Nothing better to get inspiration from then a nice cup of Nespresso in the evening. We are working with Symfony for a few months (years) now and I was wondering earlier this day: Who are the guys that are able to produce such a nice piece of software? You got to admit it that the framework these guys created is a masterpiece, must be a shitload of work and it is still growing on a daily basis.
Off course there is more then one person creating this software, but 1 man in particular is leading this project: Fabien Potencier.
A little history:
1994 to 1997 Fabien went to the Ecole National Supérieure des Mines de Nancy.
1997 to 1998 Added master entrepreneur at HEC School of Management to his curriculum vitae.
In June 1998 Fabien and Grégory Pascal created there own little company called Sensio in France, an office was created in Canada and the United States. In October 2005 the Symfony framework was licensed and two years later the first version was launched.
A little list of history of Symfony:
10/2005: launch of the Symfony framework licence under MIT
11/2005: Support integration of Ajax
12/2005: Launch of the Askeet tutorial
08/2006: Announcement of the first version
10/2006: Announcement of the implication of Yahoo! Inc. in the framework and launch of the Yahoo! Bookmarks in Symfony
01/2007: The definitive guide to Symfony is for sale as a paperback
02/2007: The first version 1.0 is launched
09/2007: The first exclusive conference takes place, SymfonyCamp in Holland
07/2008: Yahoo! Launches the new version of delicious in Symfony
Fabien launched his new book recently at the end of 2008, Practical Symfony and is actually an updated version of the first book, the definitive guide to Symfony.
Just like the first website Askeet, a new site was launched with the updates and new technologies, described in the second book, called: Jobeet.
This gives you an easy walkthrough for Symfony in 24 days and is the best way to understand and learn the structure and class system.
I know that this isn’t a full biography of Fabien Potencier but it will give you an idea of what he created and the work he is doing.
Follow Symfony the next few year, it has a great future… at least that is what I think.
Fabien and Gregory didn’t create Sensio in Canada but in France of course ! An office was created in september 2008 in Canada and one in United States at the same time due to the fact that Jonathan Wage, Doctrine’s lead developper, joined the Sensio Team in full-time to work on the Doctrine’s integration for symfony.
* text updated: thx Hugo
Any idea how a project like this gets funded? Is it purely for the fun and inspiration of it. I’m guessing it will help their own company having a great piece of software like this but making it open source is it a purely philanthropic gesture. What they have done is amazing and I don’t really understand how they have managed to setup such a huge system and keep maintaining it. Whichever way it is, I am very much appreciative.
Good question. Now, i suppose, they aim on the training sessions. If you look on the site of sensio-labs, they do nothing more then that.