Fabien Potencier of the Symfony project (framework) recently made a presentation at the Symfony Day conference and answered the question "what is Symfony2?"

When I ask people what Symfony2 is for them, most of them say something along the lines of: Symfony2 is a full-stack web framework written in PHP. Some also add that this is an MVC framework. And some others add that this is a decoupled framework. This is all fine and correct. But my definition is a bit different. Let me tell you what it is and why I think it matters. Symfony2 is really about two different things.

His "two things" are simple - first that Symfony2 is a "reusable set of standalone, decoupled, and cohesive PHP components that solve common web development problems" and second that the framework is, based on these components, a full-stack framework. He also answers a common question about the framework - is is really MVC? He explains that the framework is less about adhering to a design pattern and more about being useful as a HTTP framework (request and response). He finishes off the post with some thoughts on the framework's place in "the enterprise", innovation, reusing standard, well-tested tools and some reasons why to choose Symfony for your next project.

Eveline Kaik has posted a reminder about the upcoming Symfony-related event, Symfony Day Cologne 2011, happening on October 21st (and a workshop day in the 20th) happening at Komed Im Mediapark.

Only one month to go: for the third time, the Symfony Day will take place in Cologne. 2011 is without a doubt an important year for our favorite framework: Symfony Live Events took place in San Francisco and Paris. A stable release of Symfony2 has been available since summer, and next month, on October 21st 2011, another Symfony Day will bring the community together at Cologne Mediapark.

For more information on the event including a map to the location, information on the speakers presenting and how to register, visit the event's website. The cost for a conference-only ticket is 129 Euro and a conference+workshop ticket comes in just under 250 Euro (only the "Security", "Build-Your-Own Framework" and "High Performance" workshops still available).

On the Symfony Project blog today there's a new post about an event that's coming back for another year for the framework's community - SymfonyDay 2010.

After a very successful event last year, Interlutions have decided to organize the SymfonyDay event again this year. People who were there last year (126 in total from 6 different countries) can testify the conference was excellent, both the location and the schedule being very good. This year, the setup for the conference is the same, except for the location, which is now bigger and better suited than last year's awesome location.

The event will be happening October 8th in Cologne (at Komed) and Early Bird pricing on the tickets is 80 Euro (120 Euro after that deadline has passed). You can register directly on their site and the cost includes food and drinks for the day.

The Symfony blog has annoucned the Symfony Day Cologne event coming in September:

It is with great pleasure that I announce a new symfony event: symfony Day Cologne. symfony Day will be the first symfony conference in Germany. On september 4th 2009, symfony fans from Europe and beyond are invited to come visit the beautiful city of Cologne for excellent speakers, great discussions and an awesome party.

Registration is open and you can reserve your spot in the event's website. The day will cost 80 Euro and includes food and drinks during the event.

Since it's always good to know where we've come from (to see where we're headed, right?), Sebastian Bergmann has posted an observeration he's had upon PHP Magazin's look back at the world of PHP.

In his editorial for the 5 Year Anniversary Edition of the German PHP Magazin Björn Schotte posted a link to Kristian Köhntopp's wrapup of the world's first PHP conference which was held in October 2000 in Cologne, Germany.

The wrapup is of the PHP Congres Cologne that happened back at the beginning October of 2000. Topics disussed were PHPDocumentor, OpenTracker, using MySQL with PHP, web security, and much more. Check out the full posting for all of the details and a bit of a look back in PHP's history.

You can also check out some of Björn's comments about the article over on the ThinkPHP Blog.