Three members of the Prater Raines developer team took an epic journey (OK, maybe not epic, but we did have to catch 7 different trains) to Karlsruhe in the Black Forest to bask in the glorious sunshine* at the annual TYPO3 Developer Days conference.
* And a teeny bit of rain, thunder and lightning to keep us on our toes.
We learned about CSS, deployment, testing, time management and upcoming improvements to the platform and we met other TYPO3 developers from around the world.
Matt’s T3DD
This was genuinely one of the best developer conferences I’ve attended. There was a real breadth of talk topics which surprised me somewhat. I guess I was expecting a very TYPO3 core and extension development heavy schedule so was delighted to be able attend high calibre lectures on more general design, development, and deployment subjects. My stand out favourite was Benjamin Kott’s “State of CSS 2024”, which included a live play-along collection of demos anyone with an interest in modern stylesheet design should take a look at.
TYPO3 isn’t all that big in the United Kingdom right now but there was a British contingent it was lovely to meet at the event. I don’t think the platform is appropriate for every job but it has some particular strengths and I’m sure we can find niches where it fits well and grow the market.
I was skeptical of the value of being on-site day and night for the whole event but there was a real sense of cameraderie and fun that isn’t always present at other developer conferences. In particular it didn’t seem especially cliquey with everyone being welcoming to newcomers. I’d like to see a more practical space where you could just throw down a board game, some Pokémon cards, or a games console though, neither the chillout room nor the hacker room were great for this.
Karlsruhe wasn’t my favourite German city although we were on the edge of the Black Forest with some pretty woodland walks and Rüppurr, a suburb a short e-scooter ride to the south, seemed lovely. I’d like to see the event move somewhere else in future so we can experience new places but am nevertheless sure we’ll return next year for the 7-9 August 2025 event.
It always feels important to me to combine work with sightseeing if we’re getting away somewhere new, take a bit of time to see the world rather than just rushing headlong through it from meeting to meeting. Our brief stops in Paris and Cologne on the way there and back broke up the journey nicely but I think we’ll have to leave longer between trains next year!
Gary’s T3DD
The TYPO3 Developer Days involved a number of firsts for me. Not only was it my first TYPO3 event, it was also my first visit to Germany, my first trip abroad for two decades, and my first chance to get a colour tattoo. But more on that soon.
The event proved to be well worth it. The talks were excellent, building on my computing studies with the OU through practical examples of using TYPO3 as well as covering topics such as testing, security, documentation, and AI that are key issues in software development. I think my favourite talk was probably “Embeddings – the lesser known hero of AI”, which can be found here, though “Testing with Doubles: Why, When, and How?” was particularly useful for my OU final year project.
The community were also incredibly welcoming. Not only did we get a chance to meet other UK based TYPO3 users, but we made friends from as far afield as South Africa, such as Phindiwe Nqanqaru, co-founder of the NGO BabesGotBytes. The socialising didn’t just revolve around TYPO3 of course. I enjoyed chatting with fellow attendees about bands such as Machine Head and Slayer, as well as Magic: The Gathering, the trading card game that I collect and hope to play should I ever find some free time.
The fun didn’t stop there though. Not only did I discover that I’d missed something off of my bucket list, but I also got to try surfing for the first time… sort of. It was also a joy to participate in the Inside Typo3 podcast, where I discussed my experiences at the event, which included getting a new tattoo, inked by Tattoohelden. The tattoo I chose was of the Fleet logo for our Typo3 project with the Liberal Democrats, and it involved making a donation to an animal welfare organisation.
Aside from the event itself, we also took the time to stop off in Paris, where we took a quick look at the Louvre and surrounds, and Cologne, where I briefly visited the Cathedral and grabbed some souvenirs for the family. All in all, I had a fantastic time and I really hope we get the opportunity to attend again. If you’re thinking of working with TYPO3, or have recently begun doing so, I thoroughly recommend going to a community event.
Dalton’s T3DD
This summer, I had the unique opportunity to attend the TYPO3 Developer Days 2024, held in this vibrant city. But my trip wasn’t all about coding and networking; I also took the time to explore the Karlsruhe Zoo, a serene oasis in the heart of the city.
The sessions covered a wide range of topics, from advanced TYPO3 development techniques to discussions on the latest extensions and integrations. I particularly enjoyed a workshop on “The Secret Way to Success as a TYPO3 Developer”, which opened my mind to new ways of thinking.
One of the highlights was the opportunity to network with other developers. The informal discussions during coffee breaks and social events were just as valuable as the official sessions. I exchanged insights with experts from different parts of the world, gaining new perspectives and expanding my professional network.
