PHP Russia 2019: your own “stadium” for the first league language
There is no conference in our market that is dedicated to PHP. And it's like a first-league football club without a stadium. Indeed, in Russia, PHP is in second place in the number of vacancies for programmers (behind 1C, but ahead of Java). He has an extensive ecosystem and a giant army of "followers".
Having mourned, the members of the PHP community decided to correct the situation, for which they cooperated with our team. Together, on May 17, a professional conference for PHP developers PHP Russia 2019 will be held in Moscow Infop space. Before the event, we talked with the program committee leader Alexander Makarov ( SamDark ) about why an event is needed, what it is intended to change, who is expected to present at it with reports and how these reports will be useful.
- Tell us briefly about your experience - for those who do not know about you.
')
- I am a member of the core team framework Yii. I am engaged in other projects, including Codeception and PHP-FIG. He managed to work in Skyeng, Stay.com, Wrike, Siemens and several other interesting companies.
- Where did the idea to create a separate thematic conference about PHP?
- I occasionally looked at the list of conferences on Php.net and was sad that we have nothing of the kind - only individual meetings and sections at general conferences. There is no single large platform for communication. As a result, the valuable experience that PHP development teams and individual enthusiasts accumulate is replicated and reproduced poorly. In addition, the PHP community is at the stage when it is adopting the best practices from other languages, first and foremost from Java. So now it is extremely important to single out by joint efforts what borrowing will actually be useful and avoid blind copying.
So I thought, why not create such a platform on my own. The idea was long overdue, and by October last, it had taken a more distinct shape. At about the same time, a similar thought came to Oleg Bunin ( olegbunin ). At that time, we already talked with him: I was on the Highload ++ 2018 program committee. Oleg offered to meet and discuss the possibility of such a conference. They crossed, discussed the idea, tested the ground and decided: we are doing.
- Has there really been no conferences about PHP in Russia?
- Was PHPConf. She was satisfied with the team that is now doing DevConf. But the last time PHPConf was already in 2010. As a result, DevConf has historically a lot of PHP, but still not as much as we would like. It turns out that the conference, focused on PHP, in our country was not nine years old.
- What do you think, why?
- Probably because in 2010 PHP of the fifth version was widely used. The decadent mood in his attitude was stronger than ever: here and there it was said that PHP was dying. The “Sevens”, which seriously improved the perspectives of the language, not least due to the increase in productivity, was not at that time.
- Why, from your point of view, PHP-related reports that are done on the same DevConf, on HighLoad ++ and BackendConf, are not enough for the community?
- First, the attitude towards those who are engaged in the development of PHP, unjustly biased and based on an outdated understanding of the language and platform. To communicate as openly as possible, such an attitude at the conference should not be. It is necessary that all were their own. Secondly, the HighLoad ++ and RIT ++ agenda are primarily focused on general topics that apply to several platforms and languages at once. And the ones specifically for PHP are rarely endorsed, despite the fact that they are really and important to those who work with PHP.
- Do you have any idea why this is so? What is the reason why PHP reports at wider conferences are rarely approved?
There is a lot of non-obvious things in it: a strange naming of functions, a strange arrangement of arguments, a strange error handling.
But those who worked with it somewhere in the epoch of 4.x or the first five versions hate PHP. There, puzzling and illogical was above the roof. With the spread of the "seven", after Nikita Popov and the rest of the team started cleaning the API, things went smoothly. What was and what is is heaven and earth. But the "inertia of Kheiterism" has been preserved.
And objectively the same Kotlin created beautiful at once. PHP is ugly, but as a platform it is extremely good. It still has a low entry threshold, and it is easy to find specialists writing on it. Unfortunately, often not quite qualified, and this is also one of the reasons for the dislike of the language, but also one of the main reasons to finally make a PHP conference. Many enter PHP, and very few people rise to a high level. We want more intelligent engineers to grow out of the ppcp.
- Obviously, due to the very “inertia of heiterism”, the conference, as a kind of community tribune, will also be timed to combat stereotypes around PHP. Moreover, not all of them originated from scratch. What persistent beliefs about the language do you most often encounter today, and which of them have a foundation?
