Bert De Swaef

Planing my peppers while Claude is crafting some crud stuff for a project. Who said I can't multitask?

People keep asking me about this, so here’s the video I made about it a while ago on WhereValueBetween in Laravel. youtu.be/E58RVWD7J8U

@ShaneDRosenthal Dude, calm down.

I might go for a walk now...

@ahmedfawky_ @nativephp Yes

@BurtDS @nativephp On iOS?

Deployed my first @nativephp app to my smartphone. 🚀 Just saying...

@CipherVectors @nativephp About 4 hours to craft my prototype of the app.

@BurtDS @nativephp How long did it take you ?

@DanielNewns @LaraconEU @wendell_adriel Didn't had the chance to talk to you.

Just back from @LaraconEU and I've had a day to sit with it and think about what actually made it such a great event. The obvious stuff first - the EU team absolutely delivered. Brilliant speakers from first-timers like Pete Heslop and @wendell_adriel right through to seasoned regulars like @ryangjchandler and @marcelpociot. The production was slick, the audio and video setup was excellent, and I'm pretty sure this was the first Laracon to have a sign language interpreter for the talks. That last one really stood out to me - accessibility done properly. But none of that is actually what made it special. As a sponsor we were lucky enough to speak to a huge range of developers across the event and as always it's these conversations that stay with me. A four-person team from Transylvania at their very first Laracon. Larger teams who've been making the trip for years. Different sizes, different backgrounds, different parts of the world - but every single one of them had the same thing in common. They love Laravel, and they love the community around it. That's not something you can manufacture. It's just there, every time. So I want to give a few people a proper shoutout - people who, in my opinion, are a big part of why this community feels the way it does. @Caneco wasn't on hosting duties this year but you'd never have known it. He was everywhere - running around behind the scenes, helping out wherever needed, and handling the social media for the official LaraconEU accounts. The kind of person who shows up for a community regardless of whether there's a spotlight on him. @PovilasKorop is someone who just consistently does the hard work so the rest of us don't have to. Laravel videos, Filament content, and now he's been spending time testing AI models to work out which ones are genuinely useful for day-to-day development. Quietly invaluable to a lot of developers who probably don't realise it. @aarondfrancis and @IanLandsman put on another brilliant @MostlyTechPod Mostly Technical Party the night before Laracon. Everyone had a great time and it's exactly the kind of thing that reminds you a conference is about a lot more than just the talks. @jbrooksuk , @joedixon and @ryangjchandler from the Laravel team were all there representing across Forge, Cloud and OSS. Three people who are consistently accessible, always happy to talk through a problem, and genuinely great to spend time with. @zuzana_kunckova has delivered some brilliant talks at Laravel events and is the founder of @LarabellesPHP - an initiative focused on making the world of PHP and Laravel development more accessible to people under-represented due to their gender. Really important work done with real commitment. And then @SimonHamp and @ShaneRosenthal. Five years ago if you'd told me we'd be writing iOS and Android apps in PHP I'd have told you to stop being daft. Yet here we are. These two are moving fast, announced some genuinely exciting things at the event, and if you're not following them already - fix that. There are honestly so many more people I could mention but I'll leave it there with one last thing. If you've been thinking about heading to a Laracon or a Laravel Live but haven't made the jump yet - or if the idea of turning up somewhere on your own feels a bit daunting - just reach out. To any of these people. To me. I promise the community you'll find there makes it more than worth it. See you at the next one. 🙌

@enunomaduro @freekmurze Staying in Belgium for a while?

it’s been 10 years since we know each other.. kind of insane what the Laravel did for me..

Whohoo ! It's @ShaneDRosenthal on stage at @LaraconEU ! 🚀

@SabatinoMasala Haha, classic

Dutch waiter was so confused when I asked for my steak ‘saignant’ 🥩 TIL the dutchies just use ‘medium rare’

Look, it's @simonhamp !

Our buddy @enunomaduro opening @LaraconEU

@SabatinoMasala @LaraconEU I took the eurostar. Super easy, did some work on the train.

Alright, heading out to Amsterdam for @LaraconEU 🚗

@freekmurze See you soon buddy, I just arrived.

🚂 Started my journey to Laracon EU! 🙌 Looking forward seeing a lot of you there 🧑‍💻 On the train, I'll be working on two big package upgrades spatie/crawler and spatie/laravel-site-search. Good stuff coming soon!

On the move, see ya'll soon at @LaraconEU

@samsappenfield1 Yep, need one!

We're bringing the Artisan Jacket. Available for purchase at the Artisan Desk. And every attendee will be getting the exclusive Laracon EU 2026 patch.

Laracon EU, we’ve got some great swag for you. Because like @theHankTaylor says, engineers deserve better conference swag. 👇 LFG

Guys... @nativephp is 🚀

@gonedark Nah, this is not a human...

@BurtDS Top-notch human.

You try to be helpful…

@harrisrafto @LaraconEU Oh yes! For sure buddy.

@BurtDS @LaraconEU 🍺👀

I'll be at @LaraconEU next week. Who will I meet over there? 👀