I’m a huge fan of php|architect: the magazine, the books, the online training and especially their conferences. Living in the Milwaukee metro area, I have a short 90 minute drive to the flagship php|tek conference they host in Chicago each year. My schedule doesn’t always allow me to attend, but I do everything I can to make it. I’m still putting into practice the things I learned at php|tek 2010 and I regularly keep in touch with the many friends I met there.
That being said, it came as a very welcome surprise today when I opened my mail and found an invitation to CodeWorks 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin! CodeWorks is a single-day, single track conference focused on PHP, but historically, it’s stayed pretty far away from Wisconsin. I suspect this is because we already have php|tek in our backyard, but I always lobbied hard to have a CodeWorks stop near us as well. Let’s face it: not everyone can take a week off work to attend php|tek, not to mention the travel and hotel expenses. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth every cent, but for those that haven’t experienced it firsthand, it may be a big pill to swallow.
With a CodeWorks coming to my home state, I am going to sing (or at least blog) about it from the rooftops. I want the Madison event to be a success so there’s a higher likelihood it may return in 2012. I’ll be preaching about it at our next several Milwaukee PHP meetings, as well as on Twitter. With the low cost and the location, if you are a PHP developer in southern Wisconsin (or even northern Wisconsin or Minneapolis), you have run out of excuses not to attend.
Get your ticket by August 13 and it’s only $60. What are you waiting for? Go sign up now and I’ll see you there!