- First of all, if PHP in 2019 is good for nothing, and all new projects are wiser to start on Kotlin, Python and their ilk. Of course, this is not so:
Many of these cool pieces, we show on PHP Russia.
It is also widely believed that, by default, paichpishnikov have low qualifications. No, not at all. But again, the PHP entry threshold is really low. Therefore, there are more bad developers in it than in other popular languages. And since highly skilled developers cannot make up a large part of the community, we have such an ugly, as a first approximation, picture. Because of it, it is a little insulting, but if you look closely, here you will see an excellent business environment. You can always find enough qualified guys for routine tasks for modest money. Or find amazingly skilled. Or take not very qualified and educate professionals. It depends on the needs and projects of the company-employer. So, in my opinion, this is rather not a minus, but a plus PHP ecosystem.
Finally, like a mature language, PHP has a downside: because of the abundance of frameworks and other tools, it is not always easy for beginners (and not only them) to decide what to master. In many languages with a “starter kit,” the matter is simpler: in Ruby, the base is Ruby on Rails, in Python, Django. Whereas in PHP only top-end frameworks of 4-5 pieces. In a sense, this is a weak point of the ecosystem: expertise in the community is “smeared”. At the same time, this is a virtue: when there is a lively competition between solutions, when developers are not engaged in the same, their eyes are not blurred. In addition, adherents of different frameworks enrich each other with their experiences. More often it is possible to move away from standard solutions, it turns out to experiment more. So as a result, the ecosystem progresses.
- Let's go back to PHP Russia. Were there any foreign events on PHP that you and your colleagues were inspired by?
- Of course. First of all, Kiev Framework Days, in which PHP fwdays are held. The guys who are engaged in them, great lads: the conference is extremely strong. If you look to the west, PHPBenelux is definitely worthy of attention. Of course, we are not trying to do one to one as there. Just we adopt useful experience.
- What will PHP Russia have in common with other conferences held by the Oleg Bunin team?
- Oleg's team deals with almost everything except the program itself, so there will be enough in common. At the very least, excellent equipment, high-quality video broadcasts and recordings, interesting booths, transcripts of reports on Habré and much that is inherent in HighLoad ++ and RIT ++.
- Who is a member of the PHP Russia Program Committee? Who are these people and what are they cool about?
“Besides me there are eight people on the program committee.” This is either the representatives of large companies using PHP, or prominent experts from the PHP community, and someone combines both incarnations.
Roman Pronsky , JetBrains. Many people know him from PHP digests on Habré and the latest news about PhpStorm.
Kirill Nesmeyanov , Rambler & Co. Representative of the Laravel Framework Russian Community, GraphQL evangelist and developer The Railt GraphQL Framework.
Pavel Agaletsky , systems architect in the Lamoda order delivery system development team.
Alexander Krasheninnikov , head of data engineering at Badoo. He made his way from a full-developer to a big data specialist and did not lose faith in PHP.
Alexey Akulovich , senior backend developer on VKontakte. For twelve years on the Internet, he has gone from riveting small websites on homegrown CMS to designing and developing VKontakte infrastructure.
Alexander Lisachenko , Head of Web Development and Architecture at Alpari. The author and lead developer of the aspect-oriented framework Go! Aop. Speaker at international conferences on PHP. Co-organizer Symfoniacs.
Igor Somov , tech cluster leader in Avito. Manages development in the Operations cluster, which includes Moderation Systems, Automated Moderation, Data Science SWAT, Support Systems and Internal Projects units.
Konstantin Burkalev , systems architect with 15 years of experience in IT, author and host of several development podcasts (SDCast & RadioJS), organizer of meetings and conferences, including Symfoniacs. Engaged in the design and development of distributed integrated security systems.
We make all decisions collectively.
- At what level of audience is the conference designed primarily? For example, is it suitable for juniors?
- I am sure everyone who deals with PHP will find something for themselves at the conference. Middlam and seniors will have something to borrow for their projects, they will be able to learn about the trends of the development of the platform, to exchange experience among themselves.
