The program for DrupalCon is evolving constantly. Among the changes for Nashville 2018 new tracks have been added and some have been merged. That is the case for the Symfony and PHP tracks.

Many topics clearly belong to a single track, but others could fit in more than one. When we had a dedicated Symfony track a session about Twig could be submitted to the Symfony or front end tracks. A session about Drupal Console could be submitted to the Symfony, the PHP, or back end tracks. In an effort to reduce confusion in the call for proposal process, the track team has agreed on the following:

• The back end development track is for sessions focused on Drupal coding and development practices.
• The PHP track is for sessions that cover the broader PHP ecosystem. These sessions can be related to Drupal, but focused on an external project/library like composer, or PHPUnit, Symfony components.
• The Symfony track merged with the PHP track.

Undoubtedly Symfony plays a key role in Drupal. Symfony 4 has just been released and it would be great to learn about what the future looks like. We want to learn about what is new in the latest version and what benefits adopting it would bring. We are also interested in sessions that would allow developers to learn from each other. What does a Symfony developer need to know to write Drupal code? What does a Drupal developer needs to know about Symfony to become a better developer? In other words - how to make proper use of Symfony components and related best practices.

Other session ideas include best practices on using Composer, PHPUnit, and third party libraries; new features in PHP 7; functional, asynchronous, and reactive programming; machine learning; micro services; etc.

If you want to attend DrupalCon Nashville, but the cost of attending is too high there are some ways to reduce the expenses:

• Getting a session selected gives you a DrupalCon ticket.
• You can get a $350 stipend to help cover expenses if your session is selected and you identify yourself within at least one of the "Big Eight" Social Identifiers. This is part of an effort to increase diversity at DrupalCon.
• If you volunteer as a mentor, you can get a free ticket. No need to be a speaker for this one.
• There are grants and scholarships that can provide a ticket and/or money to cover expenses. No need to be a speaker for this one.

The track team for DrupalCon Nashville 2018 is here to help you during the session submission process. We can help review proposals, suggest topics, and clear any doubt you might have. For the PHP track, Chad Hester, Tim Millwood, and myself are ready to help.

For people who have not presented before and for those of underrepresented groups, the Drupal Diversity and Inclusion Initiative has created a channel in Slack to help them with the proposal project. Mentoring is available at drupal.org/slack? in the #ddi-session-help channel.

The call for proposals closes in less than a month on January 17. Do no leave things until the last minute. We look forward to your session submissions!