đ Welcome to the First Community Hour Elizabeth Barron opened the very first PHP Foundation Community Hour alongside Matt Stauffer, CEO of Tighten and a member of the Foundationâs board of directors. The idea grew out of a simple desire to make the Foundation more accessible and to give the community more points of contact. The original concept was just a Zoom call where anyone could drop in and ask questions, but it evolved into something with a purpose and a theme. Big thanks went to the folks at PHP Architect for providing the platform and infrastructure, and to Joe Ferguson for producing behind the scenes.
The very first PHP Foundation Community Hour kicks off with autumn vibes, a blog post that started it all, and one big message: contributing to PHP is easier â and broader â than you think.
đ Welcome to the First Community Hour
Elizabeth Barron opened the very first PHP Foundation Community Hour alongside Matt Stauffer, CEO of Tighten and a member of the Foundationâs board of directors. The idea grew out of a simple desire to make the Foundation more accessible and to give the community more points of contact.
The original concept was just a Zoom call where anyone could drop in and ask questions, but it evolved into something with a purpose and a theme. Big thanks went to the folks at PHP Architect for providing the platform and infrastructure, and to Joe Ferguson for producing behind the scenes.
Matt introduced himself and his work leading a PHP (and Laravel) consultancy that specializes in rescuing and modernizing legacy applications. He shared why he loves that space: PHP powers functional code spread across the internet doing real good for real people, which is exactly why he cares so much about the language and the Foundation.
đ The Blog Post That Started It All
The theme for these next few months came from a post Matt wrote about how people can contribute back to PHP: https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/08/17/how-to-contribute-to-php/ His motivation was making programming accessible â he writes books, does podcasts, and speaks at conferences so people can enter the field and transform their lives.
Matt admitted heâd often found it hard, even as an experienced open-source contributor, to contribute to PHP itself. Digging into why, he found both truth and misconception. Some contributions happen in ways we donât call âcontributing to PHPâ but should, and some pathways genuinely need better communication and community building.
His goal was a single canonical starting place â a short blog post that says âstart hereâ for anyone whoâs always wanted to contribute. Itâs also a reminder to himself to know the current reality rather than criticizing PHP based on how it worked 15 or 20 years ago.
đ§ The Lowest Barrier to Contributing
Asked where someone with no or low barrier should start, Mattâs answer was simple: wherever you already are. If you have a local meetup, go to it. If you attend a conference, get more involved â even just buying a ticket counts. After that, the most newcomer-focused options are the things the Foundation builds specifically for newcomers, like ambassador programs and surveys.
The most important point Matt hammered home: contributing to any individual component, framework, package, or meetup is contributing to PHP. Working on WordPress, Laravel, or Symfony all counts. It does not have to be the language itself to matter.
Elizabeth agreed wholeheartedly that the definition of contribution should be broad. Every interaction, every engagement, every time someone shows up somewhere is a contribution. Newcomers are especially valuable â they can spot the gaps and holes that long-time maintainers no longer see. For those who do want to work on the language itself, Matt suggested reproducing other peopleâs bugs from the PHP source repo as the easiest onboarding point.
đ¤ Everybody Matters in the PHP Community
Matt offered a definition of what it means to be part of the PHP community: if youâve written or read a line of code, been assigned to a PHP project, or even just asked âam I a member of the PHP community?â â you are one. Full stop. And youâre no more or less important than someone whoâs been doing it for decades.
Elizabeth shared that the Foundation recently started an onboarding special interest group where mentorship will be a topic, aimed at improving the overwhelming newcomer experience. They discussed the idea of a central hub or resource for contribution opportunities. Matt was cautiously supportive â worried programmers might over-engineer a tool instead of doing the work, but open to something that points people to where each community already lists its opportunities, while the Foundation creates that space specifically for the PHP language itself.
Matt shared his own contribution origin story: his first pull requests, back in September and October 2012, were to jQuery responsive-design plugins. Neither was merged, but the experience taught him that open source doesnât need to reflect every personâs specific needs, and that most people online are genuinely kind and well-intended.
đď¸ User Groups, SIGs, and Timezone Challenges
Responding to a chat question, Elizabeth confirmed the Foundation plans to launch a special interest group for user group and conference organizers to share challenges around attendance, speakers, and sponsors. Sheâd love to eventually offer micro-grants to help new groups get started, though that requires budgeting and board conversations.
Matt debunked the perception that user groups are expensive to run. Food is usually the biggest cost â and you donât need food at all. The most valuable thing is a host willing to donate space. He described a recent Atlanta PHP meetup with nothing but a few six-packs and some leftover pastries that worked out perfectly fine.
The conversation turned to the eternal challenge of timezones and async collaboration. Both agreed async is great for inclusivity, especially for non-native English speakers, but some things simply canât happen asynchronously with the same quality. In-person and real-time contact build trust and relationships in ways text alone canât, whether for a company, a user group, or the Foundationâs own special interest groups.
đ Designers, Docs, and Making It Easier to Contribute
Matt made the case that being different from everyone else in a community makes you exceptional. Designers arenât prolific in the PHP world, so a designer who steps up â like the one helping modernize php.netâs visuals â can have massive impact without ever writing a line of C. The same goes for writers, social media people, and accessibility experts.
On what the Foundation can do to help, Matt suggested more universally accessible, perennial resources rather than blog posts that go stale. PHPâs own âhow to contributeâ page is out of date and language-focused. He proposed the Foundation website host a broader contribution guide that links out to each communityâs canonical resources.
He noted the reality that anything on php.net mentioning a sub-community risks drama, so the Foundation website is a better place to start, prove things out, and eventually propose polished changes to php.net. They closed by celebrating internals contributors, infrastructure heroes like Derick Rethans and Joe Ferguson, and every kind of skill â social media included â that the PHP ecosystem needs.
WEBVTT
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Hello, everybody. Thank you. Hi, Matt.
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Welcome, everyone, to the very first PHP Foundation Community Hour.
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I am here. I'm Elizabeth Barron, the executive director of the foundation,
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and I'm here with Matt Stauffer, who is the CEO of Titan and also on the board
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of directors for the foundation.
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So happy to have you here, Matt. How are you?
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I'm happy to be. I'm doing great. I was, we were just texting beforehand and
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I, the, the, the lead in music to this was this very peaceful music and it's
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September and it's fall. And I'm like, oh, I'm ready for autumn.
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Like I'm here for autumn energy.
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Me too. Me too. I've already started putting around my little pumpkins and my
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orange decorations and stuff. I'm all about it. I'm all about it.
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I love a good, in Ohio, you know, we have corn mazes and all the good stuff.
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And you also have fall weather, which we don't in Atlanta for another couple months.
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Yeah, yeah. We do have a pretty good fall, I will say. It's not bad.
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Although I was telling someone earlier, today it's so hot and humid that the
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windows are all steamed up.
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Because apparently I'm living in a rainforest here in Ohio. So I didn't know.
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You don't even have to leave your house to travel the world here. You get it all. Yeah.
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Um, yeah, so welcome everybody. Um, the reason I want to talk a little bit about
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the reason we wanted to do this.
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Um, we at the foundation really wanted to just be more accessible for folks
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and just provide as many points of contact as we can.
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Um, the original idea I had for this was just for us to sit on a zoom call.
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And if anybody shows up, then we answer their questions. And,
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um, I have done that with other projects before and it's, uh,
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you know, especially for newcomers, they can come in and just ask us.
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Some questions, see what's going on.
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And that is helpful, I think. But even more helpful, I think,
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is to have a purpose and like a reason to be hanging out with each other and
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not just for no reason just sitting there on a Zoom call randomly.
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So that's why we kind of evolved this. And then the kind folks at PHP Architect,
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offered to provide the platform, the infrastructure, and shout out to Joe Ferguson,
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who is also producing this behind the scenes.
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Yay, Joe. we really appreciate you and all your support you've been amazing
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and fantastic um just like all the folks at php architect so big shout out to
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them for partnering with us and helping us.
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Run this because i don't know how to do that so so thank you joe um,
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okay so matt tell tell us a little bit about yourself like what do you what
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is it that you work on mostly.
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Yeah so i am the ceo of a laravel consultancy but we say laravel because that's
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where a lot of work goes because modern PHP, but we do really a lot of PHP stuff.
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So it's easy to say we are a PHP consultancy.
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So we work for people, nonprofits, small to medium businesses,
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big enterprise, startups, scale-ups who need help either building their initial
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application, getting their dev team set up, or often either...
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Modernizing, or we use the phrase rescue a lot.
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It doesn't, not everybody needs a rescue, but when you need a rescue,
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you know, you're rescued and we love doing that.
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So we work with a lot of legacy applications, meaning something that the current
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team are not the people who wrote it, or the tech stack is out of date or technical
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data is bad or whatever it is. So we work a lot with things that are very functional
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for the people who need it.
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But they know it's not where they want it to be. Like, that's my happy space, right?
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It's like, not that I wouldn't work with It's somebody who's a,
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you know, I dreamer or whatever, but I really like this.
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This really provides benefit to real people, which is one of the reasons why
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I love PHP and the PHP Foundation, because I'm like functional code spread out
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across the internet, doing real good for real people. PHP is going to come up real high on that list.
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So I love it. I love it. I couldn't agree more. Yeah.
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Thank you for that. I also want to just mention one of the inspirations for
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this kind of theme that we're going to be running for the next few months,
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I suppose, is how do people contribute back to PHP?
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You know, the foundation cares entirely about the sustainability of the PHP
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language. And of course, it would not even be here without contributions from
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the community. So really helping foster that, I think, is very,
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very important to the foundation.
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So I was really glad that you wrote that post because that was pretty awesome.
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Um for those who don't know um maybe joe can drop the oh there we go see he's
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already on top of it thanks joe uh,
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there's a link to the post that i'm talking about that matt wrote um that really
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was kind of the inspiration for this um,
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for for this podcast and i don't know if my connection is might be a little
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bit weird sometimes restream doesn't play nice with the chrome so okay awesome
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um so let's talk about that post Matt like what was the inspiration for you
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to write that and where did that come from.
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Yeah, I mean, and when I answered your first question, I told you about how
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I like to, you know, what I'm doing at work.
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But in my free time or in the ways that I use my company to justify doing things
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I want to do in the world, it's very important for me to make programming accessible to people.
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I want people, I've seen so many people's lives transformed by programming and
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to talk about how I did this and now I can do this and I can travel, I can have whatever.
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So I want that to be accessible. So I write books, I do podcasts, I speak to conferences.
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I want people to be able to enter into it. But a lot of my time and energy has
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been in the new technologies. You know, first it was responsive design.
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And then I did, you know, WordPress expression engine and then CraftCMS and
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then CodeIgniter and Laravel.
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It's the newer stuff that are still getting established and still learning how to teach people.
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But every once in a while I'd say, well, you know, my core, my first backend
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programming language I learned was PHP.
