Silex: It's the biggest microframework you'll ever use.  Or maybe the most lightweight framework you'll ever use.  Or it's just Symfony Junior.  So what is it?

Silex is, simply, a ready-made request/response pipeline built on the Symfony components, ready for you to build... whatever.  Unlike fullstack frameworks it doesn't imply a certain model or approach, and lets you define your own architecture, for better or worse.

"Decoupled Content Management Systems" are all the rage these days.  In theory, by separating the various parts of a CMS platform into separate pieces a site can scale, grow, and evolve more freely.  Of course, that's quite different than how most open source CMS platforms are built today.

That doesn't mean they can't be used that way.  Just because a given CMS is designed as an all-in-one solution doesn't mean it cannot be used in a decoupled fashion.  All it takes is a little cleverness and some Open Source goodness. 

One of the most widely-used and mature Content Management Systems on the planet, Drupal runs more than one in fifty websites in the world.  However, it has always been something of an odd duck, with an architecture and design very different than anything else in PHP.

Enter Drupal 8: Almost a complete rewrite under the hood, Drupal 8 is a modern, PHP 5.4-boasting, REST-capable, object-oriented powerhouse.  Now leveraging 3rd party components from no less than 9 different projects, Drupal 8 aims to be the premiere Content Management Platform for PHP.

With Drupal 8 on it's way in, PHP's standard practice of using composer is working it's way into a Drupal developer's normal life. Jump ahead of the curve and start using Composer for your Drupal 7 projects with this complete demonstration of a composer workflow using the following packages.

One of the strengths of Drupal is that it's not just a tool for building a single website. It can be used equally well for managing multiple companion sites together. This capability has existed for many years, but is not always well understood. And in true Drupal fashion, modern Drupal has several different options available for users looking to run a series of Drupal sites together, each with its own trade-offs.

This session will focus on using the Mink framework and how to develop sound tests using it. A basic walkthrough of setup of 3 different drivers will be show:

• Goutte
• Selenium2
• PhantomJS

A quick guide on the different objects in the API will be given, showing one how to do the following:

Functional programming. Some see that term and think "functions? You mean procedural programming. I've been doing that for years." Others see it and think "you mean that crazy academic nonsense that no one understands? Pfft!"

Websites are never done. Evolving version 1.0 from launch to the next redesign is an unpredictable adventure in problem solving, ingenuity and collaboration wholly distinct from the journey we take when building a site from scratch. Website maintenance is its own discipline.

Install Profiles allow you to create a custom install process. Combined with a makefile or a distribution, the install profile can be a powerful tool to get a new Drupal site up and running fast. If you build a lot of Drupal 6/7 sites with similar features, Install Profiles can be a life saver. At the least, installing Views, the WYSIWYG module, and a couple other utilities can be a major help in getting your site up and running fast. Install Profiles can do this and even do some basic configuration you do every time you install a site.

Learn to build rich content widgets for your WYSIWYG.