The PHP Podcast 2025.10.30

This week on the PHP Podcast, Eric and John discuss Longhorn, JSTek, PHP 8.5 Website Design, the User Group Meetup, and more.

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The PHP Podcast streams the recording of this podcast live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Host:

Eric Van Johnson

John Congdon

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The PHP Podcast streams the recording of this podcast live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

Host:

Eric Van Johnson

John Congdon

Streams:

Partner

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Displace

PHPScore

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger.io

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

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Transcript

PHP Podcast – Episode Transcript

Video: Watch on YouTube

Show Summary

In this episode of the PHP Podcast, the hosts discuss recent updates in the PHP ecosystem, highlighting new frameworks, security trends, and the evolving role of PHP in modern web development. They share insights on developer productivity, community events, and upcoming conferences, while reflecting on lessons from past projects and future opportunities in open source collaboration.

Transcript

[00:15] hey we’re back the the official podcast of PHP architect this is episode 2025.10 30 our Halloween edition oh look at you changing the fonts there, I know, I’m a PHP developer and that’s what I was last year too I’m still playing the role you know uh I’m your host Eric Johnson and with me is John congen hello hello this podcast focuses on all things PHP, in web development, web development we touched on a large PHP community and the General Life of being a professional developer and of course we’re going to talk about our company PHP architect, the swag the mag ah that was all the cool baby the swag the mag what up uh books conferences Consulting all the good things. We record every week except for the weeks we’re at a conference around 3 pm Pacific time and this podcast is made a little better things to our partners over at this place right this place that’s what Yep this place that Tech infrastructure management simplified automate kubernetes deployments across all cloud,

[01:31] providers or bare metal with a single command deployed managed and scale infrastructure with ease we’ll talk about that a little later, if you’re not watching this live and you’re listening to the audio podcast you really should consider tuning in live you can talk with us you can be part of the show all you have to do is go over to the YouTube channel at youtube.com PB Arch I’m just I’m just trying to trying to follow your lead man I’m trying to follow your lead but the way you were talking about that I’m like oh he’s going to I was I was and join us in our Discord Channel at Discord PHP arch.com and uh yeah you can contribute to the show we’ve got some HP architects in there now you you you that’s watching us right now on YouTube. Hit the like And subscribe please thank you what are you doing oh oh okay what are you pointing to man what do you want from them I think this asking a lot, if you’re not watching us ignore that part.

[02:35] Your back Jeff where are you where are you back from I didn’t know you were gone not that I didn’t miss you I totally missed you what what we were going to so I mean we we were. We were at Longhorn last week for a day and a half a very short trip to it was very it it seems so much shorter when you when you told me, that they do they still do a full day of tutorials I forgot about that yeah so yeah it just seems so much shorter yeah. Right we got I don’t think I don’t think I yeah we’ll talk about that in a minute I don’t think I realized that they do the tutorial day. Either because I’m so used to PHP Tech where we do a the full 3-day conference and. So when we were talking about it I’m like oh we’ll be there for a day and a half well the first day tutorial day is a little bit smaller which is kind of nice and gives you time to set up and and do things but. It’s finally started its rolling the next day and that was Friday and we were there till lunchtime and then right after lunch we were gone.

[03:43] I mean we still have the Ferguson there we did have the Ferguson there, yeah he was he had done a talk and he could he was actually representing PHP architect with some pride he had his little PHP architect Polo on looked good looked good yeah we we didn’t get a picture with all of us that kind of sucked. With the we did get a picture of us with with the blowing up a knot with Joe is what I meant not with Joe yeah I know yeah yeah it was a very short picture because it was so loud oh my gosh so we bought this these blow up logos which I think is going to look and be really cool at Tech where we have, the entire venue but at Longhorn the goal is to have the PHP architect logo behind us blown up and it’s huge and you know. Catch people’s eyes and get get them to come over I plugged it in for literally 2 seconds I’m like oh no that’s not going to work it was very loud. Let’s see oh I’m trying to no stop stop trying to move on over there trying to do move the picture over to the browser there we go.

