Jim’s opening gambit? “Can you buy elephants on the merch store? Also, it’s giving me a 403 error.” Chaos ensued. Accusations were thrown. Then Jim realized: he was on his work machine. His company VPN doesn’t trust PHP Architect merchandise. The store works fine. Everyone move along.

Fifty Elephants and a Woolly Mammoth

You can gauge how long someone’s been in PHP by counting their elephants. Jim has about 50 in his normal office, plus two oversized ones—including the Franken PHP elephant released two weeks prior. His favorite? The PHP True North woolly mammoth. Chris’s favorite? The first Laravel elephant Jim gave him years ago. This derailed the podcast for a solid five minutes, proving you can derail any PHP discussion with elephant talk.

Note to Self: Get the Elephant Creator on the Podcast

Someone needs to interview Vincent Pontier, the person who creates these beloved elephants. Jim’s had vague Twitter exchanges with him but knows nothing about the man behind the plush. Meanwhile, Damian Sagar probably has the world’s largest collection and gets LinkedIn DMs every time a new elephant drops.

The Boring Answer: He Had to Pick Something

Jim’s origin story involves moving to London to start a theater career. He went to a temping agency that made him photocopy documents for a day and then be a barista in a basement where no one came. Eventually, they sent him somewhere that needed someone who could type, which led to web stuff, which led to PHP. Well, he had to pick something, didn’t he?

Two Jobs for Ten Years Straight

Jim worked in theater and tech simultaneously for a decade. No days off. One holiday—a week in Portugal to see his brother. That’s it. The burnout was magnificent, as he puts it. Eventually, tech won out because you can’t sustain that forever.

Laravel + Symphony = The Innovation Stack

Jim geeks out about how the modern PHP stack is a beautiful collision of Laravel and Symphony innovations. Laravel Boost for AI development? That’s Laravel. Franken PHP as the runtime? That’s Symphony (via Nicolas Grekas and Sensio Labs). The official PHP MCP server? Community-driven. Two parts Laravel, two parts Symphony, pure innovation. Even as a Golang fan, Jim admits PHP’s ecosystem is unmatched.

The Hebrew Constant That Shouldn’t Exist

This is where things get weird. Jim brings up an infamous PHP error constant written in Hebrew (latinized)—something to do with an unexpected colon. It’s a Zend thing, probably created when Zend was based in Tel Aviv. Phil Sturgeon blogged about it years ago. Nobody will ever see this error in their lifetimes… but the fact it still exists is the joke. Mike, being Mike, immediately wants to trigger it. Chris admits he’s made every error possible in PHP—but not this one.

AI: From Skeptic to Believer

Two years ago, Jim would’ve been a disaster guest talking about blockchain. But AI? He can’t call it rubbish anymore. It’s real, it’s changing everything, and he’s cautiously optimistic—though he stops short of discussing AI-generated images of weird political figures. That’s not the rabbit hole for today.

Tomatoes, Cherubs, and Derailing Podcasts

Jim admits his old podcast with Mike Elmore was intentionally derailed as much as possible. One episode barely covered tech at all—they talked about not being able to buy tomatoes in supermarkets and mini cherubs with little willies on churches. “It got weird,” he says. Mike decides it’s probably time to wrap up before they go down another bizarre tangent.

Walking Cynicism Machine

Chris suggests the next episode should be titled “How to Become as Cynical as Jim.” Jim doesn’t disagree. After enough years in this industry, you just end up that way. But hey, at least he’s entertaining.

Listen to hear why you should never Google that Hebrew constant at work, and why the PHP community’s love of collectible elephants is both adorable and slightly concerning.

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