PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 26 Elizabeth Barron

In this episode of PHP Alive and Kicking, hosted by Mike and Chris (from PHP Architect), featuring their guest Elizabeth Barron, the newly appointed Executive Director of the PHP Foundation. The conversation covers Elizabeth’s origin story in PHP (self-teaching in the late 1990s), her vision for the Foundation beyond just funding core developers — including community engagement, evangelising PHP in emerging regions like Africa, and improving documentation. They also discuss the challenge of attracting younger developers to PHP, the lack of PHP-focused educational content and boot-camps, the impact of AI on development (including a wild story about an autonomous AI agent submitting PRs and blogging about being “discriminated against”), the importance of mentoring, and the potential revival of local PHP user groups.

Links:

The PHP Foundation https://thephp.foundation

Elizabeth Barron announcement https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/02/27/welcoming-elizabeth-barron-new-executive-director/

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/

PHP Architect Magazine https://www.phparch.com/magazine/

PHP Tek Conference https://tek.phparch.com

PHP Architect Swag Store https://store.phparch.com

PHP Architect Discord https://discord.phparch.com

PHP.tv https://php.tv

Laracasts https://laracasts.com

SymfonyCasts https://symfonycasts.com

Displace Technologies https://displace.te

certificates.dev https://certificates.dev

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