Looking ahead: SunshinePHP 2013

I am eagerly looking forward to attending SunshinePHP in February. I wasn't planning to go for the longest time (cost related), but then, among other things, the community attacked.

I'm looking forward to so many things. I have made many friends over the years, in the Symfony community specifically and the PHP community at large. I want to greet old friends, and new ones. Seriously -- come shake my hand and say "HI!" Beware -- I will do the same to you!

The Talks

There are SO many good talks. Seriously:

• "Symfony2 + EmberJS for fun and profit" and "PHPUnit Best Practices" -- I have no idea which talk I will attend. I know Dustin is an amazing presenter, but I'm curious to see if Sebastian shows underutilized parts of PHPUnit I have yet to discover.
• "From the Ground Up – Coding, Deploying, and Scaling with AWS" and "Building OpenSky with Symfony2" -- I'm sure Rowan's talk (AWS) will be full of great information, but I'd also love to see Jonathan present about how a large scale application has been built with Symfony2.
• "Silex, the Microframework" -- I am already quite experienced with Silex, and will not attend, but if you're curious, having talked to Ben on IRC, you will enjoy this.
• "From POX to HATEOAS, Our Companies Journey to Build a Hypermedia API"  -- I've talked to Luke in IRC very rarely, and am interested in building stronger API systems, so I'm curious to see information on how his company has evolved their platform. If you have ever heard me talk about improving as a developer, I always say it happens a day at a time. I'll bet Luke has a great story about his company's evolution.
• "Replication with MySQL" -- I'm hoping I will have a need for the knowledge bomb Ligaya will drop in this presentation.
• "Dream, Experiment, Create, and Share" -- If you haven't seen Fabien present, this is your chance. He makes it look so easy.
• "DOs and DON’Ts of MongoDB" -- I'm looking forward to getting some great use-cases out of Jeremy's talk. I don't have any experience with MongoDB, and I'm hoping that will change.
• "How Kris Writes Symfony Apps", "Introducing Tests in Legacy PHP Applications", and "Bringing Good Design to the Table" -- I honestly have NO IDEA where I will end up here. Seeing Kris's process when developing a Symfony2 app has the potential to be quite interesting, as other people always do things differently. However Jeff's presentation on introducing testing and Brian's talk about database design also sound excellent. So torn.
• "Cryptography for the Average Developer" and "Symfony and Javascript: Combining the Best of Two Worlds" -- Anthony and I have tweeted back and forth on occasion, and I'm curious if he has added any more to the talk beyond what I have read from him online. On the other hand, Nacho is going to talk about JavaScript frameworks and Symfony2. Sorry Jordi -- I use composer every day. However, if you like Chocolate, tell Jordi that Jacob said he had some for you.

And that's ignoring Rasmus, Cal, and Keith's keynotes -- those will be excellent.

The People

It adds an entirely different dimension to your community involvement (on twitter, on IRC, in mailing lists, on GitHub) when you have met the people you are interacting with. Heck -- at Symfony Live 2012 in San Francisco, I used Fabien Potencier as my Rubber Duck! Having that context, having met them in person, deepens the interactions you have with people online, and helps to make them more than just an internet handle. I'm looking forward to seeing so many of my friends again, while also taking the opportunity to meet some new ones as well.

The Venue

Seriously. Florida. In February. Do I really need to say more?

And Finally

If I find out you came to SunshinePHP and didn't shake my hand, I will personally convince GitHub to delete all of your code be very grumpy.