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And, you know, so I'll go back to PHP or whatever else and say,
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oh, I want to make sure that those are really accessible.
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And I often would find it difficult for me as someone who's very experienced
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in contributing in other spaces to contribute to PHP.
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And I had to kind of evaluate, like, why is that the case and how much,
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where's the truth there and where's the lie there? And there's both.
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Because as I was thinking through, like, I need a canonical place to be able
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to allow people to be involved in this process.
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Part of the answer was that a lot of people are contributing to the PHP world
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in ways that we don't necessarily call contributing to PHP that we should.
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And then also there are ways that people want to that don't feel as accessible
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as I think that the people, everyone wants these things to be more accessible.
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It's not like there's some evil you know corporation trying to keep people from
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contributing but we just need to do some work of communication collaboration
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community building to make those things easier so i was like let's let's get
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it all together in one place and if someone says i've always wanted to contribute to php like great
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start here like you're not going to end here it's a blog post it's got to keep
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it short but let's have a single source and that's for others and also for myself
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like i want to make sure that when i'm having these conversations or even being
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critical of how difficult
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it is to contribute to something, I should make sure I really know what the
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heck I'm talking about versus referring to 15 years ago.
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Because the amount of time I spend criticizing people who talk about PHP based
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on PHP 15, 20 years ago, I'm just like, I shouldn't be doing that.
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I need to do better. So I was like, let's get it all together in one space so
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the conversation's happening.
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Yeah, I love that. I really think that that is important to have that,
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just that anchor, like you said, that starting point. And, you know,
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it might evolve as we go. And that's great.
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Exactly. As other channels pop up. I'm curious, like how.
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OK, so in the post, you have three basic areas that people can contribute.
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You know, we kind of just lumped them into three buckets.
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One is the PHP project itself. One was PHP ecosystem. And then,
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of course, the foundation itself.
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Um, what out of those and like all of the different ways that people could contribute
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within those buckets, what do you think, and this is just your opinion,
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um, would be the, like the lowest barrier to, to contributing somebody just
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like no, like no or low barrier.
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Yeah. The lowest barrier is where you already are. And that's not necessarily
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because that's easier or harder, but because you already in those spaces,
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for example, if you have a local meetup, your easiest option is go to the local meetup.
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If you you know attend a conference every year your easiest option is to be
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more involved in the conference even just going to the conference is already a part of contributing
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so that's that's one piece of it but if you don't have those then i don't want
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to say the easiest thing is a meetup and you're like my closest meetup is three
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hours away then that's not the easiest thing
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so probably soon after the easiest thing that is close to you is the things
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that are specifically built around bringing newcomers in
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and the most newcomer focused thing would probably be do anything that the foundation
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is doing where it's ambassador programs or anything where it's just sort of
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like, Hey, all you got to do is show up and be a person.
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Those are pretty accessible. So the, the PHP foundation ambassador meetings,
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or anytime there are surveys or anything else, um, the foundation is doing work
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to make sure that regardless of your level of expertise, regardless of your
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familiarity with more complicated processes, like RFCs, you can step into it.
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So I think those are the two. The first one is wherever you are.
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The second one is the foundation. Um,
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But again, if you spend your time in the WordPress world, then that's probably the easiest thing.
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And the most important thing for me is to make it clear that contributions to
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any individual component, framework, package, lifecycle, meetup,
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Anything in the PHP world is a contribution to PHP.
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It does not have to be to the language itself to count as giving back to the
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community, the family ecosystem.
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And so working on WordPress, making WordPress better, is contributing towards
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PHP. Working on Laravel, Symfony, whatever else, is contributing towards PHP.
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I would say that things that are working on the language are probably some of
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the more difficult ones, which
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is where some of the conception of it being difficult to PHP comes from.
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So if you're like, I want to work on the language specifically,
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I would say it's probably being able to reproduce other people's bugs is one
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of the easier ones. You go to the issues in PHP source and GitHub and say,
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what are other people running into? Can I run into the same thing?
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I think that's probably my easiest. And you could say the documentation is easier,
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but it's hard to write docs sometimes. So I would say if you want to work in
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the language itself, finding other people's issues and either being able to
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or not able to reproduce them is probably my easiest onboarding there.
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Yes, I love it. I love, I cannot agree with you more in that our definition
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of contribution should be broad.
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It should be broad because every interaction, every engagement,
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every time somebody shows up somewhere, that is absolutely a contribution and
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absolutely not only just, you know, especially at conferences,
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you know, supporting the conference organizers by buying a ticket.
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Like that is a contribution. You are contributing to the cause and you're making
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sure that these events keep going because we would be lost without these events, quite frankly.
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They are a necessary part of our community and they should be they should go
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on forever, in my opinion.
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Like and if you've not been to a conference, you're really missing out.
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You really, really are. If you can at all make that happen or a meetup,
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I think, is, you know, is equally as good.
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And if, you know, if you have to drive three hours, I think that the phrase
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goes, then you get to be the organizer of the user group in your area.
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Like if there is not one, then that's you, which is a heavy lift.
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I get it. But but yeah, just, you know, anything that that people is spending
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time, energy, effort in making it better is absolutely a contribution.
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And there are also online groups. So online meetups or some some meetups are
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part online and part not online.
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So there's lots of opportunities for even if you can't go there physically to
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still be a part of what's going on.
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Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think, too, you know, you don't even have to have
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been in the community a long time. I think to your point.
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Including newcomers in your own learning journey or, you know,
00:14:21.231 --> 00:14:24.281
helping other newcomers like yourself find their way.
00:14:24.281 --> 00:14:28.192
Like, I think that is an absolutely great contribution or even,
00:14:29.225 --> 00:14:34.791
you know, providing that experience back to somebody who is running a project,
00:14:34.791 --> 00:14:40.150
maybe an ecosystem is like, hey, as a newcomer, I found this hard or I couldn't find this in the docs.
00:14:40.354 --> 00:14:45.101
Like, did you have that subject matter expertise of being a newcomer?
00:14:45.101 --> 00:14:47.461
Right. And the people who have been working on the project forever,
00:14:48.001 --> 00:14:51.871
they don't see the holes. They don't see the gaps. So even as a newcomer,
00:14:51.871 --> 00:14:55.923
brand new, you can still contribute very, very, very well.
00:14:56.143 --> 00:14:58.801
And you mentioned not having been in the community for long.
00:14:58.801 --> 00:15:01.981
I want to define what being in the PHP community means.
00:15:01.981 --> 00:15:04.721
It means having written a line of code, having read a line of code,
00:15:04.721 --> 00:15:08.191
having been assigned to a project with a PHP, even having never done written
00:15:08.191 --> 00:15:11.711
or like there is no barrier to entry.
00:15:11.938 --> 00:15:14.331
And I'm not saying nobody has ever suggested there isn't right.
00:15:14.331 --> 00:15:17.261
I'm fully aware of the historic dynamics that have made some people feel like
00:15:17.261 --> 00:15:18.985
insiders, outsiders, but I'm saying
00:15:19.761 --> 00:15:24.657
from every ounce of power that I have, you are a member of the PHP community
00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:27.701
if you've even asked the question, am I a member of the PHP community?
00:15:27.701 --> 00:15:30.801
Period. That's it. And you're no more or less important than somebody who's
00:15:30.801 --> 00:15:33.950
been doing it for ages because everybody's voice is important.
00:15:34.681 --> 00:15:39.251
Being even somebody who has right access to something doesn't make them necessarily
00:15:39.251 --> 00:15:43.011
more right. They might be more aware of the implications of a particular change
00:15:43.011 --> 00:15:43.941
or whatever. Like, that's not
00:15:43.941 --> 00:15:46.854
to say they shouldn't be respected and considered, but it's not the same.
00:15:47.081 --> 00:15:50.082
Right. It's sorry. It's it's not the same.
00:15:51.632 --> 00:15:55.533
What I'm trying to say is basically like everybody, everybody matters. Sounds so trite.
00:15:55.985 --> 00:16:01.201
Um no i totally agree though because everyone plays a role right like it takes all,
00:16:01.941 --> 00:16:06.491
all the pieces to make the puzzle whole yeah so if we just had like a small
00:16:06.491 --> 00:16:10.891
group of people who work on the language and that's it then okay but we don't
00:16:10.891 --> 00:16:13.161
like the php community is absolutely,
00:16:13.621 --> 00:16:18.481
massive and so that it takes all of those roles everybody plays a part so i
00:16:18.481 --> 00:16:20.464
totally agree 100 percent,
00:16:21.446 --> 00:16:25.574
Um, it looks like we have some questions in the chat. So let me just read that for a second.
00:16:25.736 --> 00:16:32.167
Uh, yeah, it says having mentors or big, big sisters, big brothers with that kind of a vibe.
00:16:32.306 --> 00:16:36.652
Um, it says that that can welcome you into the community and a project show you, Oh, here we go.
00:16:36.652 --> 00:16:40.462
There it is right there on screen. Uh, sometimes you show up and you don't know where to start.
00:16:40.462 --> 00:16:44.143
I think that's, that's really, really interesting. And I think that, um,
00:16:44.723 --> 00:16:49.622
so the foundation just started an onboarding special interest group,
00:16:49.622 --> 00:16:53.912
which I think mentorship is going to be something that that group talks about,
00:16:53.912 --> 00:16:59.112
but it really is to improve that experience of newcomers because it is incredibly overwhelming.
00:16:59.112 --> 00:17:04.522
I mean, we were just talking about like, there's just so much. I was actually trying.
00:17:06.602 --> 00:17:10.242
To share with one of my friends or another open source project,
00:17:10.562 --> 00:17:14.832
how they could get started in PHP and I'm listing all these links of all these places.
00:17:14.832 --> 00:17:20.602
And I'm like, Oh my God, like it's a lot. Um, do you think that like, it would be helpful to,
00:17:21.062 --> 00:17:25.932
have all, all of that in one place, like more than just your post,
00:17:25.932 --> 00:17:29.902
which is incredibly helpful, but even just like, um, like a job board for,
00:17:29.902 --> 00:17:34.222
for contributions or an opportunity board or some, some like central hub
00:17:34.622 --> 00:17:37.582
for all, all of these bits and pieces that are floating out there.
00:17:37.582 --> 00:17:38.459
Do you think that would be helpful?
00:17:39.297 --> 00:17:45.523
Yes and no. So I think the yes is this blog post is a short blog post that still
00:17:45.523 --> 00:17:47.963
requires you to do a lot of heavy lifting.
00:17:47.963 --> 00:17:51.602
And if we were to turn into something more complicated, that could say,
00:17:51.916 --> 00:17:54.853
now we're going to pull this specific list. This is the list that we're actually
00:17:54.853 --> 00:17:58.417
asking for outside help. And we can make that more robust. So in some ways, absolutely. Yes.
