Gary Hockin
Roave
Gary Hockin helps businesses build with confidence as an associate at Roave. He is a talented and evocative speaker, a cultivated author of impressively entertaining blog posts, and records elegant and informative screencasts and videos. Gary's also a contributor to the Laminas project and is argumentative enough to be on the community review team.
When Gary had a real job, he was a developer of at least "competent" standard with over 20 years experience. When not developing, speaking about developing, reading about developing or writing about developing, Gary enjoys playing computer games and arguing with his two kids. Gary has recently discovered that conferences ask speakers to write their own biography text, and you can get away with writing pretty much anything you want.
Sessions in 2026
It Depends
- 09.15
As a consultant I'm often asked absolute questions, "Is $x better than $y?". The answer is nearly always "It Depends".
Software development is a constant game of give and take. Every day we (consciously or not) make numerous decisions and trade-offs in order to get our code shipped. I've found that making these tradeoffs front of mind when I'm working means easier and better decisions.
Let's take a look at some of the more common decisions we make day-to-day and try and figure out what the compromises are. Hopefully you'll start looking at more decisions as tradeoffs, and make better choices yourself in future.