After an intense day of coding and learning, I decided to unwind with a visit to the Karlsruhe Zoo. Situated near the city center, this zoo is not just a haven for animals but also a peaceful retreat for visitors. I had the opportunity to see the polar bears up close. Watching these gentle giants interact with each other was a humbling experience, and the first time I had seen these creatures in real life. The zoo was opened in 1865, making it one of the oldest zoos in Germany.
My trip to Karlsruhe was a perfect blend of professional growth and personal relaxation. The TYPO3 Developer Days 2024 were everything I hoped for and more—a chance to learn, connect, and be inspired by a community that’s constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in web development. Whilst also seeing a part of the world I had never visited before.
The talks
| A brief summary of the talks we attended | ||
|---|---|---|
| Keynote Benni Mack | Overview of upcoming changes in TYPO3 v13, including easier addition of new custom blocks, a new way of storing site settings and themes, accessibility improvements, dark mode, and a backend UI overhaul in v14. | |
| TYPO3 New APIs Oliver Bartsch | More low-level look at changes in v13. All hooks have been replaced with PSR-14 events and new events added. Images are WebP by default and SVGs can be natively cropped. Backend page tree much improved. New TCA types have been added and database field creation is much simplified, as is site config. | |
| Settings and Configuration Management Benjamin Franzke | Site sets are now the standard way of adding site and extension config that is strictly typed, validated, cacheable, easy to express and parse and can be read from anywhere. | |
| State of CSS 2024 Benjamin Kott | History of CSS interoperability efforts and cool interactive play-along demo of balanced text, keyboard accessibility improvements, CSS nesting, light and dark mode options, popovers, animations from hidden display, and scroll driven animations to create progress indicators without any code. | |
| Testing with Doubles: Why, When, and How? Sebastian Bergmann | How and why to mock services we cannot or do not wish to use in tests. From the simple – stubs – through spies to mock and fake objects and their implementation in PHPUnit. | |
| Deep Dive into Symfony’s Dependency Injection Component Alexander M. Turek | How to write services.yaml entries in your extensions for dependency injection and how to use autowiring, discovery and configuration. | |
| Time Management for Developers Rachel Foucard | How to break your personal and team timelines down yet prevent social acceleration. How to create and structure task lists but remember “the best tool is the one you use”. Leave space in your schedule for unplanned work. | |
| Language and workspace overlays Benni Mack | How TYPO3 adds translations with a fallback chain so if a translation in your language is not found you see the most similar language and how similar technology provides workspaces to preview and moderate content. | |
| The SAST and the furious Zack Lott | How to catch security issues early using Static Application Security Testing on any machine or as part of the continuous integration pipeline. | |
| Securing TYPO3 Web Applications Oliver Hader | Fast paced talk covering the basics of Cross Site Scripting, SQL injection, Insecure Direct Object Reference, Cross Site Request Forgery, file upload vulnerabilities, insecure deserialization, and prototype pollution. | |
| The Art of Deployment Martin Helmich | An overview of deployment tools from the simple to the Kubernetes. Deployment should be repeatable, automatable, zero down time, and reversible. Also covered the complication of database migrations and integration with version control. | |
| Embeddings – the lesser known Hero of AI Frank Berger | How OpenAI can be used to compare words, check the accuracy of translations, normalise random data, and test for bias in other AI models. | |
| Responsive Images Helmut Hummel | Responsive images are better for SEO, performance, and sustainability. Covered some of the details of how browsers load images and introduced a TYPO3 extension to help output appropriate images. | |
| Robust testing strategy in TYPO3 Andreas Wolf | Tests, along with static analysis and other QA tools, safeguard changes, improve design, and uncover bugs earlier. TYPO3 projects are complex and long-lived and there is a steep learning curve. Core needs to provide better support to get test coverage up. | |
| Empowering TYPO3 with Data Sovereign LLMs: An Overview Thomas Schöne | An interesting opening observation that AI is in a similar space now to file sharing 20 years ago: easy, free access to legally grey area content. Covered some thoughts about what content you want to share and keep secret, what data sovereignty is, and how to self host an Open Source LLM to save on long term costs. | |
| The secret way to success as a TYPO3 developer Mathias Bolt Lesniak | The TYPO3 ambassador told us there were no secrets, then went on to share with us 17 secrets in his inimicable style. In a few words: Plan. Make it configurable. Learn the platform. Collaborate. Share. Document. Ask questions. Don’t reinvent the wheel. | |