Some insight from the DrupalCon Vienna 2017 aka SchnitzelCon

As you might know, this year’s DrupalCon Europe took place in Vienna, the beautiful capital of Austria. Most know it for many imperial buildings, the original ferris wheel, Apfelstrudel or the delicious Sacher cake. But it’s also the hometown of the original Wiener Schnitzel. So you might guess why it was also called the SchnitzelCon (even though it was not the official hashtag). So we were pleased to be the host of one week of pure Drupal madness that was organised by the Drupal Association (DA) and also the local community of Drupal Austria.

If you are not familiar with the concept of the official conferences, in short it consists of a local community day (which was cancelled by the Association, but Drupal Austria made it happen again) including a party, three days of conference with many talks and unofficial side events and of course the essential code sprints to make progress with the Drupal core as well as various contrib issues. (Incidentally, it would be interesting to know what part of a DrupalCon interests you most?)

The community day took place at the FH Technikum in the 20th district. Perhaps you already know it from the awesome Drupal Camps in 2013 and 2015. The community events were structured into various summits (Business, Publishing, Open Social and Community Summit) related to the needs of the international Drupal Community, as well as a Code Sprint and a Drupal Starter Training. For us, the most interesting topics were about decoupling Drupal, GraphQL, Media in Drupal Core, as well as distributions like Thunder. Decoupling Drupal was more or less the dominating topic of this week, but more about that later.

Prior to this year’s Con, the DA published a series of blog posts related to the financial issues of DrupalCons in Europe. Cons in Europe and the US differ significantly. While the events in the US also attract the business sector and revenues were above $2 million, the “little brothers” in Europe do not have half of the revenue, which generates yearly losses for the DA. The result: DrupalCon Europe 2018 is suspended and there are ongoing discussions about a new concept for Europe. It would be interesting, incidentally, if you prefer attending a DrupalCon or if you love the smaller and more informal Camps and Codeweeks more? But now back to the SchnitzelCon!

Tuesday was the day! Dancing inserts and horn playing by the one and only Jam (incidentally, he not only plays horn well, but also proved himself an excellent choreographer at the Prenote Training Baltimore) during the Prenote limbered up the crowd and OIDA (Tutorial: Speaking Viennese using only one word) was all around (a bit overused in my mind). Enough Oida.

A highlight of every Con is always the Driesnote, as this talk provides a wide angle about the strategies of Drupal and upcoming features like the Layout Builder or decoupling the backend. In the meantime, React is the choice for a prototype project of decoupling the watchdog site. We also experimented with several JS Frameworks and even though Angular evolved into a very interesting option, React is also our choice, even if Facebook can revoke the license. It’s easy to learn and, due to the VD, has great performance for high interaction sites. Another part of his session was about a scaling decision that Drupal is no longer oriented at small to medium sized websites, but at sites with high traffic and “richness”.

Years ago, most of us would have built every site with Drupal as an enthusiast, but nowadays many SaaS Providers do a good job for the smaller wallet. But, wait! In D8 there are already several distributions that offer great flexibility, so we soon expect there will be many themes to serve the custom needs of publishers. Focusing on the next level of web applications is the long-term goal. As strategies target fully decoupling Drupal, other essential components pop up to empower performance like GraphQL. It’s the cherry on top. Thanks to Philipp & Sebastian the project makes good progress.

After this official part, most of the crowd flowed to the specific session rooms or the exhibitors hall. These events are similar to family get-togethers, as you meet many old friends from everywhere. After a session about the API First Initiative, lunch was on my schedule.

At night, the official DrupalCon Party started and, due to the first Open Source Award, the event was a great success, until… the beer was gone. Within 15 minutes, only 40 people were left. This bug was really bad, even though the surprise act “Gudrun von Laxenburg” supported by us was rocking the stage. Who cares, it was therefore a pretty nice party.

During a Con, time flies by and while experiencing much about trending topics, Jo from our Zensations team held his talk on “Beyond Accessibility and Inclusion” (Session Video). A topic that no one should forget, as the Drupal A11y Initiative defined some standards, which should be followed to provide a truly great user experience to everyone. Apropos. If you are interested in working with us, just drop me a line or visit our job section. Enough self-marketing. This year’s DrupalCon had many great sessions with some easter eggs. Another step in automation will be AI and Machine Learning, so the insights of Ricardo Amaro.

The closing note was also a Goodbye to Europe for the next time. Thanks, DrupalCon, for having us.