.
And the live reporter is…
Today’s Live Reporter and winner of the Netbook donated by Nocus is: Stijn Janssen!
Stijn’s tweet read:
Because it would be great to help making the conference a success and to do something back to those who made all this possible!
We loved Stijn’s tweet for his drive to make the conference a success, and his willingness to do something for the community. We feel that what we try to do with a conference like this should benefit the community, and the fact that Stijn also wanted to support those members of the community that were not able to make it to Antwerp or were not able to get a ticket won him the netbook and the title of “Live Reporter”.
You can follow all Stijn’s reports on the conference at the special live reporting page: Live.
Delegates: Win tickets for the PHPBenelux Conference 2011!
Any delegate of the PHPBenelux Conference 2010 now has the opportunity to already secure their attendance for the 2011 edition of the conference. Because we are giving away some prizes for those who make pictures and those who offer the best feedback! So pay attention now, here’s your chance to win a ticket or one of the other prizes.
We have two sets of prizes. Each set of prizes contains the following:
First prize: Ticket to PHPBenelux Conference 2011 + medium-sized PHPWomen calendar signed by Lorna Mitchell
Second prize: Large-sized PHPWomen calendar signed by Lorna Mitchell
Third prize: Small-sized PHPWomen calendar signed by Lorna Mitchell
Here’s the two ways you can win the ticket:
Make a picture
In this contest, the people who can capture the whole PHPBenelux Conference 2010 the best way in a single picture will win one of the prizes. The winning pictures will be taken from all pictures uploaded to Flickr with the “phpbnl10″ tag.
Give feedback
To win one of prizes from the second set, all you need to do is leave feedback in joind.in for our event. The best, most insightful, funniest, most serious, most interesting comments posted on the talks or the conference in general will have a chance of winning one of the prizes from the second set.
Obviously, if you win a prize from one of the sets, you are not eligible anymore for a prize in the other set. Prize winners are determined democratically by the PHPBenelux Crew, and winners will be contacted to get their prize, as well as announced on the PHPBenelux website.
So, get those cameras out and/or start offering good feedback on joind.in, and with a bit of luck and skill, you’ll be back in Antwerp next year for the new conference!
