Join me at the 2008 DC PHP Conference
A couple of weeks ago the folks at the DC PHP Conference announced the speakers for the 2008 installment of the conference held at George Washington University and yours truly was selected as one of the speakers. We're talking PHP celebs like Chris Shiflett, Chris Jones, David Sklar, Cal Evans, Eli White, Keith Casey and Ben Ramsey as well as PHP companies like Zend, Digg, Oracle and Ning just to name a few.
Despite the fact the Internet continually provides us new ways to collapse the world and brush elbows with like-minded people I still get a bit perplexed that anybody finds it interesting when I talk about PHP (or anything for that matter). That aside, I do have a talk I'm giving called "Fed up of Framework Hype?". Sound familiar? For those of you that occasionally browse these pages you may recall a prior post on the subject. Given there was a bit of interest in that post I turned it into a talk for this conference. Click "read more" to see the full abstract of the talk and be sure to register for the conference which runs June 2-4!
Abstract for: Fed up of Framework Hype
How good can any PHP framework be when it seems a new framework is dropping on the daily? It’s not just PHP…you’ve got Rails, Spring, Django and don’t waste your time Googlin’ on the subject…there isn’t enough time in the day to read up on all that crap. Shame on us architects. Why? With all the talk about the baddest, new framework out there we never take the time to articulate their value (if any). So here it is, one guy's view on frameworks and the real value they have for you.
See, nobody wants to talk the fact that frameworks have a bunch of empty rhetoric around them. Their value is often discussed in terms of coolness and ease of use. If you are talking to a manager-type, balding, high strung, concerned about their budget you will quickly learn they could care less. They’re focused on the bottom line (where you should be focused).
This talk will focus on how to evaluate a framework and when not to use one. Yes, that’s right…I said it. You may not even need a framework! But should you need one we’ll talk about framework pre-requisites, why establishing goals for your framework is important, the key components of a good framework and how to help your organization get the most out of which ever framework you choose.
Don’t like frameworks? In this short talk it may be hard to convince you they can be good but I do know why many hardcore PHP-ers think they suck and we can talk about how to make a frameworks suck less, maybe even get you to like one.