the state of the PHP community
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From: Nathan Rixham on 29 Jul 2010 01:36 Hi All, I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. in no particular order: What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred libs, and whether client or server side. What's your previous language/tech trail? Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? - names / links Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? How many years have you been using PHP regularly? How many years have you been working with web technologies? Did you come from a non-web programming background? Is your primary role web developer or designer? In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients individually you think you can help, or? - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but non PHP focussed communities? Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, or standardization bodies - again, if so which? Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? ps: please *do not* flame anybodies answers, that really wouldn't be fair. Best & Regards, Nathan
From: Larry Garfield on 29 Jul 2010 02:26 On Thursday 29 July 2010 12:36:13 am Nathan Rixham wrote: > Hi All, > > I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and > related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - > feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of > your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and > sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + > doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is > that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of > them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. > > in no particular order: > > What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? > - if you include html or css please include version, if js then > preferred libs, and whether client or server side. PHP, MySQL, and Javascript make up the vast majority of my code these days. > What's your previous language/tech trail? I started with Fortran back in high school, then C, then Java, then C++. In college I added PHP, Perl, and VB (in mostly that order), then more C++ and Java. PHP is the one I really stuck with, obviously, although I did spend time doing Palm OS development in C. > Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? > - names / links One of these days I want to learn more about Erlang, because functional programming is brain-breaking but nifty. > Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? Day job and hobby. > How many years have you been using PHP regularly? Full time professionally about 6 years, but have been working with it as my main language since 2000 or so. > How many years have you been working with web technologies? I did my first website in 1996-ish, somewhere between Fortran and C. :-) My first paid project was for my then-state representative in 2000 in home-grown PHP 3. (I am very glad that site is no longer in existence.) > Did you come from a non-web programming background? I was a CS major, but my college's web program was way way behind what I was learning on my own. By graduate school I was correcting the professors on web technology in the middle of class. (Yes, I was one of those students.) > Is your primary role web developer or designer? PHP programmer, software architect, and technical site architect. > In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, > freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? I work for a ~20 person consulting shop (http://www.palantir.net/) consisting of designers, project managers, front-end developers/themers, and engineers/PHP gurus. Our company is at this point all Drupal-based and business is quite good. :-) > Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same > country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? I think all of our clients are in the US, but all around the country. > How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you > hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients > individually you think you can help, or? > - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. Our CEO is disturbingly good at shaking the money tree, and after 14 years in the business our reputation is high enough that we get cold-called to bid on RFPs, many of them really good projects. We employ several leading Drupal developers so our collective reputation and project history is all the marketing we need. Being good open source community citizens (sharing as much knowledge as we can about how we do what we do) helps as well. > Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you > want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have > projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? Oh god, where do I start... - Why is there no good iCal library? Seriously. My company is looking for sponsorship to write one, because everything we could find sucks. - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. "If you don't have root then we don't care about you" is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no control over the environment at all. - Organization? Collaboration? Standards? Process? What are those? I really feel for Lukas Smith, as he tried really hard to bring some sort of sanity to the PHP dev process before finally giving up in despair. I really do respect what he was doing and wish he'd been more successful. - If I still remembered enough C to do so and had time to do so I'd try to work on PDO. Sadly I don't have either. PDO is in desperate need of help, apparently, and everyone is standing around waiting for someone else to do something about it. Given that databases are kinda critical for most PHP apps that is a non-small problem. > Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you > tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but > non PHP focussed communities? Mostly my work in the Drupal project eats up 99.9% of my community networking time, so I have very little left over for general PHP networking. I used to be somewhat active in the Chicago PHP users group but haven't been for some time. > Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, > or standardization bodies - again, if so which? I'm one of the lead developers of Drupal (although the term is very vague in the Drupal world), and the Database subsystem maintainer for Drupal 7 and later having written most of it. I am also in my 3rd year as a member of the Drupal Association Board of Directors as Director of Legal Affairs. I was also the lead organizer of the GoPHP5 effort a few years ago that managed to finally kill off PHP 4. In theory I'm the Drupal rep to the "PHP Standards" working group, but I think that group has pretty well died. > Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your > boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? Just lots of stuff within the Drupal world, which is large enough to keep me busy. I won't bore you with details. Come to DrupalCon Copenhagen next month if you want such details. :-) --Larry Garfield
