The Laravel Ecosystem

Dries started off by saying hes not gonna do a salespitch and then basically ran down the list of available central laravel tools and finding them awesome (i think he even called two of them his favorite). I suppose the tools are in fact good vut i think everyone who is here actually allready knew about them. i liked Dries giving all the contributors credit at the end. i suppoose dries is a very likable person but for the talk i was a little disappointed. but this could be just me and maybe it was helpful to others.

It's okay but this isn't something worth to be put in a meetup/conference.

Nice tips re envoyer/forge for continuous deployment/qa testing. I would group Laracasts within the Laravel Ecosystem.

Dries mainly read bullet-points, ran way too long and seemed to ignore the organizer’s pleas to come to an end.

Although Dries seemed quite nervous throughout, I think his talk has value in terms of Laracon being inclusive of people who are not necessarily tuned into the Laravel ecosystem. Dismissing his talk as just being about stuff that everyone there already knows effectively makes the community closed and exclusive - not the way to go, I believe.

Towards the end, highlighting contributions of a few people that usually get none of the spotlight was a nice touch. I'd only encourage Dries to relax and become a bit more dynamic in his presentation. :-)

A bit nervous voice and a little over time but lots of good information, certainly for new Laravel developers

great overview of the ecosystem. unfortunately no new information for non-newbies. missed the "one more thing"

I don't think they requested him to stop talking on the spot, they were just reminding how much time was left. The ecosystem was a good overview, but the part about 'the others' was the highlight and most important part of this talk. Too bad he had to go over this so quickly.

@Michael Csáki: Hey Michael. What I meant was that I don't want to sell these tools. I wanted to give a talk about all of the different parts of the Laravel Ecosystem but don't want to actually sell Forge and Envoyer (because they cost money). That's what I meant, sorry if this came across differently!

I actually spoke to quite some people who said that they didn't know about all of the tools yet. There are also a lot of business owners and managers here which aren't immediately developers. And this part of the talk was also a little bit focused towards newer Laravel developers. But I understand that this part was less relevant for people who already know a lot more about the ecosystem.

Thanks for liking the contributors part! For me personally this was the most important part of my talk so I'm glad you liked it. It's too bad I had to go over it a bit fast.

I'm really sorry you're a little disappointed. I hope I can make it up to you at another time! I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference :)

@anonymous at 14:26: hey, thanks for leaving your feedback. I'm really sorry you feel that way. i hope I can do better next time!

@Andrew Westrope: Thanks for your feedback! It was really though putting in every single part. I figured most people know what Laracasts is about so that's why I left it out. I already had a pretty long talk. But you're right when you say that's also a part of the ecosystem.

@anonymous at 15:56: I'm really sorry you feel that way. I'll definitely try to improve to do a better job next time! I actually didn't ran too long because I started my talk 15 minutes later than planned so I had less time to do my entire presentation! Also: Shawn wasn't asking me to stop he was just informing me how much time I had left and even notified me at the end that it's ok if it took a little longer (because I started later).

@Paulo André: I was a little bit nervous yeah! Thank you for the nice words :) I'll try to do my best to improve.

@Jurgen, anonymous (at 20:39), Frank: Thanks! :)

Title is The Laravel ecosystem and speaker gave good overview of all components.

Considering various mitigating factors I think Dries did a great job.

Not everyone at this conference would fully know the ecosystem components, so this was a good subject to cover.
And even more people wouldn't know all the community contributors who were given screen-time, so that was a good subject too ... and clearly something the presenter was passionate about (and rightly so).

As far as the timing at the end, I give big props to the organizer for not shutting him down, but instead encouraging him that he should finish the talk because he hadn't been allowed to start on time. It's great to see the organizers supporting the speakers so well (it's been evident in all the talks at this Laracon event).


Tips for future presentations: control the pace a bit better (it was a bit slower than necessary), and interact more with the slides instead of reading their content so much: Let the slides support the words that you're saying, not the other way around. That'll help the audience to engage more, and then even the people who "already know" some of it won't judge it so harshly.

The talk in itself wasn't bad at all. Sure Dries was nervous, but most of us would be just as or more nervous in his place.

I do think that the content was mostly interesting for newbies or managers and not so much for experienced Laravel developers.

But don't worry about it, just keep doing talks and it will improve quickly.

I know I personally would not have been able to do it half as good

Although you mentioned it wasn't going to be a sales talk, the first half of the talk kind of felt like one, including the prices etc. Perhaps a shorter overview would have been better. The second part, about community, felt a bit rushed. This is too bad, because as you said yourself, that was the most important part. I understand from the comments it was because of the late start, but because of the interaction with Shawn, it seemed your were well over your time limit.
Thanking other contributors was nice (thanks for mentioning me!), but can be dangerous because others can feel left out..

I think I would have found more value in a talk about tools which are used with Laravel, but not part of the Laravel brand: composer, rocketeer, cartalyst packages, etc. That may have had more values to people who have followed Laravel closely.

General speaker stuff: the font was a little hard to read sometimes. Nice recovery from the nerves at the end.

