Madison PHP Conference 2016
30 Sep - 1 Oct 2016 at Radisson Hotel Madison

This was hands down one of the best talks of the conference. I have been on both sides of the bargaining table throughout my years in management & this covered all of the major issues brilliantly. Great Speaker, engaging, great info.

Solid presentation and the Q&A was enlightening, funny and really drew the room together.

Needed some more solid anecdotes, including maybe some tough moments in the transition to this way of working. This also would have helped it fill out the timeslot. The speaker was easy to listen to and prepared good slides, and my guess is that version 2 of this talk could be very good.

Enjoyed this; for me was a solid mix of review and some new things to try. However, I thought the jump to classes was too abrupt and wanted an intermediate step to learn to think of scripts as software before talking about improving how that software is developed.

What an unexpected surprise! Stephanie's adventure was compelling and interesting. We knew it ended well enough because she was here to tell the tale. But her tale brought all-encompassing credibility to her teachings on teamwork. I'll be picking up the referenced book to see if I can learn (and apply) more. Thank you!

Samantha nailed it. Sam herself exemplifies what a principal software engineer *is* whilst drawing all of us into a greater awareness of our own heritage. For example I'd forgotten why C came easily to me. I'd already written a lot of code in ALGOL-60. Semicolons. BNF (at least the Backus part). I was unaware of what Ada Lovelace's contributions truly were, only that a failed/mandated (same thing) language was named in her honor. The tragedy of Alan Turing who gave us so much. Sam stated she loves talking about computing history, but this talk was very much a part of helping build our community, in the sense of showing us our compass.

This talk was described as being about the basics. It was. Tessa was completely accurate on all points, and that's no small feat when describing the melding of HTTP and REST protocols. (I do use HTTP code 418 regularly, by the way. It's a favorite.) She correctly noted that SOAP was prominent up to ten years ago. For me, the highlight of the talk was the "sales pitch" that wasn't. It's an intriguing product and API. To be sure, Tessa's talk did not have advanced examples, but it was described as being about the basics. It was, and Tessa's presentation was well done.

I'm beset with a milder form of the Yahoo syndrome. As a company we'd prefer to not risk losing members over additional security. Nor is site security a direct-revenue-producing activity. Thus I find Bill's "survey of the territory" politically useful. I can explain things to decision makers in terms of reputation and what's been in the news. Our management is actually more open to security concepts than many, so Bill's talk comes at a good time. Thank you!

"If not you, who?" Full props to Ed for stepping out and making a tangible difference about mental health. The talk itself was useful to me personally. My wife and I will be looking for a Mental Health First Aid class in Minnesota, per Ed's recommendation. I'll be getting the OSMI materials into my work place. Ed's availablility at the vendor table for additional discussion greatly added to the value of his presence. I appreciated the chance to chat one-on-one.

Heather's material is of direct, immediate use to me. I can make code walk-through's and other presentations more effective at work by better understanding how to induce the learning in my audience. As a conference presenter my potential audience is unknown. Heather gave great insight on how to best reach the expected range of learning styles. The presentation itself embodied the material being taught. She went fast, but had carefully (and successfully) set our expectation that she would.