Northeast PHP 2014
6 - 7 Sep 2014 at Microsoft NERD Center

I remember when I invited Facebook to Boston PHP back in 2004 where Scott MacVicar presented Hip Hop for the first time. It is great to have Facebook back in Boston with new offices and jobs to hire for. Wow.

I wasn't able to stay for the whole talk, but I think its important to note that Facebook has embraced and prospered by PHP and they continue to embrace and exploit it fully. PHP is a culture and the developers that use it are creative risk takers and unique. The HHVM method is an incredible technology that in my view, is designed to keep PHP alive and as an interpreted language of choice for web developers.

Thank you Ed Smith and Facebook!!!!

It's also worth noting that two of the top five websites in the world presented... Facebook and Wikipedia. PHP is king.

A really interesting deep dive into the JIT compiler behind HHVM. It was presented well, going deep without going too deep.

Perhaps it could have used a more structured example of the process (rather than just scrolling through logs). But the points were made well.

Very solid talk.

Jonathan Klein is one of the best technical presenters I have seen. I am very proud to have him in Boston and associated with Northeast PHP for past three years. In years past, he has given us highly technical talks. This year, I challenged him to give a beginner talk. His challenge?... to make us feel like experts...

Beginners need a story and a reason why. Jonathan explained Composer in a new way that got us excited and wanting to use it. Goodbye PEAR, I never liked you.

- Excellent use of showing code, zooming in to see what is going on, highlighted code
- The pace and progression was well planned
- I never understood PSR until he explain it
- He looked at the audience instead of the screen
- He was careful not to use terms we didn't understand
- I never felt like I missed anything, and I didn't feel dumb
- He took questions, and repeated the questions so all could understand
- I was inspired

I can't say enough about Jonathan Klein and how a good mentor he is. I appreciate him taking a beginner talk.

This was an excellent talk. Marli is a gifted presenter and communicator.

I really liked the flow, the story telling. It was fun, energetic, and rewarding. Very good illustrations, and resources to learn more from. The agile principles were explained very well. I can tell she put a lot into it. She engaged with the audience and took questions.

I would like encourage Marli take this talk to other developer conferences. It was very useful and an important dialog. I saw a lot of developers nodding that the process is worth pursuing.

This was a great talk and something that surprised everybody. Robert Cohn brought with him a robotic gadget he created that can make art with a slice of bread, a birthday candle, and a little bit of ingenuity.

The talk started with his gadget sitting on a table to the left of the podium. It was made of cardboard boxes, wires, bread boards, circuits, a controller, a bent coat hanger. We waited for the presentation to end before seeing it work. This made it exciting.

Robert has a nice way of presenting in a friendly easy to follow manner. He explained how Internet of Things (IoT) is a new and exciting industry that is catching the eye of big companies like Intel. You can make almost anything you can dream of. Creative developers can use these tools to jump into this hobby with low cost parts, 3d printing, and a little imagination.

He gave good resources and where to buy parts. He spoke about the explosion of 3d printing, and how developers can use PHP and other languages on these tiny miniature computers. He also gave us some background on controllers like Arduino and Raspberry Pi and Intel's new controller. He also covered a bit of Intel XDK which is an IDE for writing phone/tablet apps in HTML5.

Then the demo started. He put a single slice of white toast on top of this gadget. He lit the candle, we sang happy birthday, he pressed a button on a web interface. Then the machine started to move the candle back and forth while burning an image into the bread.

I was stunned.

This was a good talk and explained the principles of being organized when you code.

Bill and I have been debating for years on if its best to start OOP or Procedural when you learn to code. I asked him to come and teach us why OOP is better way. How it will keep you sane as you make more and more complex application.

I feel there are many programmers who are lost and stuck in procedural coding. Maybe if we rename the terms we associate with it then it would get more traction.... Polymorphism, Class, Object, Abstraction, Encapsulation... sounds less exciting and too hard. :)

Bill gave examples of state machines. He showed us programs with a "rats nest" of conditional statements and why state is better. He had good examples, good pace, and even gave away some of his books.

I would like to see Bill present more at these events and I can tell he enjoyed it. Thank you.

Anytime I can watch and listen to Davey Shafik talk I am mesmerized. This talk was a good run down of the features and progression of PHP versions starting with 5.3 to 5,6. Very solid.

I wish there were simple examples of how to use each new feature and the ease of use it provides. But this talk was kept to a high level and there would be no time to do so. I might suggest a talk on just the "good parts" for people really stuck on 5.2 and before.

The stories and slides were good. I like the evolutional way of introducing the changes. PHP is becoming an even better language over time and I can see the community is driving these changes.

I have a hard time hearing and Davey as he can talk fast sometimes. Sometimes you can hear his british accent, which is fun. He cares deeply about his craft and it shows.

I was late getting to this talk and I understand there was a technical problem getting started. This was not her fault and it meant Heather needed to hustle as she lost 15 minutes. Despite this she handled it well and was professional.

Heather is one of the most passionate people I know when it comes to content and strategy and design. This was evident as she gave real world examples and resources. The pace was a bit rushed, but not a problem. She held the audience very well and got us into spirit with exercise and putting on football facepaint to show us her team spirit. The slides were illustrated nicely. Good job overall.

Thank you Heather.

This was a great keynote talk and I thank Steve for taking the time to teach developers that in order to build great software you need to talk with users first.



Steve is an excellent communicator and he uses storytelling, humor, and humbling experiences to make this case. I enjoy the simple cartoon black and white illustrations he uses to explain what happens at the office.

He kept the audience engaged the whole time. He walked around and asked to share experiences and frustrations from the audience. He showed ways to incorporate usability testing to the development process early. He even did a live usability test on a randomly chosen audience member. This made it fun, and real. but more importantly it shows how simple it can be to do.

Overall this was a fantastic talk and powerful message.

This was an excellent talk and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you.

David did an excellent job describing new ways to bring cinema effects into web design. I didn't believe it was possible until he explained that we are already doing it with photo galleries. "That a good point", I thought. Then he had great examples to showcase this.

David understands how to motivate you to learn. The pace was good. He looked at the audience (not his slides). The story was well connected to each slide. He even juggled before he started the presentation. He is an excellent speaker and you can tell he cares deeply about his craft. He took answers from the audience and engaged with us very well. He also provided resources to learn more and how to apply what we learned.

All around this was an excellent talk and I highly recommend it.