Interesting People – part 1: Fabien Potencier

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.