On quite a few occasions fellow developers ask me which is the best way to get started with Joomla! Development. Among other things, I always propose that they should have a complete reference of the Joomla! Framework API. The only book which was up to this task was “Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development”, albeit a bit outdated since it was written when Joomla!1.5 was still in beta, some two and a half years ago. When Packt Publishing announced that they'd release the updated “Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development (Update)” I got ecstatic! So, here you go, I reviewed the new edition of the book and I'm willing to share my experience with you.

Like all of you, I just found out that the upcoming Joomla! World Conference in Melbourne was postponed due to... a rain forecast?! I understand that this is a figure of speech (OK, I'm Greek, I'm not stupid). The "rain" is used metaphorically and this is exactly why I tweeted yesterday that “It takes more than a website and a joomla.org announcement to organize a world conference. It requires COMMUNITY involvement”. Some people mistook my tweet as a bad take on the Australian and Asian Joomla! Community and the event's organizers, implying that they're incapable, or unimportant, or something like that. On the contrary! This is why I am writing this blog post.

Unless you live under a rock, you already know that the past three days J and Beyond 2010 was taking place in Wiesbaden, Germany. The fact that it was the first international Joomla! event was further stressed as it was organized (impeccably!) by the community, for the community. It has been an amazing experience and – certainly – the best three days of my Joomla! life.