So this weekend I visited my hometown Berlin for the PHPUCEU. [...] This wasn't a "normal" conference. This was an unconference. As such attendees proposed talks they could give, but also talks that they would want to hear. Every morning every attendee would then have two votes for talks. The top voted talks would then be distributed across the 4 slots in the 3 available tracks. As such several of the sessions ended up being quite ad hoc with multiple people chipping in with what they new about the topic. What is also special about this event is that the sessions are just as long as the breaks to facilitate idea exchange about the session topics, but also about other topics. Overall I found this to be an absolutely thrilling experience.

Presentations chosen and made at this year's unconference included:

• a talk about the PHPRC (PHP Content Repository)
• "Clean Puppet"
• Behavior Driven Development
• Agile documentation
• Hood.ie
• Symfony2 REST API
• NoSQL is Not the Answer

If you're interesting to see what the event was like, check out some of the photos they've posted to their site.

I'm so happy to announce to all of you Symfony folks, the super exciting Symfony Live year that is waiting for you! This time I promise, this is going to be "Great News" for all of you!

Events mentioned for this year (so far) are:

• The Symfony track at this year's SunshinePHP conference (happening next week!)
• The US edition of Symfony Live in Portland
• Three other Symfony Live events to happen in Eurpoe

The largest announcement, though, is the SymfonyCon Europe that will be new this year, an all Symfony conference to be held somewhere in Europe later in 2013.

For the past four years, a group of enthusiasts have been organizing an unconference about PHP and related web technologies in Hamburg, Germany. What started off as a gathering of only fifty people, has grown over the course of three years into an event, which has received much following and attention within the German speaking PHP community. [...] The mission of PHP Unconference Europe is to bring together an international group of around 200 people, who have detailed knowledge of PHP and related web technologies.

For 2011, they've set up the European unconference to provide a whole new group of those with tech-related interests to come together and present the topics they want to hear about. Contribution ideas can be made via their Contribution System. Topics already suggested cover topics like Phing, document generation with the Zend Framework, project management and working with spreadsheets in PHP.

The tickets are already on sale, so if you'd like to attend, pick yours up and reserve your spot today! The cost is £40/46 Euro for the two day event.

PHP Unconference has established itself as a forum for core developers, developers and users to discuss PHP and other related web technologies. The next PHP Unconference will take place on 19th & 20th February, 2011 in Manchester, UK. The organizers are expecting 180 participants from all over Europe. Learn more about PHP Unconference Europe. The tickets will go on sale shortly. We would be really happy for you to come to the event this year.

In addition this year The PHP.cc will be providing a two-day training course about developing and testing PHP applications. Buying a pass for this also includes a pass for the unconference sessions. Keep an eye on the PHP Unconference Europe website for more details and for when the tickets go on sale!

Whilst I was traveling home from Joomla!Day Germany I started thinking about how long it was taking me and was the journey worthwhile. The answer was "not that long" and "yes definitely". [...] If we had a venue for Joomla!Day in the centre of Europe, in a place with excellent road, rail and air links is there any reason not to have a pan-European Joomla event.

He touches on some of the main topics involved in putting on a conference like that - the goals of the event, language differences, how long it would last, the organization of it and a few suggestions for ideal locations. It seems there's plenty of support in the comments, including a few mentions of similar events already in the works.

There are a number of hands on sessions that are coming up in the next few weeks that deal with Flex and PHP together. Head to any of the following conferences to get more information, and hands on training, about building Flex applications powered by PHP.

Conferences he will be attending and speaking at in the near future include php|works in Atlanta, Adobe MAX North America, Adobe MAX Europe, a Flex User Group and a PHP event happening in Paris.

There is a greater disparity with PHP use in Emerging Markets. The largest number of developers using the language can be found in Eastern Europe (39%). India and Brazil have similar usage at a little over 31%. In contrast, only 21% of Chinese developers are utilizing PHP. In North America, 35% of developers are using PHP.

They also talk about the usage rates of a few other technologies, including Flash, Ajax, Windows, and Linux.

Cal Evans also mentions these trends in this post on the Zend Developer Zone as well as linking to the full EDC report.

This year's event will include several speakers on PHP-related topics, including Theo Schlossnagle on "Advanced Production Troubleshooting Techniques" and Chris Shiflett covering his usual - "Essential PHP Security".

The conference is June 26th through 30th in Dublin, Ireland and prices start (including the Early Bird while it lasts) start at around 570 Euro for full conference access. Check out complete prices here.

The conference will be from June 26th through the 30th in Dublin, Ireland. Registering before May 29th will get you an early bird discount of about 50-60 Euro. After that, prices start at 680 Euro and go up. You can get complete details on the conference and signup online at their site.