Content with a view strictly on the junior we are not preparing.
So the junas have landmarks and without a conference, it is not our urgent task to teach them from scratch. But beginners should look at trends: where and by whom PHP moves, if there is any reason to study it in principle, what interesting projects are building companies in our market, where to go to work.
In addition, a good conference is traditionally not only reports, but also communication, primarily on the sidelines. Juniors have every chance of catching one of the super-experienced PHP developers and asking them. There’s absolutely no need to be afraid of appearing stupid or annoying: almost all the speakers are ready to answer the questions of newbies, for example, to share how they themselves learned PHP and what difficulties they encountered. Such insights are very valuable for those who are just starting a career.
- Is PHP Russia meant more for backenders or fullteks?
- We do not plan to pay increased attention to the client side of applications, so the conference will close the needs of the full-stack developer only by half. The rest is more than enough to satisfy AppsConf and Frontend Conf .
- How is the PHP Russia program built?
- Initially, we had two streams. In one - everything is about tools, in the other - about experience and interesting cases. But, probably, it is necessary to change the streams to “English-speaking” and “Russian-speaking”. We received a lot of interesting applications for reports from foreign speakers. We do not plan workshops yet, but do not exclude them. Almost certainly there will be mitapes: the InfoSpace platform is flexibly configured, so we can easily allocate space for such meetings in a chamber format. If someone from those who are reading us now, is ready to suggest a topic of a mitap and moderate it, feel free to write.
- And what are you personally interested in?
- PHP standards and standardization in it - absolutely accurate. I really want to substantively discuss the development paths of PHP. I would like to hear reports on Open Source solutions. Most likely, I myself, too, either make a report, or gather mitap.
- Is there something that PHP Russia may not be talking about?
- About tabs and spaces ( smiles ). But seriously, no restrictions. The main thing is that the report directly affects PHP and is efficient.
- Isn't it too late to apply for a report? If a PHP developer is thinking about offering you a topic, what criteria should he rely on in order to understand if his topic is relevant to the concept of PHP Russia?
- It's time! Do not break your head over the criteria - submit reports. Better a few. Relevant or not, the program committee will think and give you a feedback.
- But what about the well-known fact that at the conferences of Oleg Bunin there are always high requirements for reports?
- Of course, we have established internal quality standards for reports. Very experienced and demanding experts gathered in the PHP Russia Program Committee. But this is not a reason to give up - on the contrary: the conference is held for the first time, we feel for the optimal format for it and are open to dialogue. Yes, frankly strange or badly structured reports will definitely not pass. However, this does not mean that you should not apply, if you are in doubt whether it makes sense. If we see that the speaker is talented, or that the content of the report does not fit the desired bar a little bit, we will try to make a candy out of the available material with it.
The formal requirements are minimal: the presence of distinct theses. To understand what the report. We also readily consider topics related to PHP development. Say, if you have a curious case that shows how to make PHP friends with Golang on the backend, it will surely fit into our agenda.
- What reports and speakers that you managed to include in PHP Russia program, are you really proud with your program committee colleagues? Will you spoil something?
- We continue to collect applications and link the program. We will finally approve the reports one month before the day of the conference. But something can already boast .
Anton Shabovta from Onliner will speak on the topic of asynchronous PHP, including highlighting modern approaches to cooperative multitasking in it. At the same time we will discuss what awaits us in ext-async, AMPHP 3 and PHP 8.
The conference grid is constantly updated with new reports, so stay tuned for announcements in our Telegram channel and on the site .
Having mourned, the members of the PHP community decided to correct the situation, for which they cooperated with our team. Together, on May 17, a professional conference for PHP developers PHP Russia 2019 will be held in Moscow Infop space. Before the event, we talked with the program committee leader Alexander Makarov ( SamDark ) about why an event is needed, what it is intended to change, who is expected to present at it with reports and how these reports will be useful.
- Tell us briefly about your experience - for those who do not know about you.