From: Nathan Rixham on 29 Jul 2010 03:07 Larry Garfield wrote: > On Thursday 29 July 2010 12:36:13 am Nathan Rixham wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and >> related community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - >> feel free to answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of >> your own - this isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and >> sure I (and everybody who reads the replies) will learn something + >> doors/options/contacts may come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is >> that I'm genuinely interested in every reply and will read every one of >> them + lookup every tech and link mentioned. >> >> in no particular order: >> >> What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? >> - if you include html or css please include version, if js then >> preferred libs, and whether client or server side. > > PHP, MySQL, and Javascript make up the vast majority of my code these days. > >> What's your previous language/tech trail? > > I started with Fortran back in high school, then C, then Java, then C++. In > college I added PHP, Perl, and VB (in mostly that order), then more C++ and > Java. PHP is the one I really stuck with, obviously, although I did spend > time doing Palm OS development in C. > >> Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? >> - names / links > > One of these days I want to learn more about Erlang, because functional > programming is brain-breaking but nifty. > >> Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? > > Day job and hobby. > >> How many years have you been using PHP regularly? > > Full time professionally about 6 years, but have been working with it as my > main language since 2000 or so. > >> How many years have you been working with web technologies? > > I did my first website in 1996-ish, somewhere between Fortran and C. :-) My > first paid project was for my then-state representative in 2000 in home-grown > PHP 3. (I am very glad that site is no longer in existence.) > >> Did you come from a non-web programming background? > > I was a CS major, but my college's web program was way way behind what I was > learning on my own. By graduate school I was correcting the professors on web > technology in the middle of class. (Yes, I was one of those students.) > >> Is your primary role web developer or designer? > > PHP programmer, software architect, and technical site architect. > >> In your developer life, are you an employer, and employee, contractor, >> freelancer, part of a team of equal standing members? > > I work for a ~20 person consulting shop (http://www.palantir.net/) consisting > of designers, project managers, front-end developers/themers, and > engineers/PHP gurus. Our company is at this point all Drupal-based and > business is quite good. :-) > >> Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same >> country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? > > I think all of our clients are in the US, but all around the country. > >> How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you >> hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients >> individually you think you can help, or? >> - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. > > Our CEO is disturbingly good at shaking the money tree, and after 14 years in > the business our reputation is high enough that we get cold-called to bid on > RFPs, many of them really good projects. We employ several leading Drupal > developers so our collective reputation and project history is all the > marketing we need. Being good open source community citizens (sharing as much > knowledge as we can about how we do what we do) helps as well. > >> Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you >> want to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have >> projects in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? > > Oh god, where do I start... > > - Why is there no good iCal library? Seriously. My company is looking for > sponsorship to write one, because everything we could find sucks. > > - Those driving PHP development itself (vis, writing the engine) don't seem to > comprehend the idea of someone running a web site who isn't also a C > developer, sysadmin, and performance specialist. "If you don't have root then > we don't care about you" is the prevailing attitude I see. I'm sure most of > PHP-DEV will disagree with that assessment but I've been reading the list for > 3 years now and that sense is very clear. That's quite unfortunate given that > the vast majority of PHP scripts are still on shared hosting where you have no > control over the environment at all. > > - Organization? Collaboration? Standards? Process? What are those? I > really feel for Lukas Smith, as he tried really hard to bring some sort of > sanity to the PHP dev process before finally giving up in despair. I really do > respect what he was doing and wish he'd been more successful. > > - If I still remembered enough C to do so and had time to do so I'd try to > work on PDO. Sadly I don't have either. PDO is in desperate need of help, > apparently, and everyone is standing around waiting for someone else to do > something about it. Given that databases are kinda critical for most PHP apps > that is a non-small problem. > >> Do you network with other PHP'ers in real life - meetups etc, do you >> tend to shy away, or do you find you circulate in other web related but >> non PHP focussed communities? > > Mostly my work in the Drupal project eats up 99.9% of my community networking > time, so I have very little left over for general PHP networking. I used to > be somewhat active in the Chicago PHP users group but haven't been for some > time. > >> Are you a member or any other web tech communities, opensource efforts, >> or standardization bodies - again, if so which? > > I'm one of the lead developers of Drupal (although the term is very vague in > the Drupal world), and the Database subsystem maintainer for Drupal 7 and > later having written most of it. I am also in my 3rd year as a member of the > Drupal Association Board of