Abstract for the PHPHOOLIGANS Talk

abstract.md

The goal of this talk is to get people thinking and talking more about common practices, instead of copy/pasting or cargo-culting.

This is done through the PHPHOOLIGANS format:

First the audience is presented with several rather opinionated viewpoints by means of provocative statements on things that occur in everyday PHP development, like: working with objects, type safe comparison and type hinting, Design Patterns, and PHP Frameworks. We call these "fights".

Next the PHPHOOLIGANS (Ben Peachey and Auke van Slooten) will engage the audience in an open discussion on these topics. This is done by challenging the audience to (individually or collectively) try to change the hooligans view on a subject. They are effectively told to "pick a fight".

The hooligans will try to defend their viewpoint through valid arguments and anecdotal evidence.

A referee is present to help keep things orderly (or at least civil) and to award points to the PHPHOOLIGANS or the audience for valid arguments made during this debate. This person also helps move things on to the next topic when an arguments becomes too heated to continue or goes stale to the point where it is no longer constructive.

Heckling, cheering, booing, it is all acceptable as long as people in the audience get to participate.

bio.md

Ben Peachey and Auke van Slooten have both been programming in PHP for more than ten years and are 2 of the 3 founding members of the PHPTwente usergroup.

It was during a discussion at on of the PHPTwente meetups that the idea for the PHPHOOLIGANS was born: outspoken fans of the PHP language.

Everybody knows code but the PHPHOOLIGANS know better!