00:17:58.998 --> 00:18:03.843
The downside for me is and i've seen this happen a lot historically uh the more
00:18:03.843 --> 00:18:08.643
we try to systematize automate program it what we're really doing is as programmers
00:18:08.643 --> 00:18:13.435
enjoying the process of building an application more than actually just sitting down and doing the thing
00:18:13.772 --> 00:18:17.433
so i'm i'm wary of the temptation to say let's build a tool and then it will
00:18:17.433 --> 00:18:19.669
solve the problem and then what i'm doing is building a tool that
00:18:20.064 --> 00:18:22.773
now it pulls in some automated stuff but if it's automated then some of it's
00:18:22.793 --> 00:18:25.643
going to be junk and then it requires some manual work which if it's manual
00:18:25.643 --> 00:18:28.813
it's going to be maintained for the first four weeks while everybody's hyper-focused
00:18:28.813 --> 00:18:30.774
on it. And then they're going to be a little bit less hyper-focused.
00:18:31.123 --> 00:18:35.543
So I could see some value, but I do hope that at bare minimum,
00:18:35.543 --> 00:18:38.733
we say, whether or not this magic tool that we're hoping to put together,
00:18:38.733 --> 00:18:43.793
which I think is a great idea inherently, is functioning, you at least know where to go, right?
00:18:43.793 --> 00:18:47.733
Because nobody's going to sit on this tool and have it be their favorite thing
00:18:47.733 --> 00:18:51.323
forever. But there will be people who continue to run the PHP source repo as
00:18:51.323 --> 00:18:54.858
long as PHP exists, right? So yes and no?
00:18:55.865 --> 00:18:59.458
Yeah. So to your point, maybe the answer is to like somewhere in between.
00:18:59.458 --> 00:19:03.958
So not like a super granular, this is an issue that needs to be closed.
00:19:03.958 --> 00:19:08.438
But to your point, here's a list of, here's where Drupal lists their,
00:19:08.878 --> 00:19:10.038
their contribution opportunity.
00:19:10.038 --> 00:19:12.996
Here's where WordPress does. Here's where, you know, and having that,
00:19:13.437 --> 00:19:20.763
maybe that list or that resource hub more than an actual listing of like ABCD would be helpful.
00:19:21.558 --> 00:19:24.398
And one thing worth asking anytime we're talking about building a tool is who's
00:19:24.398 --> 00:19:26.278
the audience and what is that audience looking for? You know,
00:19:26.278 --> 00:19:29.929
I talk a lot about jobs to be done. Like, what is the job we're trying to do here?
00:19:30.243 --> 00:19:34.058
And if the job is somebody really does want to know all the things that needs
00:19:34.058 --> 00:19:36.901
to be done across the entirety of the PHP ecosystem, then okay.
00:19:37.667 --> 00:19:40.508
Is there anybody who's going in there like, you know what, what I want is an
00:19:40.508 --> 00:19:43.577
issue. I don't care if it's Drupal, Symphony, Laravel, WordPress,
00:19:43.797 --> 00:19:47.188
probably not, right? Somebody's probably either very specifically interested
00:19:47.188 --> 00:19:51.028
in contributing to PHP language or they're in an individual community and they
00:19:51.028 --> 00:19:52.277
want to do work in that community.
00:19:52.538 --> 00:19:56.868
So there could be value saying, okay, that person can go and answer a little
00:19:56.868 --> 00:19:59.713
mini wizard or something. Oh, here's what I care about. I care about PHP, whatever.
00:20:00.114 --> 00:20:02.838
But if they're in the Drupal community, they probably already know what Drupal
00:20:02.838 --> 00:20:05.268
cares about, right? If they're in the WordPress community, they probably already
00:20:05.268 --> 00:20:09.778
know about what WordPress cares about. So again, if there's a way to do it in
00:20:09.778 --> 00:20:13.785
a way that adds value that's not already out there in the internet, 100%.
00:20:14.538 --> 00:20:18.248
If not though, one thing we could do is say, we trust that each community has
00:20:18.248 --> 00:20:21.708
independently created spaces for its members to understand where to contribute there.
00:20:21.993 --> 00:20:27.238
And the PHP language itself is one where we feel like maybe it could use something
00:20:27.238 --> 00:20:28.745
a little bit better than we currently have.
00:20:29.082 --> 00:20:32.148
And if you're looking for blah, blah, blah, we have a link for every single
00:20:32.148 --> 00:20:34.948
one. Drupal has officially said this is the place to go for Drupal,
00:20:34.948 --> 00:20:38.068
just in case you don't know. WordPress has said go here, just in case you don't know.
00:20:38.358 --> 00:20:44.028
But what we're doing here is PHP because there is no organizing group like there
00:20:44.028 --> 00:20:45.445
is for all those other worlds.
00:20:45.758 --> 00:20:48.078
So let's do it. We're the foundation. We're not in charge of PHP,
00:20:48.078 --> 00:20:52.312
but might be something that we can do to benefit creating that space for PHP specifically.
00:20:52.892 --> 00:20:56.797
Yeah, that's super, super interesting. I also know that, you know,
00:20:56.797 --> 00:21:00.305
if you can make it easy for people to find their people.
00:21:01.067 --> 00:21:05.007
So for instance, you know, to your point, like filling out a little wizard or
00:21:05.007 --> 00:21:08.157
something might be interesting. Are you looking to connect with people locally?
00:21:08.157 --> 00:21:12.197
Are you looking to connect with people online? Are you looking to write docs?
00:21:12.197 --> 00:21:15.885
Like what, what is your skill? What are you looking for? And how involved do you want to be?
00:21:16.158 --> 00:21:20.827
I think those are the three kind of levers, I guess you could say that I like
00:21:20.827 --> 00:21:26.137
to, to focus on when helping people decide, you know, how much time do you have?
00:21:26.137 --> 00:21:29.427
Like how much, what's your level of engagement? Are you like all in?
00:21:29.427 --> 00:21:34.157
Are you like, I just want to, I just want to comment once a year on this thing
00:21:34.157 --> 00:21:35.111
because that's all the time I have.
00:21:35.529 --> 00:21:38.887
Um so it really is kind of like how involved you want to be the skills that
00:21:38.887 --> 00:21:41.049
you have specifically and um,
00:21:41.567 --> 00:21:44.264
you know what exactly you're looking for to get out of it so um,
00:21:44.747 --> 00:21:47.757
and that's the other thing too i mean people contribute for so many different
00:21:47.757 --> 00:21:51.997
motivations whether it be career building whether it be you know finding connections
00:21:51.997 --> 00:21:56.327
with people friends um you know having a portfolio like whatever it is or or
00:21:56.327 --> 00:21:58.376
you know to your point making the world better,
00:21:58.907 --> 00:22:01.867
because you have a skill and you want to do that thing so i think that that
00:22:01.867 --> 00:22:06.017
is super valid um and you know speaking of that i'm just kind of curious,
00:22:06.017 --> 00:22:10.590
like, how did you, like, what was your motivation for contributing specifically?
00:22:10.846 --> 00:22:14.247
Like, did you have one in mind or was it just to, you know, make things better
00:22:14.247 --> 00:22:16.540
or like, what, what were you thinking when you started contributing?
00:22:17.057 --> 00:22:22.259
Yeah, so my first, I looked it up on GitHub, my first contribution to pull request
00:22:22.259 --> 00:22:29.033
to an open source repository was in 2012 to the jQuery Stickham repository.
00:22:29.929 --> 00:22:36.329
So I programmed through the late 90s, early 2000s, doing custom PHP,
00:22:36.909 --> 00:22:39.702
HTML, CSS, CSS when it showed up, JavaScript when it showed up.
00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:43.859
But I went to school for English, I was working at nonprofits,
00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:45.939
but I ended up still always being the tech guy at nonprofits.
00:22:45.939 --> 00:22:49.366
And then I decided to move back full time into tech in 2011.
00:22:49.755 --> 00:22:53.157
And at the time we were building CodeIgniter and Expression Engine sites.
00:22:54.231 --> 00:22:57.279
But there's this new idea called responsive web design. And I was like,
00:22:57.279 --> 00:22:58.839
this is the future. This is absolutely it.
00:22:58.929 --> 00:23:03.659
Because, you know, I'd done my 640 by 480 sites and then my 1024 by 768 sites.
00:23:03.659 --> 00:23:06.769
And I was like, responsive design is magic. So I put a lot of my energy and
00:23:06.769 --> 00:23:11.349
time into learning and teaching, creating my own repositories and interact with other people.
00:23:11.349 --> 00:23:13.939
So my first two open source pull requests were in September,
00:23:13.939 --> 00:23:18.889
October, 2012 on, uh, you know, jQuery plugins that were responsive because
00:23:18.889 --> 00:23:20.051
that was, that was like the new thing.
00:23:20.393 --> 00:23:24.369
Uh, neither of them were merged, um, which is fun because I've actually met
00:23:24.369 --> 00:23:27.371
the guy who ran the repo, um, uh, uh.
00:23:27.934 --> 00:23:31.335
Much later like i don't know hit trevor davis like maybe like a decade later
00:23:31.713 --> 00:23:34.610
and he you know was at a conference that i was speaking at
00:23:34.934 --> 00:23:38.284
and he's like oh thank you for your talk and i was like i know you you were
00:23:38.284 --> 00:23:41.237
my first open source pull request so my motivation was
00:23:41.464 --> 00:23:45.014
hey i've been spending all this time and energy writing my own custom javascript
00:23:45.014 --> 00:23:48.394
my own custom css to figure out how to do this and i want to contribute i want
00:23:48.394 --> 00:23:50.258
to give what i've learned back to other people
00:23:50.543 --> 00:23:53.939
i made some my own packages but i'm not going to make a package for something that already exists But
00:23:54.264 --> 00:23:56.564
in this particular case, we were building the first
00:23:56.924 --> 00:23:59.684
big site that we were able to convince anybody to use responsive web design
00:24:00.044 --> 00:24:01.822
on, which is Gene.com for Genentech.
00:24:02.147 --> 00:24:05.078
And we sold it to them early and they were on board and they're like, let's do it.
00:24:05.784 --> 00:24:08.974
But Genentech is a massive organization with all sorts of complexity,
00:24:08.974 --> 00:24:11.644
different pieces of the organization. And we needed a universal header that
00:24:11.644 --> 00:24:12.875
worked in lots of different spaces.
00:24:13.136 --> 00:24:15.584
And I was like, hey, can you give me this one setting? And in the end,
00:24:15.584 --> 00:24:17.344
he was just like, I don't understand why you need that setting.
00:24:17.344 --> 00:24:18.424
I was like, totally fine.
00:24:18.796 --> 00:24:21.654
And actually helped me in the early days learn about the fact that open source
00:24:21.654 --> 00:24:25.181
doesn't need to necessarily reflect the specific needs of every single person
00:24:25.512 --> 00:24:27.904
as long as you give them the space to override things or whatever.
00:24:28.284 --> 00:24:32.414
But yeah, my motivation was very much I had to do some custom code.
