PHP Joburg 2018
26 - 28 Sep 2018 at Blandford Manor

Some of the topics in this talk were completely new to me and it took me a while to see the bigger picture, but once I got my head around what Event Sourcing really is, I was blown away at the possibilities.

I think this must have been one of the most ambitious talks of the conference trying to show how you can piece together three large topics, Micro-services, Event Sourcing and CQRS.

I think the only difficulty I had was separating the cloud examples from the development patterns as cloud solutions where used as examples and use cases.

After giving it some thought the penny dropped and I realized it was far more simple than I had initially understood.

Gareth was very kind to clarify my miss-understandings after the talk, answering more than just a few questions on the topic.

I think if event sourcing and CQRS could initially be explained without micro-services and then later bring micro-services into the picture would have helped with my confusions.

Taking these concepts and putting them into practice is now the next challenge, something that requires a completely new way of looking at modelling your data and how information flows in an application.

This was a very honest and sincere talk, sharing some experiences most of us have never even thought about. Thank you for your honesty, and for sharing your story with us. I think its something all of us can learn from.

Interesting and informative. This was a clear demonstration of the "Out of the box thinking" mentality sometimes required by our industry, while still keeping your feet on the ground.

Loved this! Something different, fun, yet interesting. I think you kept the audience engaged, and even spurred some interest to start playing with big data!

Great talk! Was good to recap on all the different types of testing out there. I think it painted a clear picture about the necessity of tests, and how to get started with them.

This was a very well rounded workshop, taking a look at some critical processes that us devs generally skip over. It really makes me think different about the way I interact with my team, and the process of planning out a project before starting on it.

This was a really fun and hands on introduction to Serverless. Now that I have my own API up and running, I think it would be easy to extend it and continue building on it. Thanks for sharing!

This talks might have been about Zend Expressive but the real lessons learned for me was learning more about the PSR standards and how at the basic level a Framework is put together.

I never thought about the possible benefits of having a Framework that is completely decoupled allowing for a truly bespoke setup tailored to my specific needs.

Seeing how Zend Expressive is able to be built up as a collection of packages based on PSR standards really makes you think about your framework choices. Some people like frameworks to dictate these choices to them and provide a lot out the box, but you could go the other way and seeing how James passionately was able to explain that there really is other options out there with its own benefits.

I think the only difficulty I found was that James showed us all the pieces but understanding it as a whole was not all that clear. Maybe if we saw the default file-system layout at the end with all the pieces would have been great or maybe as part of the introduction.

Unfortunately we ran out of time when it comes to Doctrine, covering it a little more rushed than I think James would have liked.

If somebody gave James a little more time, like in a workshop, this I think would actually be a great topic.

API development is difficult to get right and easy to get wrong and Amanda was able to cover the topic of what people do wrong without any code and without any bias towards any specific API architecture focusing instead on things that are often an after thought.

For me the top takeaway message was that we need to look at how your users will experience our API's beyond the code as the best API can be completely ruined with sloppy documentation and a poorly thought-out sign-up processes.

During the panel discussion a question was asked about good resources for learn more about API development and Amanda was able to name a few books on the topic. Only suggestion would be to add these books as a slide at the end of the talk. Other wise a really great talk.

This for me was an incredibly brave talk, sharing some really personal stories about sexism and prejudices in software development. You could see these where not easy things to talk about and Michelle gave us all a small window into the world of being a woman and a young girl in a male dominated industry, and very elegantly linked it to how PHP as grown as a community and how things have improved.

I took a lot away from this talk that really makes a person think. For me the importance and responsibility of senior community members and the examples they set and the role of mentoring could play in giving young woman the strength to look pasted any struggles they unfortunately are encountering. I am glad Michelle found some really awesome people that helped her and supported her.

Watching Michelle's talk made me think of a Ted talk by Brené Brown titled "The power of vulnerability" and how Michelle's talk was a great example of this.

Hopefully one day we can mature enough as an industry that we stop hearing about such struggles and prejudices.

Thank you for sharing.