Lone Star PHP 2017
20 - 22 Apr 2017 at Addison Conference Center

Really enjoyable talk, in depth coverage of the subject with a great level of technical detail. Engaging presentation and strong slide deck.

Feedback:
Dived into cypher a bit too quickly for most in the room to keep up with which led to some extended Q&A sessions halfway through the slide deck. @Michael: it might have been more effective to move more slowly with a bit more room for questions on some of the cypher introductory slides as the syntax is pretty foreign to me (and I assume most in the room). While I realize that a graph db vs SQL is apples vs oranges, it may help to present cypher with corresponding SQL queries where applicable.

I would have enjoyed some context on algorithmic complexity (this runs in 30 ms FOR SMALL DATASETS) and some examples which demonstrated nodes having unique attributes, as these are some of the features (and limitations) of a graph database, no?

Excellent introduction to graph databases in general and neo4j specifically. I appreciated Michael's example of visualizing a query as an actual set of nodes and edges. Lots of great resources at the end. This was a perfect introductory session. Thank you!

Really good intro to graph databases and the query language. In just 50 minutes, Michael took me from almost zero knowledge of graph database use and structure to feeling comfortable enough to start working on adding graph database functionality to some of my personal projects. Thanks for the great talk!

I've just started working with Docker a little bit in my regular work, and Josh's talk shed some light on the many questions I had about the tool, the differences between its various configuration files, their individual roles, and what it looks like when everything is put together. I even learned that Docker for Mac is actually just a super performant virtual machine!

With the information that Josh provided, I finally feel equipped to give Docker an earnest go in both my personal and professional projects, as I think I'll have a far greater understanding of the relationship between all of its moving parts than I might otherwise have. This was an excellent talk that I could not possibly recommend more highly.

I had a general understanding of TDD and BDD coming into this talk, but very little experience with the processes or tools used to accomplish either. Jessica was extremely knowledgeable about both topics and did a great job condensing a bevy of information into a short 3-hour presentation with interactive demo time. I appreciated the flowchart handouts, the general overview of the processes and the tools involved, and getting to see a sample application using these approaches built from the ground up. The examples very were clear and were not at all trivial - they were the sorts of tests developers could expect to be writing in a real-world project. My only criticism is that if the expectation is for people to follow along in the coding examples, copying and pasting content from elsewhere makes that a pretty insurmountable feat. I appreciated the consistent pushes to the repository to adjust for that - by the end of the session, I wound up just following along visually and pulling in the commits as they happened, as I could not type as fast as Jessica could C&P.

Wonderful talk. I would highly recommend other conferences consider including this session in their training day curriculum.

A ton of prep when into this talk and it shows. The pace of the in-class project was very ambitious. Having the git repo updated while the talk progresses was super helpful for keeping up.

The right mix of instruction and hands on.

Good docker intro to get us started. Everything was walked through slow enough to see what was going on.