00:24:33.084 --> 00:24:36.084
It might be easier for people to not have to go down this crazy rabbit hole
00:24:36.084 --> 00:24:39.624
that I went down if it was just built into this project by default.
00:24:39.624 --> 00:24:42.034
Let's see if it's something that maintainer is interested in.
00:24:42.034 --> 00:24:43.843
The answer was no and it still was a great experience.
00:24:44.307 --> 00:24:48.484
Yeah, yeah, that's so fascinating. I think it's pretty intimidating.
00:24:48.484 --> 00:24:51.842
Too to you know open your full first call request.
00:24:52.196 --> 00:24:55.184
And especially knowing it's going to be around 14 years later right
00:24:55.184 --> 00:25:00.782
Like don't screw it up it's in perpetuity i guess you could say it's like not going away so um,
00:25:01.784 --> 00:25:07.474
it's it's very intimidating and you know um yeah i i talk to people a lot about
00:25:07.474 --> 00:25:14.865
this and you know um i'm really glad that you just did it and uh didn't let your own,
00:25:15.341 --> 00:25:19.584
kind of, um, not insecurities, but maybe, um, get in the way,
00:25:19.724 --> 00:25:20.757
you know, you were just trying to help.
00:25:20.925 --> 00:25:24.391
And I think that that is really what a lot of people just want to help.
00:25:24.698 --> 00:25:26.120
They just want to, you know, scratch
00:25:26.120 --> 00:25:28.582
their own itch. They just want to fix something they see is broken.
00:25:29.006 --> 00:25:33.377
And, um, so yeah, good for you. That's, that's really, really awesome.
00:25:34.450 --> 00:25:37.650
Um, I mean, it's a lot easier if we believe inherently that people on the internet
00:25:37.650 --> 00:25:41.062
are generally kind and generally and well intended.
00:25:41.421 --> 00:25:44.150
And while we can have negative experiences on the internet, the vast majority
00:25:44.150 --> 00:25:46.356
of times, that's not actually people, it's bots.
00:25:46.698 --> 00:25:50.400
And even when it is people, it's usually people who are not in their healthiest
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:53.150
state. And if we can just kind of say like, that's their problem and not my
00:25:53.150 --> 00:25:56.620
problem. Most of the time it's a person dealing with a person who are all generally
00:25:56.620 --> 00:25:59.127
good and healthy. It's like, yeah, this is going to go fine and they'll be understanding.
00:25:59.423 --> 00:26:06.500
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I do tend to see the good in people for good and bad, I guess.
00:26:06.500 --> 00:26:11.870
But I think that was actually what brought me into the PHP community was how
00:26:11.870 --> 00:26:14.539
friendly everybody was and how awesome and helpful they were.
00:26:14.905 --> 00:26:19.630
And just that kind of, that commitment to helping other people,
00:26:20.170 --> 00:26:21.934
I did not find that in other places.
00:26:22.352 --> 00:26:26.230
And so I just think that's really special about the PHP community.
00:26:26.230 --> 00:26:30.190
I think it probably is in other places, but for me, it was PHP.
00:26:30.850 --> 00:26:34.183
And I don't want us to ever lose that. I love that part of the community.
00:26:34.542 --> 00:26:38.170
You know, that's why we're here. We want to help the next person that comes
00:26:38.170 --> 00:26:40.130
along. We want to save them the trouble, right?
00:26:40.750 --> 00:26:43.710
We want to use our learnings to save somebody else a little bit of time and
00:26:43.710 --> 00:26:48.671
energy if we can. So I think that's great. That's really, really awesome.
00:26:49.222 --> 00:26:52.218
I see another question in the chat here.
00:26:52.456 --> 00:26:55.710
It says, would the foundation ever consider getting involved with helping people
00:26:55.710 --> 00:26:58.180
start up and manage local PHP user groups?
00:26:58.888 --> 00:27:03.593
So funny that you would say that. I think that, so in September,
00:27:03.593 --> 00:27:07.713
the plan is to launch another special interest group.
00:27:07.713 --> 00:27:11.432
This is no surprise to anybody. It was in the doc I posted a couple months ago
00:27:11.862 --> 00:27:16.963
that will be specifically for user group and conference organizers to come together,
00:27:16.963 --> 00:27:22.923
share challenges, figure out, you know, how we can kind of solve these issues together of,
00:27:23.503 --> 00:27:27.907
you know, getting attendance, getting speakers, getting sponsors, all of these things that
00:27:28.267 --> 00:27:31.732
people share regardless of you know the event that you're putting on there are
00:27:32.081 --> 00:27:35.923
common themes that come up common challenges so like let's figure this out together
00:27:35.923 --> 00:27:39.263
and i think that that is definitely going to be part of it is providing some
00:27:39.263 --> 00:27:44.060
guidance to people who want to start something in their own um i know right um.
00:27:45.058 --> 00:27:50.853
To start in their own places um as far as like financially i would i would love
00:27:50.853 --> 00:27:54.223
for the foundation to be able to do that to you know offer small,
00:27:54.643 --> 00:27:58.096
you know, grants, micro grants to people who are just starting out to get them going.
00:27:58.462 --> 00:28:02.513
I don't know if that's something we can do. Honestly, I would need to do some
00:28:02.513 --> 00:28:05.074
budgeting and some chit chats with the board about that.
00:28:05.492 --> 00:28:09.313
But I would really love to do that. I think that would just be so helpful to
00:28:09.313 --> 00:28:14.583
get people started because it is hard to start a user group if you're going
00:28:14.583 --> 00:28:18.133
to set it up to maintain it for a while.
00:28:18.133 --> 00:28:20.443
To your point, Matt, like there's excitement in in the beginning.
00:28:20.443 --> 00:28:24.283
And then, but it's the, it's the, when the, when the, the, you know,
00:28:24.283 --> 00:28:28.013
the first rush falls off is like, that's when the challenge is.
00:28:28.013 --> 00:28:31.153
So, you know, a new group might get a lot of attendance at the beginning,
00:28:31.153 --> 00:28:34.853
but keeping that going and keeping the sponsors going and all of that stuff.
00:28:34.853 --> 00:28:40.573
So, so yes, to your question, um, we, we do want to help people start up and
00:28:40.573 --> 00:28:45.273
maintain their own user groups. I think that is the lifeblood of open source.
00:28:45.273 --> 00:28:46.944
I'm not my, it made me sound old.
00:28:47.165 --> 00:28:50.938
I don't know. But I mean, that's how I got into,
00:28:51.514 --> 00:28:56.712
the these spaces you know i i can can credit my career for for the community
00:28:56.712 --> 00:29:00.001
work that and the community connections and the community uh
00:29:00.372 --> 00:29:05.302
just the friendships honestly the friendships that i made back in you know in
00:29:05.302 --> 00:29:08.892
in the late 1900s in the early 2000s right,
00:29:10.442 --> 00:29:11.982
i hate saying that it makes me feel.
00:29:12.899 --> 00:29:13.982
So weird but late 90s there you go
00:29:14.442 --> 00:29:16.533
Yeah late 90s there we go that's much better.
00:29:17.226 --> 00:29:21.232
Um i would say A lot of people have the perception that it's very expensive
00:29:21.232 --> 00:29:24.692
to start a user group and have someone who has helped. I've never been the primary
00:29:24.692 --> 00:29:27.632
organizer, but I've helped start multiple user groups over the years in different
00:29:27.632 --> 00:29:29.142
cities and different ecosystems.
00:29:29.618 --> 00:29:34.158
And food is really the thing that usually costs the most money and you don't have to have food.
00:29:35.446 --> 00:29:38.502
You can have a great user group with no food at all. Or like,
00:29:38.502 --> 00:29:42.032
for example, I went to Atlanta PHP meetup recently and the only food that was
00:29:42.032 --> 00:29:45.820
there was one guy brought a couple six packs of beers in case anybody like beers.
00:29:46.174 --> 00:29:50.732
And the host who donated the space, which getting a host to donate space is
00:29:50.732 --> 00:29:54.822
probably one of the most key things you can do, said, hey, we had a meeting this afternoon.
00:29:54.822 --> 00:29:57.782
There's a little bit of leftover pastries if you guys want. But like there could
00:29:57.782 --> 00:30:00.272
have been no pastries and no beers and it would have been a perfectly fine meetup.
00:30:00.272 --> 00:30:03.802
Everybody walked over afterwards to, you know, a little brewery or stuff like
00:30:03.802 --> 00:30:05.226
that. It would have been fine without that, too.
00:30:05.580 --> 00:30:10.497
So like the, the food is not the thing. We're not college students who come just for the free pizza.
00:30:10.671 --> 00:30:15.062
It doesn't hurt, but you can have a meetup with, with zero cost as long as you
00:30:15.062 --> 00:30:18.442
have a sponsor, uh, for, for the, for the physical location.
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:20.822
It's the space. Yeah.
00:30:20.822 --> 00:30:22.362
And you know, local business or something.
00:30:22.693 --> 00:30:27.242
Yep. And here in Cincinnati, we, um, uh, I was talking to, um,
00:30:27.242 --> 00:30:33.552
Bill Kondo actually about, um, re, uh, re reviving the, we called it the Ohio,
00:30:33.552 --> 00:30:34.902
Indiana, Northern Kentucky.
00:30:34.902 --> 00:30:39.862
Key php user group so it was oink pug was our was our thing so like we had a
00:30:39.862 --> 00:30:41.882
good time at that um and we just,
00:30:42.402 --> 00:30:47.322
like when i came it had been going for maybe i don't know a year or so at six
00:30:47.322 --> 00:30:50.132
months something and i started going and it was just at our library we just
00:30:50.132 --> 00:30:52.942
had a space in the library um that we
00:30:53.322 --> 00:30:57.512
they let us have for no cost i mean it was very chill and again we would go
00:30:57.512 --> 00:31:00.762
over to the restaurant across the street after and hang out for a little bit
00:31:00.762 --> 00:31:04.332
and then it was a little more casual but um yeah no there wasn't anything there
00:31:04.332 --> 00:31:07.338
was not not a drink not anything in the library so um,
00:31:08.354 --> 00:31:11.752
but it was awesome and the the whole point is just to bring people together
00:31:11.752 --> 00:31:17.232
and to give them something a shared you know that shared experience that shared
00:31:17.232 --> 00:31:22.682
interest um i think is just really really powerful and i am even though the the um the.
00:31:23.882 --> 00:31:25.279
Meetup really kind of to,
00:31:25.749 --> 00:31:30.447
just dissolved, I guess, faded away, you know, um, at some point I'm still friends
00:31:30.447 --> 00:31:32.727
with a lot of those people, you know?
00:31:33.307 --> 00:31:38.087
So like those relationships, um, they're, they're just so valuable and the,
00:31:38.087 --> 00:31:41.672
the insights and the learning that we did and the collaboration and the,
00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:44.887
um, you know, the, the shared projects that we worked on.
