Photo Credit: Daniel LaBarge (Louisville, KY)
Day Two of Laracon US was on par with the first and the SiteRocket Labs team had a great experience. Just like our Day One coverage, we present a recap of the day as written by Travis.
Things I’ve Come to Believe
Day Two started off with a talk by Jeffrey Way which focused on the struggles of the modern developer. Jeffrey made the case for how the Laravel eco-system has greatly simplified the complex developer stack. His talk centered on three main themes:
- care for everything you do no matter how insignificant it might seem
- simplicity in code is more powerful than adhering to a pattern
- maintain a healthy dose of distrust for all the things you encounter
His talk was by far the most humor and animated GIF filled talk of the convention. We all watch Laracasts like a favorite TV show, and now we can say that in person Jeffrey Way is no less enjoyable to listen to and learn from.
Same Thing Happens Every Time
Next up was a talk regarding patterns and how they can be found everywhere. Paul M. Jones started the talk off with a throw back to Joseph Campbell and his work on mythologies of various cultures. He then went into talking about identifying patterns in our workplace and the different archetypes you find amongst developers. The point here was to learn to identify these underlying patterns and the techniques for working with them. Like most talks, one of our favorite parts of this talk was in the following Q&A session where Paul and Jeffrey Way engaged in a discussion on how time affects developer perception.
Open Source & Company Culture
After the final round of “JeoPHPardy” and lunch, we listened to a talk from the only C-Level speaker at Laracon. Brian Webb provided informing insight on how to cultivate the culture you want to see in your company. His talk was on point and you could tell that he cared a lot about the culture and happiness of his team. The more managers and top level executives who listen to advice like this, the happier and more engaged their teams will be. Open source is more than software: it’s a community of people.
Service Oriented Laravel & Lumen
Samantha Geitz had one of the more anticipated presentations at the conference. Her talk about service oriented architecture had many of us noticeably intrigued. This presentation was an interesting look at delivering a reliable product. SiteRocket Labs has often implemented many of these patterns in our client projects. Samantha’s observations on distributing the handling a code base to dedicated service application showed just how dramatically scaling problems in large applications can be simplified. It was a welcomed technical talk. We later enjoyed being able to join in and share our experiences with service oriented architecture in the After Party discussions.
Hacking the Human Interface
The second non-technical talk of the conference was given by Samantha Quiñones. This talk went hand-in-hand with Ed Finkler’s talk from Day One, but centered around empathy and authority in the work place. The reoccurring theme was that understanding how your coworkers are feeling and being empathetic to their troubles is more comforting and productive than trying to solve their problems. The main take away here was the importance of having these types of conversations as we work towards the goal of a more accepting and supportive workplace and industry.
Talmudic Maxims to Maximize Your Growth as a Developer
The final talk of the convention was given by Yitzchok Willroth (@CodeRabbi). Given as almost a Talmudic sermon, the Rabbi showed how time-honored Talmudic teachings can be applied to developers and their careers. It was an amazing talk received with great reverence by the audience. He presented these maxims and applied them to modern issues within the developer community. The overarching take away is that you can only truly gain when you work with others – pair coding, code reviews, and mentoring / apprenticing were all shown as valuable ways to grow as a developer. At SiteRocket Labs we embrace the idea that there are no downsides to working with one another and sharing knowledge and experiences.
Conclusion
The final day at Laracon US 2015 was a great set of back-to-back talks. Each session covered a wide range of topics that appealed to the diverse audience of junior developers, senior software engineers, and non-developers as well. Each speaker did a great job of engaging and informing the audience. We cannot wait to return and do it all again next year!
Looking for more Laracon recaps? You can find Daniel LaBarge’s Day Onesummary and Elena Fisher’s Laracon For Non-Developers review of Laracon on our blog →