')
- I am a member of the core team framework Yii. I am engaged in other projects, including Codeception and PHP-FIG. He managed to work in Skyeng, Stay.com, Wrike, Siemens and several other interesting companies.
- Where did the idea to create a separate thematic conference about PHP?
- I occasionally looked at the list of conferences on Php.net and was sad that we have nothing of the kind - only individual meetings and sections at general conferences. There is no single large platform for communication. As a result, the valuable experience that PHP development teams and individual enthusiasts accumulate is replicated and reproduced poorly. In addition, the PHP community is at the stage when it is adopting the best practices from other languages, first and foremost from Java. So now it is extremely important to single out by joint efforts what borrowing will actually be useful and avoid blind copying.
So I thought, why not create such a platform on my own. The idea was long overdue, and by October last, it had taken a more distinct shape. At about the same time, a similar thought came to Oleg Bunin ( olegbunin ). At that time, we already talked with him: I was on the Highload ++ 2018 program committee. Oleg offered to meet and discuss the possibility of such a conference. They crossed, discussed the idea, tested the ground and decided: we are doing.
- Has there really been no conferences about PHP in Russia?
- Was PHPConf. She was satisfied with the team that is now doing DevConf. But the last time PHPConf was already in 2010. As a result, DevConf has historically a lot of PHP, but still not as much as we would like. It turns out that the conference, focused on PHP, in our country was not nine years old.
- What do you think, why?
- Probably because in 2010 PHP of the fifth version was widely used. The decadent mood in his attitude was stronger than ever: here and there it was said that PHP was dying. The “Sevens”, which seriously improved the perspectives of the language, not least due to the increase in productivity, was not at that time.
- Why, from your point of view, PHP-related reports that are done on the same DevConf, on HighLoad ++ and BackendConf, are not enough for the community?
- First, the attitude towards those who are engaged in the development of PHP, unjustly biased and based on an outdated understanding of the language and platform. To communicate as openly as possible, such an attitude at the conference should not be. It is necessary that all were their own. Secondly, the HighLoad ++ and RIT ++ agenda are primarily focused on general topics that apply to several platforms and languages at once. And the ones specifically for PHP are rarely endorsed, despite the fact that they are really and important to those who work with PHP.
- Do you have any idea why this is so? What is the reason why PHP reports at wider conferences are rarely approved?
- Let's be honest: initially the language itself is far from ideal.
There is a lot of non-obvious things in it: a strange naming of functions, a strange arrangement of arguments, a strange error handling.
But those who worked with it somewhere in the epoch of 4.x or the first five versions hate PHP. There, puzzling and illogical was above the roof. With the spread of the "seven", after Nikita Popov and the rest of the team started cleaning the API, things went smoothly. What was and what is is heaven and earth. But the "inertia of Kheiterism" has been preserved.
And objectively the same Kotlin created beautiful at once. PHP is ugly, but as a platform it is extremely good. It still has a low entry threshold, and it is easy to find specialists writing on it. Unfortunately, often not quite qualified, and this is also one of the reasons for the dislike of the language, but also one of the main reasons to finally make a PHP conference. Many enter PHP, and very few people rise to a high level. We want more intelligent engineers to grow out of the ppcp.
- Obviously, due to the very “inertia of heiterism”, the conference, as a kind of community tribune, will also be timed to combat stereotypes around PHP. Moreover, not all of them originated from scratch. What persistent beliefs about the language do you most often encounter today, and which of them have a foundation?
- First of all, if PHP in 2019 is good for nothing, and all new projects are wiser to start on Kotlin, Python and their ilk. Of course, this is not so:
PHP is fully operational and as a platform, and as a language for modern development, you can do cool stuff on it.
Many of these cool pieces, we show on PHP Russia.
It is also widely believed that, by default, paichpishnikov have low qualifications. No, not at all. But again, the PHP entry threshold is really low. Therefore, there are more bad developers in it than in other popular languages. And since highly skilled developers cannot make up a large part of the community, we have such an ugly, as a first approximation, picture. Because of it, it is a little insulting, but if you look closely, here you will see an excellent business environment. You can always find enough qualified guys for routine tasks for modest money. Or find amazingly skilled. Or take not very qualified and educate professionals. It depends on the needs and projects of the company-employer. So, in my opinion, this is rather not a minus, but a plus PHP ecosystem.