00:31:44.887 --> 00:31:49.557
I mean, it's, it's amazing. So, um, yeah, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of the user
00:31:49.557 --> 00:31:53.837
group and I know that after COVID it's been hard to kind of bring people back
00:31:53.837 --> 00:31:58.466
out and get them back into that groove but i really do have faith that people crave that
00:31:58.867 --> 00:32:02.847
in-person contact or even online like they crave that right like
00:32:03.167 --> 00:32:07.388
it's it's hard to be remote and just by yourself sometimes sometimes it's great
00:32:07.523 --> 00:32:11.437
but sometimes you just want to like just hang out with people right like not
00:32:11.437 --> 00:32:14.107
all the time right yeah um so
00:32:14.527 --> 00:32:16.873
okay let's see if we have more questions here uh.
00:32:18.347 --> 00:32:21.717
For user groups yeah letting someone know what to think about what they need to consider to be huge.
00:32:21.717 --> 00:32:24.916
Yeah. Helping find presenters. Yep. Yep. Especially in the early days.
00:32:25.276 --> 00:32:28.357
Yeah. So that's really, I think something that the foundation can help with
00:32:28.357 --> 00:32:32.324
is, is really just empowering people, enabling people and helping them,
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:36.087
them do good work wherever they are, whatever that is that they want to do.
00:32:36.087 --> 00:32:40.737
Like, that's my goal is to help people figure that out and, and find a place
00:32:40.737 --> 00:32:42.599
where they can contribute and make a difference.
00:32:43.177 --> 00:32:47.107
Um, so I'm, I'm,
00:32:49.247 --> 00:32:51.119
uh, I'm thinking,
00:32:54.867 --> 00:33:02.607
about what do you think is one of the most impactful things that people could do to contribute?
00:33:03.715 --> 00:33:07.189
Like, that's kind of a hard question. And I don't know if that's even a good question.
00:33:07.189 --> 00:33:10.549
I'm so good at it depends answers. I'll give you another one of them. It depends.
00:33:10.929 --> 00:33:11.729
I mean, it does, right?
00:33:12.144 --> 00:33:15.529
Yeah. Right. So I would say, first of all, it's the same answer as last time.
00:33:16.069 --> 00:33:19.439
Where are you and what are you uniquely capable of doing? If you're a great
00:33:19.439 --> 00:33:22.219
writer, then documentation is probably the best way you can contribute.
00:33:22.219 --> 00:33:25.749
If you know C and you're willing to dive in, then being involved in the source
00:33:25.749 --> 00:33:27.137
might actually be the best way you can contribute.
00:33:27.485 --> 00:33:33.079
If you have access and impact to people who make technology decisions for their
00:33:33.079 --> 00:33:39.429
companies, their startups, their schools or whatever, then you might be a cultural
00:33:39.429 --> 00:33:40.969
influencer who's able to say, hey, you know what?
00:33:40.969 --> 00:33:44.210
PHP is super modern. Look at this really cool stuff we're doing at PHP.
00:33:44.453 --> 00:33:48.639
So it's going to differ depending on where you have capability,
00:33:48.639 --> 00:33:51.170
where you have availability, and where you have impact.
00:33:52.104 --> 00:33:55.259
I would say the assumption that working on the language is the most impactful
00:33:55.259 --> 00:33:57.097
thing you can do is a misconception.
00:33:57.555 --> 00:34:01.160
And also, if you have the ability to contribute to the language,
00:34:01.439 --> 00:34:04.389
it is very valuable. And we could absolutely use more people who are willing
00:34:04.389 --> 00:34:05.212
to put their time in there.
00:34:05.450 --> 00:34:10.640
So that's my first one. It's not as vital. It's not as important to be the only thing you can do.
00:34:10.942 --> 00:34:14.529
And yet, if you can do it, please go do it. Like, 100%. Thank God for people
00:34:14.529 --> 00:34:15.678
who continue to work on the language.
00:34:16.689 --> 00:34:21.569
So that's like a baseline. And then after that, I think it's really where are
00:34:21.569 --> 00:34:24.519
you gifted? Where are you connected? What access do you have?
00:34:24.519 --> 00:34:28.459
So again, helping an individual package be better helps all of us.
00:34:28.459 --> 00:34:31.084
Helping an individual framework be better helps all of us.
00:34:32.129 --> 00:34:35.479
You know, the special interest groups that the PHP Foundation are doing are
00:34:35.479 --> 00:34:37.492
based on the research of a very smart person.
00:34:37.748 --> 00:34:43.269
You may have heard of her, Elizabeth Barron, about what we need in the industry, like what PHP needs.
00:34:43.269 --> 00:34:45.889
And so she did a whole bunch of work when she first stepped up as the executive
00:34:45.889 --> 00:34:49.569
director of the PHP Foundation to try and figure out what do we as a group and
00:34:49.569 --> 00:34:52.299
as a community and leaders in the communities think are the most important things
00:34:52.299 --> 00:34:53.508
for us to be contributing right now.
00:34:53.810 --> 00:34:56.370
And then she said, let me put groups together to make those things happen.
00:34:56.538 --> 00:35:00.139
So if you're like, I literally don't know what to do if you just show up to
00:35:00.139 --> 00:35:01.914
one of the PHP Foundation's significant...
00:35:02.407 --> 00:35:05.824
Special interest groups, those are tailored around people having already asked
00:35:05.824 --> 00:35:08.154
the questions of what is most important for us to be doing right now.
00:35:08.421 --> 00:35:10.674
Find one of those that appeals to your interest. And that's already,
00:35:10.674 --> 00:35:14.644
it's a curated set of opportunities for you to be a part of doing something that is needed.
00:35:15.927 --> 00:35:19.584
Thank you for that wonderful answer. I swear I did not pay him to say that.
00:35:19.584 --> 00:35:23.472
All those lovely things. Thank you, Beth. That was so nice.
00:35:24.564 --> 00:35:28.364
I think that that is so true, though. Like, that is something I absolutely love
00:35:28.364 --> 00:35:29.909
about open source is that there,
00:35:30.564 --> 00:35:34.224
you really can just carve your own path like there isn't like you you don't
00:35:34.224 --> 00:35:36.404
have to have permission like you can just figure out and and,
00:35:37.044 --> 00:35:41.274
and decide and experiment with what you like to do and what where you can make
00:35:41.274 --> 00:35:46.184
a difference and just kind of find your own way um based on,
00:35:46.784 --> 00:35:49.374
you know to your point like what your experience is and what you want to do
00:35:49.374 --> 00:35:53.124
and what you have capacity for at the time and i just think that's the best
00:35:53.124 --> 00:35:56.144
thing about open source i don't i mean what in what other industry can you do
00:35:56.144 --> 00:36:00.154
that you know like i don't i don't know maybe there are other industries out there.
00:36:00.154 --> 00:36:04.244
But, you know, I think that that is something so special about open source and
00:36:04.244 --> 00:36:06.905
that there really is space for everybody.
00:36:07.195 --> 00:36:12.199
Designers, writers, project managers, community managers, coders, document...
00:36:13.418 --> 00:36:16.104
Whatever it is that you want to do, you can do.
00:36:17.689 --> 00:36:20.589
You said something there that I think is really cool, which is that we often
00:36:20.589 --> 00:36:23.390
think that I'm in a world of X.
00:36:23.581 --> 00:36:27.039
And so there are people who are really good at X and I'm not as good at X as
00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:28.562
they are. Therefore, I shouldn't contribute.
00:36:28.922 --> 00:36:33.249
But what I have told people across my entire life is if you're a world of X,
00:36:33.249 --> 00:36:37.829
but you also do Y, you may be one of the only people in the X community that do Y.
00:36:37.829 --> 00:36:40.154
And that is a place where you're exceptional. So for For example,
00:36:40.468 --> 00:36:44.595
we're doing work on php.net to try and modernize the visuals.
00:36:44.996 --> 00:36:49.634
Designers are not prolific. There's not a ton of designers in the PHP community, right?
00:36:49.872 --> 00:36:53.329
And so those designers might say, oh, I don't know if I can get back because
00:36:53.329 --> 00:36:55.969
I'm not, I don't write C, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, you're freaking desiring
00:36:55.969 --> 00:36:57.128
the PHP community. Great.
00:36:57.447 --> 00:37:01.192
Come on. Knock on my door. Let's talk. Matt at Titan.co.
00:37:01.809 --> 00:37:04.349
So we've got a designer lined up helping do some work. And I'm very,
00:37:04.349 --> 00:37:07.113
very grateful for his work. I don't know if I'm supposed to say his name out loud yet.
00:37:07.351 --> 00:37:10.039
But he's someone who's been in the community for a very long time,
00:37:10.039 --> 00:37:11.089
super capable designer.
00:37:11.414 --> 00:37:14.269
And I was just like, hey, can you contribute some of your time and energy towards
00:37:14.269 --> 00:37:16.539
helping the PHP website? Like, he's like, yeah, that's exciting.
00:37:16.759 --> 00:37:20.319
And I'm like, he probably won't ever write C in his life and he's going to do
00:37:20.319 --> 00:37:23.669
a massively impactful thing. And same thing for writers and stuff like that.
00:37:23.669 --> 00:37:28.169
People who don't necessarily think of themselves as like the top of whatever
00:37:28.169 --> 00:37:30.111
our self concept of what's important is.
00:37:30.459 --> 00:37:32.589
You very often are actually more
00:37:32.589 --> 00:37:35.434
important because you're different than everybody else in the community.
00:37:36.458 --> 00:37:42.618
I could not agree more. And I think that, you know, strengthening those bonds
00:37:42.618 --> 00:37:46.314
with those communities, with like the design community, with writing community,
00:37:46.621 --> 00:37:47.875
I think will only help us.
00:37:48.218 --> 00:37:52.058
You know, there are so many opportunities to to design things.
00:37:52.867 --> 00:37:57.575
I mean, even, you know, the foundation, we we have a booth now for the foundation,
00:37:58.238 --> 00:37:59.438
which you and I put together.
00:38:00.147 --> 00:38:03.338
And, you know, like, just things like that.
00:38:03.818 --> 00:38:07.798
And, you know, we also need to talk about flyers, which I forgot to mention
00:38:07.798 --> 00:38:10.828
to you, but that's a side conversation we're going to have to have.
00:38:10.828 --> 00:38:14.658
But, you know, like if you are using.
00:38:16.218 --> 00:38:20.448
Or know of even a smaller project within the PHP ecosystem, and it looks like
00:38:20.448 --> 00:38:24.848
they could use some design help, or you know that they're trying to make a presence
00:38:24.848 --> 00:38:27.138
for themselves at a conference or something.
00:38:27.864 --> 00:38:33.174
Offering those skills oh my gosh like they're to your point there are not very
00:38:33.174 --> 00:38:37.315
many people who can do that and who understand kind of the audience and the
00:38:37.518 --> 00:38:38.598
you know the community and,
00:38:39.068 --> 00:38:44.314
um it's it's brilliant right it's brilliant so i think as just strengthening those communities,
00:38:44.794 --> 00:38:46.736
uh our ties with those communities um.