Lots of stuff we already knew.

Lot of "thank you"s, and used to much time. Ok content, but not very valuable unfortunately

Great overview of the current Laravel ecosystem, tools and people.
Good motivation to participate in open source dev.

Congrats !

There was a good overview of the ecosystem, most things would be obvious to people who have been in this space for an extended period of time. However I am sure it was much more useful to people who are new to this space, which I imagine was your intended audience.

It was a good talk, but more useful to some than others.

In response to the comment that "Dries ignored the organizer's pleas to come to an end."

I am the organizer and I would like to take full responsibility.

I made a mistake and Dries handled it the right way. I only realized this fact afterwards. I'm very thankful that Dries handled my interruption in the way that he did. He kept a relatively small mistake from becoming a larger one. I'm sorry for the mistake, Dries.

The talk was what I wanted for the program and I look forward to seeing more from you.

A really nice run through of the various tools available to Laravel Developers.
Some good information on a number of bits I wasn't aware of, a nice addition would be want to do when you outgrow some of them or how they can be better used.

Since I am new to Laravel and (back-end) developing in general I found this talk quite interesting. I've heard a lot of useful information!

But I also agree on the nervous voice and a lot of "thank you". But wait... having a nervous voice. Who cares? I think speaking for an audience is something not many people do or can do, because they don't have the courage. It looks like some commenters missed out entirely Matt Staufer's point about empathy, too bad!
Even though I suck at speaking for an audience I would like to say: try to tone your voice, like you are telling a really exciting story, if you know what I mean. Think it will engage your listeners more to what you are saying. Hope this is useful and keep up the good work!

Good overview of all tools. Missed laracast in the list.
Dries was a little bit nervous and his time management was kind of funny.

Great overview of the tools that make Laravel awesome. Nothing in depth, however I was made aware of some things that I had not had the time to look into and will now be in the future.

If a look at this talk objectively, it was a very informative talk. It's just one of those talks that belongs on a Laravel conference: a quick overview of what Laravel has to offer. For me personally (someone who follows it all very closely) it wasn't anything new, but I'm sure non-Laravel attendees, beginners and employers really benefited from this talk. There have to be talks for every audience, so I think this talk fitted in the program perfectly
My employer was very pleased he got a thorough overview of what Laravel has to offer: it even made him interested (finally - you did something we didn't manage) in Forge and Envoyer! So even if it wasn't a sales pitch, it worked! ;)

Surely your talk can be improved. I had the feeling you were a bit nervous and I understand! Talking for 450 people in a language that (I assume) you don't speak natively: I would get nervous for less! I'm positive you will feel more at ease next time.
A little more balance would have benefited your talk as well: you talked a lot about the products/framework/extensions Laravel offers and only very shortly about the community (I assume time limit). A bit less product talk (don't think it's necessary to explain a lot in depth) and more talk about the community would have pleased more people. Looking at how other speakers tackled this: I really saw that anecdotes kept it fresh and entertaining: maybe that's something you can try to introduce more in your next talk. I'm sure you have some good stories about how the community has helped you with Laravel.io (I remember the spam problems you had a while back).

Don't let the haters discourage you (remember: you can picture them holding their heads underwater ;) ). Both me and them wouldn't have done it any better!
Your talk has a lot of potential and with some rewriting it can become a talk that pleases both audiences: experienced and newcomers.

Though you were clearly a bit nervous (who wouldn't be the first time before such a large crowd) I think you did a fine job. An ecosystem like the one built around Laravel needs a friendly faces to explain all. I'm sure newcomers to Laravel will find the video of your talk very usefull.
Having said that I'd shorten up the presentation of the tools (and just skip the pricing) and focus a bit more on the people. (It was btw a great choice to not focus on the big names for once)
<insert thumbs up emoji here>

Off-topic (because I can): I've just seen Fear The Walking Dead, you'll like it.

The point is that we didn't sign to attend a conference in enhanced Laravel development so this talk can be considered very useful. Especially for people who does not constantly use so many tools all day long. I found interesting informations.
Yet, I think it would really improve Vints performance working more on talk volume modulation during the speech, carrying the participants to the end of some jokes with a slide, and using some metaphors.
They let people seed their thoughts and engage their brain with multi sensorial memories.

Nice overview of the tools we have available around Laravel. I think there should be definitely a place for this type of talks at a conference that aims to be inclusive.

I liked how you structured your talk and of course also the fact that you put some great contributors in the spotlights. If you'd ask me for a way to improve the talk, it would be trying to get away a little bit more from the slides and talking more freely.

Anyway, I liked it very much overall, and congrats for your courage to climb on that stage and face 450 pairs of eyes.

A lot of stuff that was not new to us non-newbies. Would have been better with a 30 minute in-depth exploration of Forge/Envoyer for instance, and how to set up a good deployment workflow in practice. Speaker was very monotone, needs to work on his presentation skills. Sorry :-/

I liked the overview! Would have been great in my laravel starting days. The Community part was my favorite.