Comference

A free conference from the comfort of your home.

Two days of tech talks, personal development topics, fun activities and open source contributions. Comference will be streaming for free for everyone. Attend both days in full or just the specific talks you'd like to see. Discuss the talk subjects with other attendees and with the speakers, play games. Learn, teach and have fun.

▶️ watch all Comference 2020 talks on YouTube

August 21-22, 2020

Want to stay up-to-date? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Sponsored by

Supported by: Allict

Organized by

▶️ watch Damian's talk

Another day another misunderstood requirement that has created another delay, increased development costs and reduced ROI. If only there was another option for you to have caught this problem earlier, closing the feedback loop in such a way that delivery felt effortless.

Learn how to improve your curiosity and listen better. In this talk, you will get to experience the benefits of asking a few of the dozen clean language questions (developed by David Grove).

Clean Language questions help you and your team members become great listeners and curious participants in any meeting, being involved in ways that can have a great impact on your products and delighting your customers further.

Staying Curious with Clean Language

Damian Crawford

▶️ watch the interview with Juliette on YouTube

Ever had to report a bug to one of your QA tools, like PHPStan, PHP_CodeSniffer, PHPUnit or PHPDocumentor, because a new PHP feature wasn't supported and you were getting odd results ? And if not: ever wondered why not?

Each new PHP version brings new features and sometimes backward-compatibility breaks. In this slot, we'll be talking with Juliette about how PHP_CodeSniffer and related tools prepare for a new PHP release.

We'll take a look behind the scenes to get some insight into what the impact of certain PHP changes can be on these kind of tools, we'll find out more about the decision process for what to support when and how, what thinking three steps ahead means in practice and get some real life examples of what is happening behind the scenes of PHP_CodeSniffer right now to prepare for PHP 8.

We hope you're looking forward to PHP 8 as much as we are!

PHP 8 is coming: a look behind the scenes of one of your favorite QA tools

Juliette Reinders Folmer

▶️ watch Chris' talk on YouTube

When it comes to testing your PHP code, there are three sides to the story: the expert tester in a controlled environment, the frustrated beginner starting with nothing, and the grumpy programmer in the real world.

In this talk Chris Hartjes shares his experiences with Testing In The Real World to show how each side of the testing triangle shows some true parts to the story of how to test an application.

Testing In The Real World

Chris Hartjes

▶️ watch Lineke's talk on YouTube

Diversity is still a hot topic in tech, we have seen this for many years already. When we think about diversity in the workplace, our minds tend to go to topics like gender ratio or ethnical representation. This is the way we currently think.

So, let me show you another way to think about diversity in your team. This talk will give you new insights into yourself and your team and a different point of view on diversity: diversity 2.0!

Diversity 2.0

Lineke Kerckhoffs-Willems

▶️ watch Andreas' talk on YouTube

Have you ever heard that we should keep things professionally? Have you ever struggled to concentrate on your work while private matters constantly distract you? Have you ever felt guilty of not being able to give 100%? Welcome to the club! You are not alone! Let me take you on a journey of my personal struggles with life, the universe and everything and how I think I manage to somehow cope with everyday life while trying to be as productive at work as possible. It might not be your story. But you might realize that you are not alone...

A healthy mind in a healthy body

Andreas Heigl

▶️ watch Ramon's talk on YouTube

We've all thought at some point or another to "just do the right thing". This seems like a simple enough objective, but the deeper you dive the vaguer it seems to get. Ethics is the field of philosophy that tries to answer "what is good?", but philosophy just sounds like old dead people talk. So how do ethics relate to my day job?

This is a gentle introduction to the brutal world of ethical dilemma's. Wear a spacesuit.

Ethics by example

Ramon de la Fuente

▶️ watch Jenny's talk on YouTube

In 2010, Jenny picked her road which was less travelled; joining the tech world with an internship as a web developer for a small agency near her hometown. Ten years on, Jenny is now an Engineering Manager at Human Made.

Jenny will share key insights from her learning journey so far, and discuss the challenges -- particularly how she has transferred and built skills and lessons across very different roles, how the industry has grown in her time here and how the social climate has impacted her adventure.

The road taken - ten reflections from ten years in tech

Jenny Wong

▶️ watch Michelangelo's talk on YouTube

There’s no doubt 2020 goes into history as one of the worst years in centuries. And all media attention goes out to keep the economy going while silently human lives are dealing with financial, personal and mental blows. Being in the tech industry has some advantages so let’s seize the moment to make them count.

In this talk I take you through some of the hardships we endured, how we got through them and the hard lessons we learned to become more resilient while keeping our sanity.

Remote-by-design: how to stay sane, secure, healthy and resilient during a pandemic

Michelangelo van Dam

▶️ watch on YouTube

Do-it-yourself massage therapy to keep your hands, wrists and shoulders soft and flexible. I’ll teach you some basic techniques for self-massage from my shiatsu practice.

System Update: Software

Ewout Pieter den Ouden

▶️ watch on YouTube

Do-it-yourself movement exercises for your source of stability and balance. Using simple exercises from dance training I’ll help you relax and soften your back, hips and legs.

System Update: Firmware

Ewout Pieter den Ouden

Arrrrr!? Shiver me timbers!!! The world is gone blinkers, a honest pirate can’t even loot ships on a normal way nowadays! How can I treathen me victems on 1,5 meter? But this old swashbuckler found a way to test you rookies before ya can earn the right to step on a pirateship or even a treasure-island! Beware me hearties, adventure is coming... Arrrrrr!!!

Pirate game

Pirate Frank

Don't wait, join the community now!

Comference is not only about the actual talks, but also the community. For this event, we have setup a Discord server that acts as a communication hub before and during the event.

Before the event

Get together, make friends and get a sneak peak at what is going on.

On the conference days themselves

Ask questions of the speakers, discuss the contents and team up during Game Night!

Discord

During the event we used Discord to distantly socialize, which provided a lively online 'hallway track' for the talks, Game Night and do-it-yourself Pirate Game.

Can't wait to join the discussions during Comference?

Please note: All times in the schedule are Central European Time.

Game Night

During the game night, we can join each other for virtual board games, card games or roleplaying games. You don't have to sign up for the game night, just come and hang out in the #game-night channel in our Discord and find some people to play with. A Dungeons & Dragons session is led by Erik Baars. For this session, it is important to sign up beforehand. You can do that in the #dungeons-and-dragons channel in our Discord. Join that channel and talk to @ErikB.

Hackathon

Several open source projects will have a representative in our Discord to help you make some contributions to open source, whether that be code, documentation, tests or anything else.

Code of Conduct

Comference is an online event where people are invited to learn, teach, think and participate. To ensure everyone can feel comfortable, all attendees, speakers and crew should adhere to this code of conduct.

We expect every attendee, speaker and crew member to:

  • Always be respectful and empathetic towards everyone
  • Not discriminate based on gender, race, sexual orientation or anything else
  • Understand and respect that we are all different and that viewpoints of others may be different from our own
  • Refrain from any form of harassment or aggressive behaviour

In case of a problem, please contact a member of the crew.

Crew members will be clearly identified to all attendees during the event. They can be recognized on Discord by the blue color of their name and their role as 'crew'.