00:38:47.854 --> 00:38:51.494
I was also just thinking too like accessibility you know strengthening our ties
00:38:51.494 --> 00:38:56.734
to folks who are visually impaired um who are you know hearing impaired Like
00:38:56.734 --> 00:39:00.534
making sure that their, their experience and their,
00:39:01.334 --> 00:39:05.264
um, perspectives are included in what we're building is huge, you know?
00:39:05.264 --> 00:39:08.094
And I think that that is a contribution that, that I would much,
00:39:08.414 --> 00:39:11.824
like, I want to hear exactly from them what they need instead of,
00:39:11.824 --> 00:39:14.994
you know, if I'm building a project, what do I think they need?
00:39:14.994 --> 00:39:18.959
Because I don't know, like they, they are the ones who will tell you what they need.
00:39:19.359 --> 00:39:24.304
And so just including them and, and, um, creating this, uh, this world where
00:39:24.304 --> 00:39:31.852
every voice matters and we have a diverse, rich, excited, friendly community.
00:39:32.206 --> 00:39:33.994
Oh my gosh, like what could be better?
00:39:34.917 --> 00:39:38.504
What could be better for PHP than that? Like honestly, for the sustainability
00:39:38.504 --> 00:39:42.334
of PHP, what could be better? And it's also just fun.
00:39:42.654 --> 00:39:46.184
You know, like we're just, I don't want to do things that aren't fun.
00:39:46.184 --> 00:39:48.640
Honestly, I'm selfish and lazy and I don't want to do that.
00:39:48.923 --> 00:39:53.494
So I want to make the spaces that I'm in fun. I want PHP to still be fun.
00:39:53.494 --> 00:39:54.950
I don't want us to lose that either.
00:39:56.169 --> 00:39:59.002
I just caught a message here.
00:40:00.177 --> 00:40:04.537
Oh, I need a SIG group that doesn't require me jumping on a call at 6 a.m. I'm so sorry.
00:40:04.897 --> 00:40:10.637
I think that is honestly the hardest thing is geographical diversity is bringing
00:40:10.637 --> 00:40:12.097
people together in one place.
00:40:12.097 --> 00:40:17.147
And we were talking about this on a call, one of the calls, trying to make it
00:40:17.147 --> 00:40:22.387
easier for async engagement to happen. I think that's a big piece of it because
00:40:22.387 --> 00:40:26.580
you just can't find a time that works.
00:40:26.795 --> 00:40:31.587
You just can't. And in my experience, once you have kind of a critical mass
00:40:31.587 --> 00:40:36.467
of folks, which is ironically Catch-22, you can't get that diverse group of
00:40:36.467 --> 00:40:39.525
folks across without having separate meetings.
00:40:39.862 --> 00:40:45.017
But also you need that group across to maintain and sustain those separate meetings,
00:40:45.017 --> 00:40:48.871
having them at the different time zones. So it's a challenge forever.
00:40:50.050 --> 00:40:54.877
And like we've talked about to, you know, changing it up, moving the time from
00:40:54.877 --> 00:40:56.737
like week to week or month to month, whatever.
00:40:57.085 --> 00:41:00.217
And I think that's also it's the same with user groups, right?
00:41:00.217 --> 00:41:03.107
Like that's a challenge is finding a day and time that work for people.
00:41:03.107 --> 00:41:04.287
Some people want to go on the weekend.
00:41:04.287 --> 00:41:06.837
These user groups have the benefit of being all in the same time zone,
00:41:06.837 --> 00:41:09.307
but they have different stages of life or different whatever else.
00:41:09.307 --> 00:41:10.347
It's still a problem. Yeah.
00:41:10.637 --> 00:41:13.717
And so it's the same kind of challenge where do we move it to accommodate more
00:41:13.717 --> 00:41:16.677
people or is that going to lose people because now they don't know when the
00:41:16.677 --> 00:41:19.567
meeting is and they come to, you know, just have a regular cadence.
00:41:19.567 --> 00:41:22.537
So, yeah, always, always these challenges.
00:41:23.462 --> 00:41:26.217
And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that.
00:41:26.317 --> 00:41:29.247
In some ways, there is no answer. We just put up a job posting and I've had
00:41:29.247 --> 00:41:33.087
a lot of people say your job posting. So it didn't say North and South American
00:41:33.087 --> 00:41:34.602
time zones only. It said...
00:41:35.112 --> 00:41:38.926
We are heavily biased towards North and South American time zones.
00:41:39.257 --> 00:41:42.561
If you want to apply from outside of there, you are going to have a bias against
00:41:42.561 --> 00:41:44.894
you that you're going to have to overcome. I want you to know that up front.
00:41:45.132 --> 00:41:47.291
And one of the questions is, if you're applying from outside there,
00:41:47.291 --> 00:41:49.120
tell us why you're overcoming the bias.
00:41:49.428 --> 00:41:51.571
And a lot of people have just said, I don't think it's reasonable that you can
00:41:51.571 --> 00:41:55.488
start about this. And I'm like, well, we all need to meet together and be aligned.
00:41:55.801 --> 00:41:59.181
And the presumption that everything can happen asynchronously is a misconception.
00:41:59.181 --> 00:42:00.747
Some things can happen asynchronously.
00:42:00.968 --> 00:42:04.321
Some things can't. or if they can, it's significantly harder to do with the
00:42:04.321 --> 00:42:06.127
same level of quality to do them asynchronously.
00:42:06.452 --> 00:42:10.001
So yes, asynchronous, remote, great ideas.
00:42:10.001 --> 00:42:12.881
But like I read the remote by 37 signals book and I was just like,
00:42:12.881 --> 00:42:15.201
yeah, that's not how we operate as a remote company. It's been a remote since
00:42:15.201 --> 00:42:19.281
2011 and I don't plan to change to work that way. So there are limitations that
00:42:19.281 --> 00:42:24.152
are inherent and unbreakable if you're talking about collaborating purely asynchronously.
00:42:24.668 --> 00:42:26.532
Yeah. And that's just how it is.
00:42:26.729 --> 00:42:31.061
It is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I worked for GitHub for six years and that was
00:42:31.061 --> 00:42:36.021
a remote first company but we still had to have meetings in person every now
00:42:36.021 --> 00:42:38.981
and again with our small team and then with the whole entire company.
00:42:38.981 --> 00:42:40.737
They would bring everybody together for GitHub Summit.
00:42:42.361 --> 00:42:48.261
I think that that is important for collaboration but I think more importantly
00:42:48.261 --> 00:42:53.161
it's important for building trust among people and strengthening those personal
00:42:53.161 --> 00:42:54.373
relationships with people.
00:42:54.756 --> 00:42:58.047
When you have trust with someone and you know what they mean,
00:42:58.605 --> 00:43:02.977
not what they say, you, you, you know, you're giving them the benefit of the doubt a little more.
00:43:02.977 --> 00:43:06.877
And I think that those kinds of relationships can only happen either in person
00:43:06.877 --> 00:43:11.363
or on calls, like, um, you know, async to a point,
00:43:11.751 --> 00:43:14.937
but I think you, like when you can look at someone in the face and the eyes
00:43:14.937 --> 00:43:19.007
and like, you know, get their vibe, it's, it's a lot different in building those
00:43:19.007 --> 00:43:22.847
relationships than, than just hearing what I type or reading what I'm not hearing,
00:43:22.847 --> 00:43:26.433
but reading what i type you know or or hearing i guess or hearing what i type um,
00:43:27.037 --> 00:43:29.497
but yeah so i think i i totally agree that,
00:43:30.837 --> 00:43:35.227
um that that async is is great for especially for inclusivity um folks who are
00:43:35.227 --> 00:43:39.327
not native english speakers and there's a heavy bias towards english and so
00:43:39.327 --> 00:43:43.257
they need a little more time to collect their thoughts or write out the you
00:43:43.257 --> 00:43:44.400
know what they're trying to say,
00:43:44.870 --> 00:43:50.497
um but yeah just having that like i see you i see you know your vibe i get a,
00:43:50.957 --> 00:43:56.157
different um i get more more data about you as a person when I can see you and
00:43:56.157 --> 00:43:58.097
have an interaction with you real time.
00:43:58.797 --> 00:44:02.306
And it's the same thing between like when you have the conversations about remote versus in person.
00:44:02.637 --> 00:44:06.247
I have run a remote company since 2011, and I can still acknowledge that there
00:44:06.247 --> 00:44:09.887
is a level of collaboration that happens, not just because of seeing the people,
00:44:09.887 --> 00:44:12.357
which I completely agree about, but also the way a
00:44:12.937 --> 00:44:16.297
collaborative experience about a particular topic happens when you're there
00:44:16.297 --> 00:44:19.477
in the same physical space or you're talking to each other in the hallway as
00:44:19.477 --> 00:44:23.024
you get water or whatever that doesn't happen remotely when it's a one-hour Zoom block.
00:44:23.430 --> 00:44:26.097
And then that happens even less if it's purely asynchronous.
00:44:26.097 --> 00:44:29.697
So there are levels, the further you get away from being with the same person
00:44:29.697 --> 00:44:33.997
in the same room, the more work it is to get a lot of those positive interactions
00:44:33.997 --> 00:44:35.197
that happen towards collaboration.
00:44:35.197 --> 00:44:37.727
And that doesn't mean that I'm now going to have an on-site team.
00:44:37.727 --> 00:44:40.567
I still have a remote team, but we have to understand that there's costs that
00:44:40.567 --> 00:44:44.282
are introduced with every level of distance and separation and asynchronicity
00:44:44.676 --> 00:44:47.277
that we have to contend with. And everybody has to pick where they're going
00:44:47.277 --> 00:44:49.779
to be. There's no answer. There's no one answer for everybody.
00:44:50.499 --> 00:44:56.455
Yeah, I totally agree. I also did talk one time about the different layers of
00:44:56.757 --> 00:45:00.053
communication and how, you know, the further down you go, the more,
00:45:00.535 --> 00:45:05.397
there, the more space there is for misinterpreting and miscommunication and
00:45:05.397 --> 00:45:08.737
like letting your own biases come in and like reading things into,
00:45:09.337 --> 00:45:13.062
connecting dots that that person didn't intend for you to connect.
