Whilst we might live on an island that is seemingly isolated from the rest of the world, thanks to the power of the Web, Australian web designers and web developers are anything but disconnected from their industry peers.
In fact, one of the biggest conferences for web professionals in the world is actually the one held in Sydney each year, Web Directions South. Team SitePoint has been regular attendees, supporters and media partners of this conference series since Day One. The conference is on again this year, running from September 25-26 (with two days of optional workshops on the 23rd and 24th).
The SitePoint Show
This year’s conference will be a big one for SitePoint in particular, as we have a huge number of bloggers, book authors and employees running sessions and giving presentations:
- Lucas Chan, system administrator here at SitePoint HQ, will be hosting a two hour panel comparing and contrasting four web development frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Django, CakePHP and Struts/Spring.
- Jina Bolton, author of The Art & Science of CSS, is talking about how to create sexy style sheets.
- Kay Smoljak, our resident ColdFusion blogger, is talking about starting and running a successful web development business.
- Myles Eftos, our Ruby on Rails blogger, is talking about Oauth and OpenID.
- Tim Lucas, one-time SitePoint Rails blogger, is giving a talk about developing for the iPhone.
- David Peterson, another one of our bloggers and Semantic Web guru, is talking about using the semantic web for distributed social networks.
The International Superstars
Of course, in addition to all this SitePoint talent, the lineup for big-name international presenters is also impressive. In fact, more so than any other year, in my opinion:
- Douglas Crockford, the world’s foremost authority on JavaScript, who is not only presenting on the the “good parts” of JavaScript, is delivering a full-day workshop on the topic.
- Jeffrey Veen, possibly the most charismatic person I’ve ever seen present (and definitely the tallest person I’ve seen present)
- Jeff Croft, typography, Django and CSS guru
Discount For SitePoint Readers
If you’re thinking of attending then you might want to hurry: Early Bird pricing (save $200 off the regular ticket price) ends this Friday, July 19.
Luckily for SitePoint readers, you can save an additional $55 off that by quoting the code WDS-SP when you purchase your ticket. That brings the ticket price down to $795 — but only if you purchase on or before July 18.
It really is shaping up to be one of the best web conferences to date, and SitePoint are proud to have such strong representation. See the full list of speakers, and register to attend before this Friday to take advantage of the Early Bird discount!
Matthew MagainMatthew Magain is a UX designer with over 15 years of experience creating exceptional digital experiences for companies such as IBM, Australia Post, and sitepoint.com. He is currently the Chief Doodler at Sketch Group, Co-founder of UX Mastery, and recently co-authored Everyday UX, an inspiring collection of interviews with some of the best UX Designers in the world. Matthew is also the creator of Charlie Weatherburn and the Flying Machine.
