Highlights: Drupal Dev Days 2024 in Bourgas

Over 40 talks, 4 keynotes, and 4 social events! The foyer of the Free University in Burgas was transformed into a dance floor for a traditional Bulgarian хоро (= Horo) dance!

With nearly 200 participants from around the world, the DevDays in Burgas were quite personal. Thomas described the event as "characterized by strong interpersonal connections" and elaborated further with "not talking bullshit with people."

What are the Drupal Developer Days? 

The Drupal DevDays (DDD) are one of the most important events for the European Drupal developer community. Organized by dedicated members, the event brings together people from all over the world to exchange trends, innovations, and best practices. Each year, the event takes place in a new location in Europe.

In addition to sun, beach, TsaTsa, and Rakija in the coastal city of Burgas on the Black Sea, the Drupal Dev Days 2024 offered a varied event with a program full of exciting sessions. 

Our Highlights of the Drupal Dev Days 2024

Drupal 11 & Starshot

Lauri Timmanee and Gábor Hojtsy presented the brand-new project from the Drupal community in their keynote session on Wednesday: Drupal Starshot, an initiative aimed at simplifying the creation and expansion of Drupal websites—especially for users with little or no Drupal experience. 

Starshot is based on the classic Drupal core and helps users build and customize websites using pre-made recipes - all within the browser. These recipes include proven modules, themes, and configurations optimized for common use cases like blogs, portfolios, and e-commerce sites.

Artificial Intelligence in Drupal: Opportunities and Challenges

During the Dev Days, there was also an intensive discussion about the future of Drupal, including the application of artificial intelligence. AI is a hot topic in the Drupal community, as evidenced by the number of AI sessions: a total of eight sessions focused on AI and large language models! Here are three of the most interesting sessions summarized:

• "AI and Drupal: Build smarter systems"    
  Veteran Fred Kroket provided an entry point into the world of AI in Drupal in his session. He introduced cool AI modules that already enhance Drupal and explained simply and understandably how "Retrieval Augmented Generation" works and is applied in Drupal. Watch his video here.      
   
• James Abrahams discussed "Revisiting: Is ChatGPT coming for your Job?: The Unchanged Need for Developers in Enhancing ChatGPT with Drupal, RAG, & Chained Models", critically examining the relationship between developers and AI. Instead of inciting fear about job loss, the session showed how LLMs like ChatGPT can assist developers in solving complex problems.      
   
• The session "AI with Drupal - Using LLM technology is easy, but how do you actually build useful applications?" by Christoph Breidert from 1xInternet explored how to build meaningful applications from the simple use of LLMs. Using an example that suggested suitable sessions for attendees of the Drupal Dev Days (with real data!), the challenges of public LLMs and approaches for customization were discussed. Watch the video here.

AI is a hot topic, and the Drupal community wants to stay ahead. That’s why the Drupal AI Camp 2024 was announced for the first time, which will take place on October 24 in London. More info can be found here!

Manual Control for True Accessibility

"Keys and Voices: The Limits of Automated Accessibility Testing Tools"  

In one of his rare talks, our boss Thomas Renner examined the limitations of automated accessibility testing tools. Thomas believes that tools like Wave, Lighthouse, or AXE are very useful but often miss many problematic barriers for people with disabilities. Through numerous live examples, he offered valuable insights into manual accessibility, focusing particularly on the importance of keyboard navigation and the use of screen readers.

Thomas' talk was, by the way, the only approved session on the topic of "Accessibility on the Web."

• More about the session: "Keys and Voices: The Limits of Automated Accessibility Testing Tools"

• Video (coming soon)

   

Conclusion

The Drupal Dev Days in Burgas were a lively event that excited all participants. Unfortunately, the percentage of women among the attendees was again quite low. 

From the latest trends and developments surrounding Drupal to vibrant networking at the social events, the event was a complete success, bringing many new ideas and showcasing once again: "You come for the community, you stay for the code!". 

A big thank you goes to the organizers and volunteers for their great work. We’re already looking forward to the next time!