00:45:13.376 --> 00:45:17.468
Whereas like even even like if in small groups you know people are human and they're,
00:45:17.961 --> 00:45:21.807
they're difficult and biased and they have opinions very strong opinions but
00:45:21.807 --> 00:45:25.197
if you you know are sitting having a meal with someone you can you can talk
00:45:25.197 --> 00:45:28.886
about things a little easier you can talk about hard hard topics
00:45:29.258 --> 00:45:33.737
um a little easier on the internet it's very easy to just you know shoot off uh,
00:45:34.797 --> 00:45:39.957
um you know something that you wouldn't say to someone in in person and so i
00:45:39.957 --> 00:45:42.139
think that to your point there are certain
00:45:42.575 --> 00:45:47.947
conversations about difficult things that you can only do in person um or maybe
00:45:47.947 --> 00:45:51.950
on maybe on a call but uh in person is the best you know yeah,
00:45:52.539 --> 00:45:55.331
for sure for sure for sure yeah um,
00:45:55.967 --> 00:46:02.160
okay let's check this here i see a lot of chats happening i'm sorry not missing any questions for you,
00:46:03.162 --> 00:46:07.897
okay i think we're good yeah maybe oh maybe the php foundation should have a
00:46:07.917 --> 00:46:12.237
merch store yeah we don't even have t-shirts for ourselves maybe we should.
00:46:12.677 --> 00:46:13.493
Yeah maybe start there
00:46:15.137 --> 00:46:18.807
I got stickers i do have stickers which i don't know if they're the right color
00:46:18.807 --> 00:46:22.337
i i don't know i'm gonna have to have you look at a map you can tell me if they're
00:46:22.337 --> 00:46:24.812
the right color they look a little purple so i don't know but.
00:46:25.287 --> 00:46:28.278
Yeah color's difficult sometimes we just take the best we can get
00:46:28.632 --> 00:46:33.217
That's it that's it that's close enough but i do have them so if you see me
00:46:33.217 --> 00:46:36.916
at a conference I will have some PHP stickers for people.
00:46:37.694 --> 00:46:44.270
Um, so, um, I think we have just a few minutes left. Um, I'm wondering,
00:46:44.821 --> 00:46:45.733
okay, let me look at here.
00:46:46.453 --> 00:46:50.786
Okay. So we talked about, you know, the, the contributing at the foundation
00:46:50.786 --> 00:46:54.596
itself, but is there anything that the foundation can do to make it either easier
00:46:54.596 --> 00:46:59.806
to contribute with us or other places in the ecosystem or the language itself?
00:46:59.806 --> 00:47:03.086
Like what, what can the foundation do to help kind of help people find their
00:47:03.086 --> 00:47:05.051
way or, or make it easier for them?
00:47:05.498 --> 00:47:08.016
Yeah, one thing you and I talked about earlier when I was working this blog
00:47:08.016 --> 00:47:11.616
post, as you said, this is sort of a blog post, but it's almost more just like
00:47:11.616 --> 00:47:13.206
a resource that we want access to.
00:47:13.206 --> 00:47:17.186
And so one thing we can do is have more of these universally accessible resources.
00:47:17.186 --> 00:47:19.576
And maybe we take some blog posts that are like this and turn them into something
00:47:19.576 --> 00:47:20.632
that's meant to live longer.
00:47:21.102 --> 00:47:24.782
PHP itself does have a how to contribute page. It's super out of date,
00:47:25.177 --> 00:47:28.986
but it's also primarily about the PHP language. So I do think they're being
00:47:28.986 --> 00:47:32.671
a universally accessible. Here's how to contribute if you want to get started.
00:47:33.054 --> 00:47:36.186
And like i said a lot of the content can just point to other places this is
00:47:36.186 --> 00:47:41.376
the canonical laravel symphony you know craft whatever how to get you know linked
00:47:41.376 --> 00:47:45.716
to their done and then if you want to contribute or be involved in php here's
00:47:45.716 --> 00:47:47.776
the actual kind of write-up and it can be a little more
00:47:48.256 --> 00:47:51.536
robust we can also use that as an opportunity to improve the how to contribute
00:47:51.536 --> 00:47:55.636
to php the language stuff that's on php.net um i think those are the best ones
00:47:55.636 --> 00:47:56.796
and then of course also mentioned
00:47:58.196 --> 00:48:02.426
the special interest groups and stuff because you kind of have to follow the
00:48:02.426 --> 00:48:07.736
foundation socially to know what we announced three months ago or be on a particular social channel.
00:48:07.736 --> 00:48:11.556
Not everybody's on Mastodon or whatever else. So I do think if we just say every
00:48:11.556 --> 00:48:15.540
single piece of information you ever need to know about being involved in what the foundation is doing
00:48:15.911 --> 00:48:20.206
or a link to every person that PHP Foundation thinks you might want to get involved
00:48:20.206 --> 00:48:23.136
in is all accessible at one specific URL that is there
00:48:23.536 --> 00:48:26.346
perennially that is not a blog post that now is three years old or whatever.
00:48:26.346 --> 00:48:28.723
I think that would be a pretty valuable thing for us.
00:48:29.518 --> 00:48:34.642
Yeah, I totally agree. I completely agree. Do you think that that should live
00:48:34.642 --> 00:48:37.082
on? I'm just curious. You don't have to answer if you don't want.
00:48:37.349 --> 00:48:41.132
Do you think that should live on php.net or do you think it should live like
00:48:41.132 --> 00:48:44.054
on the foundation or or where should that live?
00:48:44.420 --> 00:48:47.982
This will be my most controversial thing I say, and I've tried to be non-controversial.
00:48:48.642 --> 00:48:55.198
Anything on php.net that explicitly mentions a sub community of PHP is going to cause drama.
00:48:55.523 --> 00:48:58.942
If you mention WordPress it's going to be why not this super tiny little
00:48:59.362 --> 00:49:02.852
you know CMS that has three users if you mention Laravel it's going to be why
00:49:02.852 --> 00:49:06.562
not this framework that I made myself and I'm the only person using it and it's
00:49:06.562 --> 00:49:11.082
silly and I hope we can get past that but it is a current reality that if you
00:49:11.082 --> 00:49:13.302
mention anything that is not PHP
00:49:14.082 --> 00:49:19.956
That is a framework community whatever it's going to get mired up in drama uh and so
00:49:20.444 --> 00:49:24.602
would it be nice for it to eventually live on PHP internet 100% I do think that
00:49:24.602 --> 00:49:27.842
the foundation has a little bit more leeway to just say, hey,
00:49:27.842 --> 00:49:29.222
look, we looked at the download numbers.
00:49:29.222 --> 00:49:32.052
We use those download numbers to decide which are the sticks that we should
00:49:32.052 --> 00:49:33.760
mention because those sticks...
00:49:34.506 --> 00:49:35.840
Packages or frameworks or whatever
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:39.504
have 99 of the downloads we're going to just do it and it's just like
00:49:39.945 --> 00:49:44.350
the foundation has the ability to move things through not just one person spearheading
00:49:44.350 --> 00:49:47.316
it through you still have to go the board has to approve and the you know whatever
00:49:47.571 --> 00:49:53.353
um in a way that php.net does not php has a wonderful process for how to process
00:49:53.702 --> 00:49:58.140
um and work through suggested changes to the language php does not have that
00:49:58.140 --> 00:50:02.050
same process yet hopefully it will soon for how to make any other changes marketing
00:50:02.050 --> 00:50:03.547
changes website changes or anything like that
00:50:03.802 --> 00:50:07.930
so eventually yes on php.net but i think that the foundation website is a place
00:50:07.930 --> 00:50:09.235
for us to start things moving
00:50:09.515 --> 00:50:12.220
and also maybe just prove out what does and doesn't work
00:50:12.690 --> 00:50:16.850
and then proposing something to on the php.net website that has been functional
00:50:16.850 --> 00:50:21.212
and ironed out over the span of months to years on the foundation website i think can can be easier
00:50:21.865 --> 00:50:27.650
Yeah i really really like that idea a lot um yeah because it is it is a conversation
00:50:28.090 --> 00:50:32.645
for yes always always always like where is the line You know, and,
00:50:34.190 --> 00:50:36.740
you could also make the case that these smaller projects are the ones that need
00:50:36.740 --> 00:50:38.880
help the most because they're just starting out.
00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:42.599
They're struggling. They really want contributors like that's what helped them the most.
00:50:43.063 --> 00:50:47.173
So like I can see I can see both sides of it.
00:50:47.388 --> 00:50:52.460
But to your point, like maybe we have that as a as a feature of this.
00:50:52.460 --> 00:50:57.530
If you're looking for an established process with like a stable community that
00:50:57.530 --> 00:51:00.496
has a lot of experience in mentoring and onboarding newcomers,
00:51:00.815 --> 00:51:05.738
maybe go here. you know maybe that's another filter i don't i don't know i'm just.
00:51:05.947 --> 00:51:09.750
And there's also a possibility that we update the php.net website to say if
00:51:09.750 --> 00:51:14.370
you're contributing to php the language here is a much more modernized much more updated
00:51:14.770 --> 00:51:17.520
contribution guide i don't think anybody complained about that if you're interested
00:51:17.520 --> 00:51:21.340
in contributing in other ways here is a link to a page in the php foundational
00:51:21.340 --> 00:51:23.727
website yeah i think getting that link in
00:51:24.374 --> 00:51:28.024
to a PHP Foundation hosted page is going to be much, much, much easier than
00:51:28.024 --> 00:51:32.414
agreeing to get all the contents officially embedded in the PHP.net source code.
00:51:32.640 --> 00:51:34.428
You know, so that might be our in-between.
00:51:34.956 --> 00:51:38.174
Agreed, agreed. And also just the maintaining of it. You know,
00:51:38.174 --> 00:51:41.962
we at the Foundation can maintain it because we're looking at it and it's like we own it.
00:51:42.374 --> 00:51:47.154
But on the PHP.net website, there's not really, unless somebody says,
00:51:47.154 --> 00:51:52.242
I'm going to watch this page every day and make sure that it's constantly updated,
00:51:52.492 --> 00:51:53.711
which I don't know that we would get.
00:51:54.117 --> 00:51:57.394
I think that's another kind of case to make for it just living on the new team.
00:51:57.943 --> 00:52:01.894
And I really like the idea of the php.net website understanding that PHP is
00:52:01.894 --> 00:52:03.562
more than just a language.
00:52:04.113 --> 00:52:07.594
Also, the way our processes and systems and everything like that are currently
00:52:07.594 --> 00:52:12.304
set up, the more the php.net website primarily focuses around language things
00:52:12.304 --> 00:52:15.474
and outsources the work of non-language things outside of the website,
00:52:15.898 --> 00:52:18.556
the more our current processes are able to be effective.
00:52:18.678 --> 00:52:23.403
And that doesn't mean I don't want a different process two years from now. like the rfc that um uh
00:52:24.454 --> 00:52:27.314
was put together for the i forget what those little the little different groups
00:52:27.314 --> 00:52:31.214
were um but like i don't i don't know if it went for do you know i'm talking
00:52:31.214 --> 00:52:35.274
about there were like community groups or special interest groups within php or something what
00:52:35.274 --> 00:52:36.974
Uh are you talking about ben's rfc.
00:52:36.974 --> 00:52:38.434
Yeah yeah
00:52:38.794 --> 00:52:41.304
I think he's calling them working groups this is why we didn't call ours working.
