PHP Conferences are a great place to learn new techniques and meet new people. The sessions however, are not always where the action is. Sometimes, the hallway track is where the most interesting sessions happen.

The PHP manual is widely recognized as an invaluable resource for beginners and professionals alike with a breadth and depth that are unmatched in the open-source world. What people don’t often realize, however, is that it is the work of volunteers—and, as such, it requires everyone’s help to thrive and grow.

Raise the roof, because Lukas Smith will be joining us for CodeWorks! You will be able to meet Lukas in all seven cities of our tour. As a part of our Tutorial Team, Lukas brings his extensive PHP and database knowledge to the lineup. Read on to learn more about Lukas and what he’ll be speaking about. We are thrilled to have him with us!

Arne Blankerts is the next speaker we’d like to announce for our CodeWorks tour! Arne will be with us for all seven cities, and we are sure you will benefit from his vast PHP expertise. Welcome to CodeWorks, Arne!

We are proud to announce that John Coggeshall will be joining us for CodeWorks 09. John will be taking part in the first three cities of the tour: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas. We are very glad to have John with us!

We are thrilled to announce that Stefan Priebsch will be taking part in CodeWorks 2009! Stefan is a consummate professional and has been solving IT problems for over 25 years. He will be joining us as a part of our Tutorial Team and will be here for all seven cities of the tour! Keep reading and we’ll tell you some interesting facts about Stefan that you may have not known.

Developers are notoriously self-confident in their ability to write code that is better, faster, cleaner and better-smelling than everybody else’s. In today’s environment, however, the focus is on producing immediately useful code—and, given the richness of today’s frameworks, those who eschew them in favour of home-grown solutions are forever running the risk of reinventing the wheel for no good reason. We have enough wheels—start building some cars.

GOTO in PHP? Is that possible? It turns out that it is. GOTO is poised to make its official debut in the upcoming 5.3 release of PHP—and the comments are flowing around the Net. We caught up with Sara Golemon, who introduced the construct in PHP, and with Timothy Boronczyk, who made one of the rare level-headed comments about its use, to shed some light on how GOTO will affect the world of PHP

The next CodeWorks speaker we’d like to announce is the incomparable Cal Evans! He brings so much to the CW table, both in terms of technical know-how and real-world experience. Cal will be with us for all seven cities of the tour, so read on to get a hint of what topics he’ll be covering.

Ed Finkler (aka Funkatron) will also be joining us for the second half of the CodeWorks tour. You’ll be able to catch up with Ed in Atlanta, Miami, Washington, and New York City. We are very excited to have Ed on board for CodeWorks; he brings 13 years of experience on a variety of PHP topics to our tour, and is an all around very cool guy. Keep reading to learn more about Ed’s background and what topics he’ll be speaking about.