Three days of technical sharing and fun

Almost every Joomla conference has the same ingredients: Sessions on a variety of subjects (both technical as non-technical), keynotes that get you pumped up and lots of fun. This JWC2014 was no different, but there were definitely a few things that stood out.

Due to its location being Cancun, the JWC2014 was attended by numerous Mexican people, including a large group of students, and this meant that both English and Spanish were spoken all over the place. Personally, my Spanish is no good, but it definitely gave the entire conference an international air, which shows the Joomla community is formed by people all over the world. It also showed that things like localization and multilinguality are important features in the current Joomla world.

One other thing that also stood out was the fact that the conference was situated in a resort. There was an abundance of restaurants giving enough variation for each meal, as well as various cafes which gave way for lots of partying by the various Joomlers. Personally, I did see the beach from a distance, however I did not set foot on it at all. My personal focus was really on the socializing and the technology - I'll visit Cancun with my girlfriend one day to see what's outside the resort.

Meeting Yireo

There were a few points of presence of Yireo througout the conference. First of all, Yireo was one of the sponsors and we are really happy to help funding this great event. On the first day, Mike Carson gave a talk on integrating Magento and Joomla. I did not know this was about MageBridge in advance, but Mike invited me to join him and I was able to share some of the technological architecture that MageBridge is based on. I'm still grateful Mike gave me this opportunity.

At the end of the first day, a bug squash session started, allowing a great bunch of people to hunt down and squash bugs in the Joomla CMS. Peter Martin and I stayed up late (until 01:30 am) and next morning, we were thanked for this in public by bug squash sponsor Siteground.

On the last day, I gave a presentation on using Joomla plugins to extend and customize JForm forms. The presentation also gave way to draw the attention to a new book I've written - Programming Joomla Plugins - which is currently released in full for Europe and will be available in the rest of the world within a few weeks time.

Conclusion

Over all, Joomla World Conference 2014 was a great success. The news was also revealed that JWC15 will be held in India (the exact location still needs to be decided on). We will definitely attend that conference as well - partly because we love Joomla (and any Joomla event), but also because we love India. See you there!