At the end of March, mainly developers from the TYPO3 Neos and TYPO3 Flow community met for the fourth time in Kolbermoor near Rosenheim. In the short time it has been held there, the Inspiring Conference has already established itself as THE international conference for the new TYPO3 content management system Neos.
Not least thanks to the old Kesselhaus as an extraordinary location, the organizer TechDivision managed to put together a sold-out conference. With a total of 14 technical presentations and 3 workshops on Flow and Neos, the conference was primarily aimed at developers. As a premium sponsor and exhibitor, punkt.de also took part with a total of seven developers.
The first day started with a bang
After Stefan Willkommer's "Big Bang", the content framework was set for what the next two days would be about. In his keynote speech, Robert Lemke presented the results of the last Neos Codesprint - which took place directly before the conference. Some of the most exciting news was certainly the project's move to Github and the switch to the MIT license for Flow. Aske Ertmann later presented a variety of useful recipes for daily work with Neos and Andreas Förthner and Bastian Waidelich managed what hardly anyone would have thought possible: they turned the topic of "security" into an entertaining, even funny, talk. The highlight of the day for some of our developers.
TechDivision's talk on their PHP app server showed how Java technology can be transferred to the PHP world in the form of application servers. The fact that there is still some work to be done here - especially on the part of PHP framework and application developers - does not change the fact that in terms of performance and scalability, a concept that has been tried and tested in other programming languages for years has found its way into the PHP world and certainly deserves further attention.
The final presentation of the first day by Daniel Hindering and Rasmus Skjoldan "The future of content management (according to Neos)", which showed a possible roadmap for how and where Neos could develop in the future, was certainly eagerly awaited by many conference visitors.
Networking and social event
Many visitors will remember the conference not only for the many high-quality presentations, but also for the excellent catering and the numerous opportunities to get in touch with like-minded people. The professional exchange was not neglected during the breaks. The social event - commendably organized in the same building - proved that web developers not only cut a good figure as speakers and participants, but also on the dance floor. Not only the free drinks until 9 p.m. ensured a lively crowd - rumor has it that many Neos core developers and some "old hands" from the TYPO3 scene were "at the start" until late into the night and appreciated the work of the specially hired DJ.
Highlights from the second day
Early on Saturday morning, Arne Blankerts and Robert Lemke presented where content management systems could be heading in the future from a software architecture perspective. Whether the idea of separating content creation and content delivery will prevail remains to be seen - the talk and the ideas behind it were certainly interesting.
Sebastian Kurfürst showed very impressively what a speaker who literally "lives" Neos and ElasticSearch can achieve with his talk with the inconspicuous title "Searching in Neos". It quickly became clear that the integration of ElasticSearch into Neos enables functionality that goes far beyond "dumb searching" in websites and that the concepts of Neos go hand in hand with the integration into this promising search technology.
Why we will be there again next time
In addition to the TYPO3 Conference(t3con), which has developed more and more into a business conference in recent years, and the TYPO3 Developer Days, which focus on TYPO3 CMS, the Inspiring Conference has set out to provide a platform for Neos and Flow. The fact that this concept works is not only proven by the sold-out conference, but above all by the satisfied atmosphere among the participants. One aspect that makes the conference just as interesting for ambitious web developers is the fact that the event often dares to think outside the box and also presents things that are still in a beta or even alpha stage. That's why we'll certainly be there again next year - for us, the Inspring Conference is undisputedly one of the fixed dates in the calendar when it comes to web conferences. With this in mind, many thanks to TechDivision for the excellent organization and to all participants, with whom we had many interesting conversations before, during and after the conference.
Here are some links to the presentations and further material
Lectures from Friday
Inspiring note by Robert Lemke & Stefan Willkommer
Old certainties are crumbling, new questions are emerging. Who actually decides on technology? How independent are we really? And what role does open source still play? We share our observations from a year that has reorganized many things.
Working at punkt.de - getting started and the first few months
I've been at punkt.de for four months now and in that time I've already taken part in the team days, the Just Do It Day, as a helping hand at a conference and experienced a project going live.
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Martin Alker, Entwicklung / Scrum Master at punkt.de
