MidCamp is one of those camps that never disappoints. The event pushes boundaries for our community, helps us connect, and challenges us to grow personally and professionally, technically and communally. 2019 was no exception.
First, my thanks go out to the small but mighty group of organizers, Kevin Thull, Andrea Soper, Avi Schwab, JD Flynn, Doug Dobrzynski, and to the countless volunteers that made the event possible. As always, a huge thank you to the sponsors, for which the event would not have occurred.
Sessions That Engage
The event began with a thought-provoking keynote from Fatima Khalid about first-hand accounts of privilege and diversity. It’s important that we, as a community, challenge ourselves to not only acknowledge, but actively support others with empathy and understanding.
The sessions that followed the keynote, we’re also engaging and informative. The sessions were varied and covered topics from the human side of things to the technical. Some of the standouts for me were:
- April Sides’ insightful information on employment and cultural fit: How to Hire and Fire Your Employer.
- Ryan Szrama’s talk about the commerce roadmap and Centarro - which is a shift away from Commerce Guys and into a more product centric future: Taking Drupal Commerce to Market: 2019 Roadmap.
- George DeMet and Mike Anello’s discussion about the ways the CWGs evolving to better serve the community: Community Working Group Update and Q&A.
- Anna Mykhailova’s session on Drupal’s newer capabilities with layout: Ace any design in Drupal - layout tools and components in your site-building toolbox.
- Andrew Olson and Catrina Ahlbach’s exploration of the relationship (and collaboration) between design and engineering practices: Effective Cross-Functional Communication.
- Dan Montgomery’s insights on migration and federated search: Understanding migration development in Drupal 8: Strategies and tools to see what's happening & Federated Search with Drupal, Solr, and React.
You can check out all of the sessions from MidCamp on Drupal.tv.
Showcasing SimplyTest.me Improvements & Planning
I was given the opportunity to present a community case study on SimplyTest.me. Not only did I share the history, and current state, but I also shared the exciting future roadmap. I was very happy to announce two new sponsorships: TugboatQA (container backend) and Centarro (commerce demo framework). I’m grateful for these new beginnings.
Beyond Development
The social events, including the famous food truck and board game evening, were wonderful! These events are always a great time to connect with both new and familiar faces in a relaxing and fun setting.
Last but most certainly not least, we did a Drupal Coffee Exchange! What’s web development without coffee? If we’ve ever met, you know I love my coffee so, of course, I spent most mornings getting nitro cold brew from Stan’s Donuts or walking to Colectivo Coffee.
Community Focus
The event concluded with an excellent contribution day which had something for everyone. There was a first-time contributors workshop, several identified initiatives - such as the Umami demo, the Claro theme and efforts for Drupal 9 readiness. I personally worked on the Tugboat QA integration for SimplyTest.me and give many thanks to Benji Fisher for his help on that. Many Drupal 9 deprecation issues were created for contributed modules that I help maintain. Mike Lutz was able to organize previous work done to get passing tests on patches for a Symfony 4 upgrade, which paves the way for a more future proof and modernized Drupal core. All of the participants made a significant impact on the Drupal project. I’m happy to be part of such a great community!
The time I was able to spend with the community has a positive impact both personally and professionally. It gives me energy and helps me see first hand how everyone in our community comes together to help. I'm already looking forward to MidCamp next year.
Credit // MidCamp Flickr for Main Image
Credit // Coffee Exchange image courtesy of EDUCO.