Last weekend I attended phpnw09, which was my first phpnw conference having missed the first one last year. And I was glad I went, having met lots of friendly people and learned things I didn’t know and more importantly what I didn’t know. Needless to say, I’ve come back with a head full of things to research and learn.
Sadly I missed most of the first talk, so the first one I attended was Passing The Joel Test in the PHP world. I found it one of the most useful talks of the weekend, as there’s always something that every developer can do better whether it’s making automated build scripts or having a chair and keyboard that you find comfortable. I learnt lots from this, and it’s spurred me on to improve my own practices.
I also attended Getting a website out of the door by Rob Allen, a talk that puts project management into practice, so one to make lots of notes in, and one which everybody who does project management should watch.
API documentation with phpDocumentor, Making your life easier: Xdebug and Introduction to Yii were all well presented talks which were about things I knew nothing about before the weekend, and now I’m aware of them (and how they work), they’re things I’ve noted down to look into in the future.
Getting Involved with the PHP Project was a nice final talk before the free bar, something which isn’t too heavy on the brain, and it’s always nice to learn how the php project works and hear from a few members (as heckles, of course).
Sunday was a nice informal day with lots of hangovers, coffee, and tiredness, with some interesting talks with an introduction to UTF-8, OOP, the latest version of php, and jquery. These were more informal sessions which were less heavy on the brain, perhaps for the best after the free bar the night before. This extra date made a great addition to the weekend, and also gave opportunity to hang around afterwards to meet some others.
Thanks to the organisers, all the speakers, and the sponsors for making the event happen. Here’s looking forward to phpnw10!