00:52:41.304 --> 00:52:44.534
Groups yeah so if we were able to get working groups together then i think a
00:52:44.534 --> 00:52:47.404
year from now these processes would be completely different so i'm just like
00:52:47.404 --> 00:52:48.817
let what works right now.
00:52:49.101 --> 00:52:51.539
And fingers crossed when they're a very different situation a year from now.
00:52:51.928 --> 00:52:54.430
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes total sense.
00:52:55.830 --> 00:53:01.634
Um let me see i don't know that i had uh really anything else um,
00:53:02.379 --> 00:53:06.901
does anybody have i see and we've been watching this this chat thing come across,
00:53:07.517 --> 00:53:11.100
oh someone just learned about the php foundation yay that's another thing that
00:53:11.100 --> 00:53:12.990
we have to work on is awareness so
00:53:13.430 --> 00:53:17.340
yeah even just sharing a post that we have in your group that is a contribution
00:53:17.340 --> 00:53:21.340
to us so thank you very much to you know share one of our social media posts
00:53:21.340 --> 00:53:25.152
to your network is awesome we appreciate that very very much,
00:53:25.874 --> 00:53:29.217
um i don't really see any other questions here,
00:53:30.251 --> 00:53:35.290
so so yeah um i think just to kind of wrap up then what we've been talking about
00:53:35.290 --> 00:53:41.470
is that um some high points that you don't need to no see to contribute to php
00:53:41.755 --> 00:53:44.290
um although if you do that would be very helpful,
00:53:45.010 --> 00:53:49.130
because you know just to take a little side quest here um that is also something
00:53:49.130 --> 00:53:52.448
that i think about is php's relationship with the C community,
00:53:52.773 --> 00:53:55.890
because we don't really have a strong relationship with them.
00:53:55.890 --> 00:53:59.230
Like we don't really have advocates inside that community saying,
00:53:59.230 --> 00:54:02.620
Hey, come work on PHP. It's, it's a great place to be. It's, you know, whatever.
00:54:02.620 --> 00:54:03.020
Whatever.
00:54:03.020 --> 00:54:09.200
Um, and that is on my mind because as that pool dwindles, like we need to keep
00:54:09.200 --> 00:54:11.160
an eye on that because, you know,
00:54:11.160 --> 00:54:14.470
there are plenty of other things that C developers can also be working on.
00:54:14.470 --> 00:54:19.630
So like, how do we make sure we, we show up and that we are supporting that
00:54:19.630 --> 00:54:24.079
community and just strengthening those ties with them for our long term sustainability.
00:54:24.468 --> 00:54:28.050
You know, I think that that's important for us to think about and just be aware of.
00:54:29.410 --> 00:54:33.122
So like I said, that internals contributors are not like more important than a brand new person.
00:54:33.337 --> 00:54:35.760
But what I want to make sure that I'm saying there's thank God for internals
00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:39.150
contributors. And it's a very valuable thing. We could use as many people doing
00:54:39.150 --> 00:54:43.316
that as possible. And the people who have been doing it steadfastly for years to decades.
00:54:44.806 --> 00:54:45.609
Yes. Thank you.
00:54:45.689 --> 00:54:49.148
You know what I mean? So it's just like we have this weird spot of like everybody matters.
00:54:49.509 --> 00:54:53.609
And also there are some roles without which we wouldn't be able to have a continuing
00:54:53.609 --> 00:54:57.439
development language. And we want more people being willing to step into those
00:54:57.439 --> 00:55:01.431
spaces so that everything stays stable. And thank you for everybody who's doing that right now.
00:55:01.809 --> 00:55:06.773
Yeah. A thousand, thousand percent. I mean, we still do have somewhat of a,
00:55:06.911 --> 00:55:10.888
in chaos, we call it contributor absence factor. But a lot of people call it bus factor.
00:55:11.376 --> 00:55:16.029
Contributor absence factor is a little less morbid than buzz factor but um you
00:55:16.029 --> 00:55:17.738
know there still are like
00:55:18.149 --> 00:55:22.569
you know some of those extensions are not being maintained at all um some
00:55:22.909 --> 00:55:26.849
have like one person maintaining them or you know a certain area of the language
00:55:26.849 --> 00:55:30.819
where we just have like a handful of people that knows that know how it works
00:55:30.819 --> 00:55:34.229
that know how to fix things and so um really uh,
00:55:34.769 --> 00:55:39.229
building that community out of folks that do understand the internals and do
00:55:39.229 --> 00:55:42.970
know how to fix things and can review code and can contribute, I think is,
00:55:43.812 --> 00:55:47.049
really important for our long-term sustainability.
00:55:47.049 --> 00:55:49.899
And to your point, internals is not just the language itself.
00:55:49.899 --> 00:55:52.489
We've also got extensions, but we've also got infrastructure stuff.
00:55:52.489 --> 00:55:55.499
Like every time somebody asks about the PHP website and Derek Rattons comes
00:55:55.499 --> 00:55:59.956
in and says something, I'm like, I'm so glad you are here and I'm so glad it's not me managing this.
00:56:00.281 --> 00:56:03.799
Yes. And shout out to Joe also for working on that with Derek,
00:56:03.799 --> 00:56:08.234
because, um, yeah, I mean, that's, that's a whole thing and it only,
00:56:08.715 --> 00:56:10.631
people only notice it when things go wrong.
00:56:11.008 --> 00:56:16.449
And so, yeah, so that's, that's like a, a thankless task, but we are,
00:56:16.449 --> 00:56:19.298
we are thanking them both officially for the, all of their work there.
00:56:19.849 --> 00:56:24.529
Um, yeah, because that's, yeah. But even, you know, uh, I think you had in your,
00:56:24.529 --> 00:56:27.599
in your post as well, you know, testing things is helpful.
00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:30.809
And so even if you're not a C person, you can still, you know,
00:56:30.809 --> 00:56:35.603
contribute to that kind of person, that kind of, uh, uh, the core part of the, the,
00:56:36.171 --> 00:56:39.586
you know what I'm trying to say, the ecosystem, all of the contributions that
00:56:39.586 --> 00:56:43.386
we can go. So yeah, language. Thank you. That hard word that I couldn't think of.
00:56:43.735 --> 00:56:49.606
Um, yeah. So I think, um, if, if, if anyone has not read Matt's post, go read it.
00:56:49.606 --> 00:56:55.336
It's really insightful and awesome and might spark some inspiration in you to.
00:56:56.216 --> 00:57:01.026
To reach out and, and, uh, find your place within the php ecosystem because
00:57:01.026 --> 00:57:04.516
there's literally no limit to,
00:57:05.156 --> 00:57:09.126
where you can contribute how you can contribute and you can really just find
00:57:09.126 --> 00:57:12.396
your own way that speaks to the things you care about the things you like to
00:57:12.396 --> 00:57:16.527
do and how often you want to do them you know so yeah,
00:57:17.225 --> 00:57:21.683
um let me see oh there's one it looks like there's one final question it's a leading question,
00:57:22.384 --> 00:57:25.275
Oh, oh, yes. Please share the socials, Joe, if you have them.
00:57:25.275 --> 00:57:28.995
If you don't, that's fine, too. I didn't I didn't prepare you for that.
00:57:28.995 --> 00:57:32.745
But we do have socials. We have LinkedIn. And hey, there we go.
00:57:33.185 --> 00:57:38.935
We do have an X account. We masked it on Reddit. We usually post to Reddit, too.
00:57:39.925 --> 00:57:44.949
Where's the other one? Blue Sky. Yeah. I think the only places we don't really post are threads.
00:57:45.088 --> 00:57:48.444
And TikTok.
00:57:48.937 --> 00:57:52.785
And who tiktok yeah we don't really do tiktok videos.
00:57:53.105 --> 00:57:54.705
The videos not so much yeah
00:57:55.782 --> 00:57:59.825
But you know what if somebody wants to make tiktoks for the foundation i don't
00:57:59.825 --> 00:58:00.645
know what those would look like
00:58:00.645 --> 00:58:03.630
i'm too old for that i don't i don't know what that would look like but,
00:58:04.809 --> 00:58:08.125
um but yeah i mean honestly like sorry to keep driving this home but things
00:58:08.125 --> 00:58:12.575
like social media like that is a skill that only certain people have that actually
00:58:12.575 --> 00:58:15.935
know how that stuff works and the algorithms and the when to post and all of
00:58:15.935 --> 00:58:17.202
that stuff and how long and where,
00:58:17.800 --> 00:58:23.085
like that is a skill that every single php project in the ecosystem could use
00:58:23.085 --> 00:58:27.745
i i would guess you know so if you are a social media person um,
00:58:28.445 --> 00:58:32.385
there's a space for you here like we want you to come and contribute and help
00:58:32.385 --> 00:58:37.447
us help us you know build build things and yeah and promote them yeah,
00:58:38.224 --> 00:58:41.034
because i think i think that is something that you know the marketing and the
00:58:41.226 --> 00:58:46.345
promotion is something that most places probably aren't that great at most you
00:58:46.345 --> 00:58:49.315
know they just want to write code for my experience most people just want to write the code um and,
00:58:51.025 --> 00:58:55.415
so promoting it is not not there not what they want to do they don't want to
00:58:55.415 --> 00:58:57.650
do that and they're not good at it and they need help so.
00:58:57.992 --> 00:58:58.862
Yeah yeah 100
00:58:58.862 --> 00:59:03.575
100 um all right well we are almost out of time i'm going to go ahead and wrap
00:59:03.575 --> 00:59:06.595
this up this is your final call for questions,
00:59:07.325 --> 00:59:10.810
you can always just ask us questions wherever we are like and discord you can
00:59:11.088 --> 00:59:14.159
it's not like the end of the world. If you had a question, you didn't get it in.
00:59:15.705 --> 00:59:20.155
You got 20 seconds, 10 seconds. I don't know. Yeah. Okay.
00:59:20.585 --> 00:59:23.725
Well, Matt, thank you so much for taking your time today. I really appreciate
00:59:23.725 --> 00:59:25.589
it. I really appreciate the post. It was amazing.
00:59:26.585 --> 00:59:31.260
You're such an asset to the foundation. So, yes, thank you for all your work,
00:59:32.025 --> 00:59:35.185
just with everything and the SIGs and all of it. You're great.
00:59:35.370 --> 00:59:36.685
You're awesome. So thank you very much.
00:59:36.825 --> 00:59:39.125
I really appreciate you. And you know how happy I am that you're here leading this.
00:59:40.145 --> 00:59:43.828
I will. Thank you very much. I'm doing my best. That's all I can do.
00:59:43.962 --> 00:59:49.195
So um all right well uh joe if you're around i guess this is about it and we
00:59:49.195 --> 00:59:55.515
will see you all here next month same time i think same time same place thanks
00:59:55.515 --> 00:59:58.480
everybody take care of yourselves bye.