Freek Lijten recently attended a conference put on by PFZ.nl, a one day event of PHP content on a wide range of topics. He shares some of his impressions about the event and why he thinks they're a valuable part of any developer's experience in their field.

I had a great time for three main reasons: I learned new stuff, I met people and I got inspired by topics I already knew about. I like to (shortly) share on the experience itself and I hope to explain why I think it is valuable to visit a conference every once in a while.

He recaps the conference, mentioning the talks he attended (including one on the PHP community and a keynote from Zeev Zuraski of Zend about the state of PHP) and compliments the group for putting on a good event. He also includes his three reasons he thinks everyone should attend an event like this:

• It's a great place to learn about new tools and things you didn't know about current ones
• It's inspiring to be around fellow developers and get excited about the technology
• You meet new people that you might not ever have in just your day to day development work