ZendCon 08: Surprises and Impressions

Well, we're back home after our trip to ZendCon and thought  we'd share a few observations with you. One thing we found ourselves repeatedly saying was "I'm surprised. ..." So we'll  start out with each of us listing the things we were most surprised about. Then we'll close with some joint impressions.

Jon's Surprises:

1) The most pleasing surprise was that I wasn't the oldest person there--although I must confess it was a close thing! On the whole the average age was not quite as young as we had  imagined it might be.

2) I was pleasantly surprised to find that the PHP folks we met were very business focussed. This was not the care-free bunch of code cowboys that the enterprise Java folks like to paint PHP programmers. These were serious students of the programmer's art, who were every bit as involved in using techniques such as Frameworks at the core of their applications as the Java folks. That is not to say that they didn't know how to have fun--witness the Yahoo -sponsored party on the Wednesday evening. We don't recall having seen anyone break dancing at a COMMON conference! At the end of the day, it seems to us that the main difference between the  Java aficionados and the PHP folks is that the PHPers will more quickly abandon architectural "purity" in the interests of getting the job done. One of many similarities that we  continue to find between PHP programmers and RPGers.

3) I was delighted to find that a good number of the attendees at my session did not have an i background, but were just curious as to what i was all about and why i folks were interested in PHP. We also had a number of interesting discussions with other attendees, many of whom had never heard of IBM i (or indeed any of the other names our  platform has been called).

Susan's surprises:

1) The ratio of women to men was very low, compared to what we see at conferences oriented to i audiences. We talked about this to several folks there and we seemed to be the only ones surprised, which likely indicates that this ratio is  "normal" in the world of PHP developers. We wondered if it  might be connected to another difference that Jon already noted  (i.e., the average age of the attendees). While (thankfully!) not quite as young as we had expected, it was still a  predominantly younger audience than at i conferences. I've heard a lot about how younger women have been shying away from careers in IT and perhaps this is evidence of that (sad) trend.

2) The dress of the attendees was not quite what I had  expected. I somehow had the impression that we would be considered grossly over-dressed in our polo shirts. I had  meant to pack a pair of khakis and forgot to do it--I had  only jeans with me. Before I got to the event, I thought to  myself "no matter, no one else will be wearing anything more  than jeans anyway." I was wrong. For sure, the proportion of attendees in jeans, shorts and t-shirts was higher than at most i conferences. But a surprising number were dressed "i style" (translation: business oriented). Perhaps it's a reflection of the fact that the PHP developers who were attracted to (and could afford to attend) ZendCon were more business oriented than the PHPers I had envisioned.

3) There were more folks in the sessions specifically related to i than I had expected and there were more attendees who were interested in i, even though they weren't working in i shops. The room dedicated to the i track was jam-packed-- mostly with i folks who are using PHP (a surprising number and they are doing exciting things with PHP combined with RPG!). There were also some non-i folks there who wanted to  learn what it was like. At meals and breaks, there was also a lot more discussion of i than I had expected. I was surprised so many PHPers could even spell "i." Actually many of them, like many of us, spelled it "AS/400" or "iSeries."

Our other impressions:

All in all, with the exception of the disappointing number of women, nearly all of our surprises were pleasant ones! We enjoyed ZendCon and look forward to going again next year, fully intending to be more experienced in PHP development by then so that we can take advantage of a wider variety of sessions.

We heard about a number of IBM i users--like Harris Data and the API Group--that have made huge strides in updating their existing green-screen application interfaces using PHP. We also met many others who were taking their early steps along the path and had come to the conference to learn what others were doing. Many are using the Zend Bridge interface that we  have mentioned in a previous iDevelop blog entry titled "Bridging the Gap."  Others are simply rewriting the user interface and calling their RPG programs to handle the back-end logic. We'll be focussing on the Zend Bridge in our next piece for i5 EXTRA. You should also watch for news on additional Bridge features and tools. 

We had hoped that IBM and MySQL would be announcing the availability of the DB2 Storage Engine but sadly that didn't  happen. We did get the impression, though, that we shouldn't have to wait much longer for that announcement. We can tell you that this looks to be every bit as exciting a development as we had hoped. During a brief demonstration we watched as a database was updated via PHP using MySQL and also directly through conventional DB2 interfaces. This really opens the  door for RPG shops to adopt major open-source software packages that use MySQL (e.g., SugarCRM) while using their existing RPG skills for reporting and to bridge into existing databases.

Comments

[Aaron Bartell]

Next time you attend ZendCon you should go as the super hero of your choice wearing spandex and a cape. We need some fast publicity to keep this platform alive and I am realizing that this is exactly what we need to push it forward.

It this idea makes you a little un-easy then just wear a mask and talk in a really high-pitched voice and nobody will know it is you. Just remember to change before your presentation because there is nothing worse than having your identity revealed.

I did a little .NET this morning so I hope that hasn't tainted my "idea engine" too much.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

[LornaJane]

The ratio of women usually looks a lot like that, yes. At conferences the proportion of women tends to be even lower than statistics would suggest in the wider community - I think this is because it is often harder for women to be away from their caring commitments and they are also generally less pushy about getting opportunities like these.

There is a group called PHPWomen where the women in PHP hang out together and provide a support network for one another - we're at www.phpwomen.org. We aim to help women to promote themselves, for example submitting talks to conferences, and also provide a peer group for women in PHP. Speaking from experience, it counts for a lot!

[Aaron Bartell]

>There is a group called PHPWomen where the women in PHP hang out together and provide a support network for one another - we're at www.phpwomen.org.

This just might be the thing I have been looking for to get my wife into programming! :-) Then when we go on dates we can talk about application frameworks and debate whether EGL is ever going to make it.

>I think this is because it is often harder for women to be away from their caring commitment

I must admit that my wife is much better at caring for my kids than I am. Here is a picture of my son after I "let go too soon" while teaching him to ride bike: http://mowyourlawn.com/pics/img_0679.jpg. He learned that asphalt is quite hard that day :-(

[Cal Evans]

Hi Jon, Susan!

Thanks so much for the great write up on ZendCon. Since I'm so heavily involved in the PHP community, it's nice to see a perspective from the System i community. I'm very pleased that most of your impressions were positive.

Ours is a thriving and very diverse community and I would like to make sure that you and the entire System i community know that you are welcome to join us.

We have a large twitter.com community and a fun loving but sometimes "rough around the edges" IRC community. (##php and #phpc on irc.freenode.net ) Most people, however are willing to lend a hand and point you in the right direction when you've got a coding problem.

So y'all don't be shy, come hang out with us.

=C=

[Mike Pavlak]

Having several kids of my own I was looking forward to the picture. I clicked the link and.....D'oh!

HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

:-)

[Dan Devoe]

/off-topic
To get rid of the 404 in Aaron's picture, remove the final "." after the jpg in the URL.
/end-off-topic

Jon & Susan - I'm hopeful that during future i conferences that you'll continue to offer PHP courses. Glad you had fun!