Finally, like a mature language, PHP has a downside: because of the abundance of frameworks and other tools, it is not always easy for beginners (and not only them) to decide what to master. In many languages with a “starter kit,” the matter is simpler: in Ruby, the base is Ruby on Rails, in Python, Django. Whereas in PHP only top-end frameworks of 4-5 pieces. In a sense, this is a weak point of the ecosystem: expertise in the community is “smeared”. At the same time, this is a virtue: when there is a lively competition between solutions, when developers are not engaged in the same, their eyes are not blurred. In addition, adherents of different frameworks enrich each other with their experiences. More often it is possible to move away from standard solutions, it turns out to experiment more. So as a result, the ecosystem progresses.
- Let's go back to PHP Russia. Were there any foreign events on PHP that you and your colleagues were inspired by?
- Of course. First of all, Kiev Framework Days, in which PHP fwdays are held. The guys who are engaged in them, great lads: the conference is extremely strong. If you look to the west, PHPBenelux is definitely worthy of attention. Of course, we are not trying to do one to one as there. Just we adopt useful experience.
- What will PHP Russia have in common with other conferences held by the Oleg Bunin team?
- Oleg's team deals with almost everything except the program itself, so there will be enough in common. At the very least, excellent equipment, high-quality video broadcasts and recordings, interesting booths, transcripts of reports on Habré and much that is inherent in HighLoad ++ and RIT ++.
- Who is a member of the PHP Russia Program Committee? Who are these people and what are they cool about?
“Besides me there are eight people on the program committee.” This is either the representatives of large companies using PHP, or prominent experts from the PHP community, and someone combines both incarnations.
Roman Pronsky , JetBrains. Many people know him from PHP digests on Habré and the latest news about PhpStorm.
Kirill Nesmeyanov , Rambler & Co. Representative of the Laravel Framework Russian Community, GraphQL evangelist and developer The Railt GraphQL Framework.
Pavel Agaletsky , systems architect in the Lamoda order delivery system development team.
Alexander Krasheninnikov , head of data engineering at Badoo. He made his way from a full-developer to a big data specialist and did not lose faith in PHP.
Alexey Akulovich , senior backend developer on VKontakte. For twelve years on the Internet, he has gone from riveting small websites on homegrown CMS to designing and developing VKontakte infrastructure.
Alexander Lisachenko , Head of Web Development and Architecture at Alpari. The author and lead developer of the aspect-oriented framework Go! Aop. Speaker at international conferences on PHP. Co-organizer Symfoniacs.
Igor Somov , tech cluster leader in Avito. Manages development in the Operations cluster, which includes Moderation Systems, Automated Moderation, Data Science SWAT, Support Systems and Internal Projects units.
Konstantin Burkalev , systems architect with 15 years of experience in IT, author and host of several development podcasts (SDCast & RadioJS), organizer of meetings and conferences, including Symfoniacs. Engaged in the design and development of distributed integrated security systems.
We make all decisions collectively.
- At what level of audience is the conference designed primarily? For example, is it suitable for juniors?
- I am sure everyone who deals with PHP will find something for themselves at the conference. Middlam and seniors will have something to borrow for their projects, they will be able to learn about the trends of the development of the platform, to exchange experience among themselves.
Content with a view strictly on the junior we are not preparing.
However, beginning to visit PHP Russia will be useful. At least to find out where to grow. The blessing to grow is where. The situation is much better than ten years ago. There are “roadmaps” for newbies, in particular PHP The Right Way , which clearly demonstrate how to “properly prepare” PHP: how to work with databases in a normal way, not using outdated APIs, how to deal with dependency injection, as it is accepted today code on the server.
So the junas have landmarks and without a conference, it is not our urgent task to teach them from scratch. But beginners should look at trends: where and by whom PHP moves, if there is any reason to study it in principle, what interesting projects are building companies in our market, where to go to work.
