A summary of TYPO3 Developer Days 2024

By Mike Street

2024-08-12T00:00:00.000Z Posted on 12th August 2024. 3 mins reading time

Just over a week ago, I returned from Germany after attending the multi-day, multi-tracked TYPO3 conference: TYPO3 Developer Days. This conference marked several firsts for me: my first TYPO3-specific conference, my first visit to Germany, my first time traveling alone, and my first time drinking Pilsner for four consecutive evenings (for those who don't know, I review beer in my spare time).

Side note: I found the unfiltered Pilsner had a much more complex and tasty flavor compared to the straight filtered beer.

Getting there

The conference took place in Karlsruhe, in the south-west of Germany. Although this event brought me to Germany, I didn't see much of the country. My journey consisted of a 6:15am 3-hour National Express ride to Heathrow airport, a wait, a flight and another wait followed by a taxi and train to reach the hotel. I did, however, manage to briefly explore the woodland opposite the hotel, searching for (and finding) a couple of Geocaches after breakfast one morning: Oberwaldtradi - OWT #02 🌲🌳 and Oberwaldtradi - OWT #04 🌲 🌳.

We stayed at the Genohotel, which offered great spaces for socializing and drinking the aforementioned Pilsner, along with a lovely outdoor area that prevented feeling cooped up inside. The food was amazing; I enjoyed every meal and experienced plenty of new dishes, though I couldn't tell you what most of them were called as all the labels were in German.

The conference

The conference itself was nothing short of inspirational. Most talks, as expected, focused on TYPO3 itself, its capabilities, and upcoming features. While you do come away feeling like you've been "drinking the Kool-aid" a little, even after the honeymoon phase, I still find myself excited about many cool features coming in future releases.

Two TYPO3-centric talks that particularly excited me were Benjamin Franzke's presentation about upcoming Site Sets and Simon Praetorius' talk on the Vite extension and plugin.

With Site Sets, I've already encountered a couple of scenarios in the last week where they would have been beneficial, mainly around multi-site setups and sharing configuration and plugins.

Vite is something we've been considering at Liquid Light, as we've been using Gulp for over 10 years (Advanced Gulp File is a blog post I wrote when we'd just migrated). Despite Gulp 5 recently being released, we've been looking to optimize our front-end builds. The TYPO3 extension and accompanying NPM package Simon presented are essential for making this switch.

As for non-TYPO3 focused talks, Zack Lott gave a great overview of security scanners and bravely conducted a flawless live demonstration. It provided much food for thought, and I've added Semgrep and Trivy to my to-do list.

Christian Heilmann delivered a fantastic, thought-provoking talk on making the web simpler and more accessible.

This isn't to belittle the other talks, of course - every single one I attended had great takeaways. I furiously scribbled notes during each talk, which I wrote up at the end of each day. They might not mean much to anyone else, but they serve as a nudge to remind me what I learned. If you're interested, you can find them here:

The people

The talks are only half of what makes a conference great. The people truly make conferences special. Everyone I met was kind and welcoming, and I hugely appreciate the effort everyone made to speak in English so I could join in the conversations. I was one of six who had travelled from the UK (a team from Prater Raines, TYPO3 Tom, and Zack), and between us, we couldn't speak much German beyond the basics. I was bowled over by how perfectly everyone spoke English.

I got to meet many incredible people, and it was great that the speakers stayed and mingled so we could pick their brains over a few evenings. There nearly as many (undocumented) takeaways and learnings from the evenings as there were during the day.

All in all, it was a fantastic, educational, and welcoming atmosphere. As long as time and circumstances allow, I will certainly be back for future TYPO3 Developer Days.