Conferences/Symposiums/Courses in Britain

Question

I see lots of advertisements for cool looking conferences based on the latest web technologies on tech-ey sites all the time, but they all seem to be based in the USA - which is too far away to justify the expense :( So, does anyone know of some cool/fun/interesting events for web developers occurring in the UK? Or any sites that would list such events? I'm mostly interested in PHP/Ruby on Rails/C++/AJAX stuff, but more generalised things would rock too.

Answer 1

I've never been to one, but ACCU conferences have a very good reputation. They're not specifically about web development, but looking at past programmes there's likely to be a few sessions that are directly relevant and lots more of more general interest to you.

Answer 2

The big ones I know of in the UK:

• PHP London has monthly meetings and a yearly conference
• PHP North West is hosting it's first conference in november 22 (of 2008)

And you could always look for a PHP user group near you.

Oh and off course the Dutch PHP Conference of '09 will one not to miss...

Answer 3

Future of Web Apps (FOWA) is in a couple of weeks, as mentioned PHPNW is in November, PHP London's was in February, and I think it's planned for the same time next year. Carsonfied occasionally do workshops on various thing, in London I think, and there are Barcamp-type events in quite a few cities (Bath had one a couple of weeks ago).

Yahoo and Google both hold Developer-days in London, the BBC had a day-long thing earlier in the year as well that had everything from Rockets to web-mashups.

Multipack put on Geek in the Park each summer and they also have monthly meetings in Birmingham, there's Geekup covering the North West and a group that I forget the name of in Bath/Bristol. London, Manchester (in the guise of 'North West') and the West Midlands (that I know of) all have PHP user-groups with regular meetings

Answer 4

The London Ruby User Group always has a great community.

Answer 5

Carson Workshops (Carsonified) are very good. They organise the annual Future of Web Apps event in addition to single-topic events.