Directors as Director of Legal Affairs. > > I was also the lead organizer of the GoPHP5 effort a few years ago that managed > to finally kill off PHP 4. > > In theory I'm the Drupal rep to the "PHP Standards" working group, but I think > that group has pretty well died. > >> Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your >> boat right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? > > Just lots of stuff within the Drupal world, which is large enough to keep me > busy. I won't bore you with details. Come to DrupalCon Copenhagen next month > if you want such details. :-) > > --Larry Garfield Hi Larry, Thanks for taking the time to reply, a solid insightful one at that - kudos +1 for your opensource drupal efforts! Good of you to mention, and indeed to see, Palinter grasping opensource with two hands, this is certainly a very credible approach to business which deservedly reaps good rewards; testament to this is Day Software (including of course Roy T. Fielding) which it seems is just about to be bought by Adobe, a big +1 for this approach; and one I hope to see more of. With regards drupal development, there is a rather interesting chap called St�phane Corlosquet [ http://drupal.org/user/52142 ] who does a fair bit of committing and really pushes the semantic web / linked data side of drupal - definitely worth keeping tabs on. Thanks again for your reply, the Jamie Lawrence quote on your homepage [1] and providing a quick laugh via your april 1st post - lol. Best, Nathan [1] Arguing with an engineer is like mud wrestling with a pig; after a few hours, you realize he likes it. � Jamie Lawrence
From: Adam Richardson on 29 Jul 2010 03:11 On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Nathan Rixham <nrixham(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi All, > > I find myself wondering about the state of the PHP community (and related > community with a PHP focus), so, here's a bunch of questions - feel free to > answer none to all of them, on list or off, or add more of your own - this > isn't for anything specific, just out of interest and sure I (and everybody > who reads the replies) will learn something + doors/options/contacts may > come of it. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'm genuinely interested > in every reply and will read every one of them + lookup every tech and link > mentioned. > > in no particular order: > > What other languages and web techs do you currently use other than PHP? > - if you include html or css please include version, if js then preferred > libs, and whether client or server side. > CSS, Javascript (Jquery, mostly), SVG, F#, C#, Java, Clojure, Scala, C, Objective C, Groovy > > What's your previous language/tech trail? Started with C++ (I hate it!), then moved on to Java and then to PHP and then to the others. > Are you considering any new languages or techs, and if so which? > - names / links > Clojure is beautiful. Google Go is intriguing. Scala is sooo powerful (but worries me in terms of Perl's syntactic obfuscation.) However, PHP is practical and sufficient for most of my needs. I've moved away from Object Oriented Programming practices, and only use typical OOP practices/patterns when the conventions of a project dictate its use. As a programmer, I've fully embraced functional programming (and Aspect Oriented programming is neat, but I've not used it in a project, yet.) > Is PHP your hobby/interest, primary development language, just learning or? > I use PHP in a plurality of web projects I'm involved with. > How many years have you been using PHP regularly? > 6 > How many years have you been working with web technologies? > 7 > Did you come from a non-web programming background? > Grad school for cognitive psychology (long story) > Is your primary role web developer or designer? > Both (I'm a one-man shop) > > Do you tend to work on jobs for geo-local clients, clients in the same > country, or do you work internationally 'on the web'? > Local clients. > > How do you get your projects? do they come to you, word of mouth, do you > hunt and bid for projects, code call, visit clients, target clients > individually you think you can help, or? > - not looking for trade secrets, just to get enough for an overall picture. > Word of mouth most often. > > Do you have any frustrations with the PHP community, do you find you want > to talk shop but can't, or find people to work with but can't, have projects > in mind you want to do but can't find people to do them with etc? > I very much enjoy working with PHP, and I hope it's able to keep pace with the other language eco-systems out there. Like it or not, PHP is in stiff competition with many other languages, and while I thoroughly appreciate the community, I'm worried that the hype of other languages (Scala, etc.), the slow adoption of PHP 5.3, and the limited tools (at least relative to the other langauges) for using the NoSQL data persistence solutions (MongoDB, Cassandra, etc.) are restricting PHP's potential growth among the new crop of developers. I have no data to substantiate this worry, however, and the beautiful simplicity of PHP could still provide the impetus needed to stay competitive. > Are there any efforts, projects or initiatives which are floating your boat > right now and that your watching eagerly (or getting involved with)? > Brushing up on C skills so maybe I can try to create some extensions that facilitate functional programming approaches within PHP (currying, etc.) Adam -- Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully http://nephtaliproject.com
From: Larry Garfield on 29 Jul 2010 03:23
On Thursday 29 July 2010 02:07:58 am you wrote: > Hi Larry, > > Thanks for taking the time to reply, a solid insightful one at that - > kudos +1 for your opensource drupal efforts! > > Good of you to mention, and indeed to see, Palinter grasping opensource > with two hands, this is certainly a very credible approach to business > which deservedly reaps good rewards; testament to this is Day Software > (including of course Roy T. Fielding) which it seems is just about to be > bought by Adobe, a big +1 for this approach; and one I hope to see more of. > > With regards drupal development, there is a rather interesting chap > called Stéphane Corlosquet [ http://drupal.org/user/52142 ] who does a > fair bit of committing and really pushes the semantic web / linked data > side of drupal - definitely worth keeping tabs on. Oh I'm familiar with Scor. I've talked with him before about a project I'm working on that is using the amorphous, ill-defined beast known as RDF. :-) --Larry Garfield |