In addition, a good conference is traditionally not only reports, but also communication, primarily on the sidelines. Juniors have every chance of catching one of the super-experienced PHP developers and asking them. There’s absolutely no need to be afraid of appearing stupid or annoying: almost all the speakers are ready to answer the questions of newbies, for example, to share how they themselves learned PHP and what difficulties they encountered. Such insights are very valuable for those who are just starting a career.
- Is PHP Russia meant more for backenders or fullteks?
- We do not plan to pay increased attention to the client side of applications, so the conference will close the needs of the full-stack developer only by half. The rest is more than enough to satisfy AppsConf and Frontend Conf .
- How is the PHP Russia program built?
- Initially, we had two streams. In one - everything is about tools, in the other - about experience and interesting cases. But, probably, it is necessary to change the streams to “English-speaking” and “Russian-speaking”. We received a lot of interesting applications for reports from foreign speakers. We do not plan workshops yet, but do not exclude them. Almost certainly there will be mitapes: the InfoSpace platform is flexibly configured, so we can easily allocate space for such meetings in a chamber format. If someone from those who are reading us now, is ready to suggest a topic of a mitap and moderate it, feel free to write.
- Reports on which topics you particularly welcome, on which you want to focus?
- On the future of PHP, asynchronous programming, architecture, best practices of the platform, PHP under load and its combination with other languages. Of course, we probed the ground and found out that it was the people who were most fascinated in the community. Excluding the above, this is the practice of using various tools, the experience of their change, deployment, platform insides, serverless PHP. And, of course, the experience of large, prominent projects.
- And what are you personally interested in?
- PHP standards and standardization in it - absolutely accurate. I really want to substantively discuss the development paths of PHP. I would like to hear reports on Open Source solutions. Most likely, I myself, too, either make a report, or gather mitap.
- Is there something that PHP Russia may not be talking about?
- About tabs and spaces ( smiles ). But seriously, no restrictions. The main thing is that the report directly affects PHP and is efficient.
- Isn't it too late to apply for a report? If a PHP developer is thinking about offering you a topic, what criteria should he rely on in order to understand if his topic is relevant to the concept of PHP Russia?
- It's time! Do not break your head over the criteria - submit reports. Better a few. Relevant or not, the program committee will think and give you a feedback.
- But what about the well-known fact that at the conferences of Oleg Bunin there are always high requirements for reports?
- Of course, we have established internal quality standards for reports. Very experienced and demanding experts gathered in the PHP Russia Program Committee. But this is not a reason to give up - on the contrary: the conference is held for the first time, we feel for the optimal format for it and are open to dialogue. Yes, frankly strange or badly structured reports will definitely not pass. However, this does not mean that you should not apply, if you are in doubt whether it makes sense. If we see that the speaker is talented, or that the content of the report does not fit the desired bar a little bit, we will try to make a candy out of the available material with it.
The formal requirements are minimal: the presence of distinct theses. To understand what the report. We also readily consider topics related to PHP development. Say, if you have a curious case that shows how to make PHP friends with Golang on the backend, it will surely fit into our agenda.
- What reports and speakers that you managed to include in PHP Russia program, are you really proud with your program committee colleagues? Will you spoil something?
- We continue to collect applications and link the program. We will finally approve the reports one month before the day of the conference. But something can already boast .
Many applications have been submitted by members of the English-speaking PHP community, including Marco Pivetta.Cyril Smelov from JetBrains will go deep into the nuances of PhpStorm. In particular, it will affect the use of PHP in the development of PhpStorm and how the components of its IDE are run, which run on PHP code.
And, of course, Nikita Popov and Dmitry Stogov, contributors to the core of PHP itself. These are the ones who need to be grateful for a ton of improvements in PHP 7.
Anton Shabovta from Onliner will speak on the topic of asynchronous PHP, including highlighting modern approaches to cooperative multitasking in it. At the same time we will discuss what awaits us in ext-async, AMPHP 3 and PHP 8.
The conference grid is constantly updated with new reports, so stay tuned for announcements in our Telegram channel and on the site .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/445602/
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