December 18th, 2018
Next I'll list some of the sessions I attended or find otherwise especially interesting!
Wednesday 7th November 2018
Wednesday was the first day of the conference after trainings.
Talk Schedule: https://2018.ploneconf.org/schedule/talks-november-7
Keynote: the State of Plone
Conference started with Plone Release Manager, Eric Steele's Keynote. As always, he's talk was fun, uplifting and to the point!
Main points this year being:
- Zope (the system behind Plone) has been successfully ported to Python 3 https://zope.readthedocs.io/en/latest/WHATSNEW.html
- Python 3 support is done for Plone
- Plone 5.2 alpha to be released during conference
- Plone.restapi and all the possibilities with combining Plone as backend and JS as frontend
- Guillotina and Volto - new, modern ways of utilizing Plone
- Strong community - the backbone of Plone
After that, my turn: How we utilize Plone's powerful workflow model at JYU
Plone and Privacy - user experience
Jörg Zell brought up an interesting point about privacy - it being part of good user experience. Really interesting!
Other highlights:
- Maik Derstappen:
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/gsoc-improvements-on-plonecli - Jean Jordaan:
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/plone-from-the-perspective-of-orchard-core
Reinventing Plone: Road to Modern Web
Timo Stollenwerk discussed about combining the power of Plone as a proven and robust backend to modern JS frontends. Really cool stuff!
- The development of plone.restapi in 2014, to allow to use modern JavaScript frameworks on top of Plone.
- Plone-React, a new frontend for Plone written in pure ReactJS
- Guillotina, a new, plone.restapi compliant, super-scalable, asynchronous Python 3 web framework that can be used as an alternative backend for Plone-React.
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/reinventing-plone-roadmap-to-the-modern-web
Lightning talks Day 1
Lightning talks are max. 5 minute presentations of some issue/idea/technology/event the presenter wants to talk about.
Thursday 8th November 2018
Talk Schedule: https://2018.ploneconf.org/schedule/talks-november-8
The day started with Jim Fulton's pretty technical keynote about ZODB and NewtDB
http://jimfulton.info/talks/plone-2018/
Pretty technical stuff here!
Game of Plones - Plone as a gamification platform
Probably with the best title of this year's conference talks, Jörg Zell and Johanna Lenhard discussed about Plone as a gamification platform to promote workplace wellbeing and activity - really interesting topic! Plus cool t-shirts :)
Good gamification platform needs:
Players, admin interface, workflows, ux, api and a good story!
Check out more details and screenshots at https://game-of-plones.de/
Other highlights of thursday
- Portal Modelo
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/portal-modelo-plone-for-parliaments - Plone React
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/plone-react-extensibility-story - Organizing scientific publications with Plone
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/organizing-your-scientific-mathematical-publications - Plone theming - alternative approach
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/alternative-approach-to-plone-theming - Building a business solution with Guillotina
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/building-a-business-solution-with-guillotina
Lightning talks Day 2
Plone + Python 3!
Philip Bauer showed how the hard work of community has paid up: Plone is now Python 3 compatible and thus future proof.
https://2018.ploneconf.org/talks/plone-loves-python-3
Philip's instruction for every Plone developer looking to migrate to Python 3:
- Start now
- Don't wait
- Dork iteratively
For that, you may attend to
Friday 9th November 2018
The last day was no less exciting. Here are some highlights.
Talk Schedule: https://2018.ploneconf.org/schedule/talks-november-9
The State of Plone Performance
I really seem to dig Jörg's talks, so here's another one :)
Plone, quo vadis
Another great talker is Alexander Loechel form Munich, Germany. He has long university and Plone background. He was talking about Plone's future, SWOT analysis and reminding how Plone is an enterprise level content management system, suitable for large needs. Some thoughts from him:
- "Perfect for university"
- "Plone is a content integration framework"
- "Infinite scalability"
- "Workflow engine in the core"
- "Plone --> empower users"
- "How are wcms' selected? -> follow the herd -mentality?"
Plone-React Case Studies: When Stability and Security meet Speed and a Modern User Interface
Here were real world examples from Timo Stollenverk and Ramon Navarro Bosch on how they utilize plone.restapi and Volto framwork to create fast, modern and safe web systems.
- A learning management system: https://vhs-ehrenamtsportal.de/
- Bakery site/app: https://www.zeelandia.com/
- https://github.com/plone/volto
Lightning talks and closing ceremonies
All good things must end, but before that there were interesting lightning talks (including mine!) and revelation of next year's Plone Conference (hint: pizza and pasta :)
Party and afterthoughts
Well there hasn't been a Plone event where I didn't feel excited or welcome, and Tokyo was no exception! Fantastic event by Manabu, Takeshi, Zenichiro, Takanori and co.! The venue, the food and the welcoming and open atmosphere were a blast. The inclusion of Japanese python/JS communities was a nice addition and hopefully we'll continue with that in the future.
Many of the participants stayed after the conference to attend sprints to improve Plone even further:
https://2018.ploneconf.org/sprints
Meanwhile want to contribute or attend a Plone event? How about going to Alpine city sprint:
https://plone.org/events/sprints/alpine-city-sprint-2019-in-innsbruck-austria or https://plone.org/get-started
Next year's Plone Conference will be held in Ferrara, Italy, see you there!
https://plone.org/news/2018/plone-conference-2019-will-be-in-ferrara-italy
Closing remarks: Finding a way through Tokyo metro was relatively easy :)