[04:51] So I can share it I’m going to share with people oh, there you go except we didn’t we didn’t not what’s what is we did not compose this very well, no we have tables in the way and we were trying to be quick because it was so loud we’re like let’s get this picture done and we can get back to exactly we got the mirror the mirror the mirror is what’s messing with my mind it’s like wait a minute, so for banana for scale my my banana head is about 63 so you can get an idea of how how tall it is it’s it’s cool it’s it’s comfy you can actually lay on it when you’re deflating, wonder if you could do it while blowing up just throw it on its side and treat it like a little bed. All right but we’ve got to expose somebody yeah you got to do it you’re gonna do that now yeah me too. This person right here oh I’m just sharing this person right here Diana Pham she’s a bully.

[06:00] PHP architect was a magazine they would always be on the cover that triggers me every time I hear I’m like I really hope she was being funny there because the whole thing is funny and but I shared it with somebody else and they’re like damn that was cold it was super cold man magazine they would always be on the cover. That 1 right there that’s Max Chambers. He is 1 of the dumbest guys you’ll ever meet that little 1 is Chuck Reed that’s funny cuz he’s not little Chuck knows everything about Bonn is PHP SDK that’s why his beard is so big. Oh the secrets an evil takes a human form in Diana fan she might seem like your typical selfish backstabbing soulless snake, but in reality she is much more than that can you tell me about Vonage why are you so obsessed with her how many of you have ever felt personally victimized by dying.

[07:06] I think we are the best actors for sure actually I told you earlier we we do shorts on our YouTube but it’s usually clips of our shows and our different, media but I had 1 for. Using a piece of that and kind of in the style of the old commercials with. Ethiopian children or you know you think of of a sad commercial of the past and, talking about Diana Pham is an elephant abuser and you need to adopt 1 of ours today to protect them from Diana. I wouldn’t pull mileage out of that yeah I went and pulled a few more of our we still have some Archies and some Leona’s left in stock I pulled a few more out of stock today are out of uh. Our storage unit and storage have them ready to ship yeah and what can you get those. You actually have to go to our store now uh our merch store store.php I guess I should open. Damn thought it’s all good it’s all I wanted I wanted to be able to show the well I I put it up there the lower third we’re good,

[08:28] you don’t have to pull that yeah that’s that’s actually where you get all this I swear I get the got this really cool I love this hat this gray here it’s my favorite hat I wear my little little swag shirt it was cool to see Scott wearing, is community Corner share there that actually turned out really well as well. So yeah some good stuff man you had a good time yeah Joe says long run was fun Omni makes some great beer he does his Chocolate Stout oh so good, what no was an invited apparently again you are not it was a super secret. Party I went to you were invited you just with the bed at like 3:00 in the afternoon old man I mean I just had dinner. Yeah so um on Wednesday the tutorial not Thursday the tutorial de a few of us went and got dinner. And then afterwards they had a a Meetup in the hotel so partial online so I guess merge PHP was. Broadcasting. The Meetup that was happening so lightning talks it was good afterwards bunch of us went out to the bar area and sat around talking a bunch.

[09:48] Then I decided to go play poker came back, and the party had moved up to omni’s room and I guess said that Chocolate Stout is delicious although I kept myself to 1 because Eric told me if I got drunk again and showed up hung over at our booth I was fired so. He came down last last long we’re looking like The Big Lebowski man just like. Well I’m like you gotta take the robe off John I was hurting that time but in my defense I don’t think I’ve ever been late. To getting down to our booth whenever whenever we sponsored or Tech I’ll stay up late and still make it on time. Ian and the team did a pretty good job, may I applaud them they did it was hot though my God I mean I I’m you know Southern California is still pretty warm like we got up to 90 today but like, that’s 1 of the reasons why I look forward to like going to other places it’s like it’s October shouldn’t be this hot. We’re inside we’re inside most of the time you don’t realize it it’s all good.

[10:58] Yeah this is true it’s just weird I’m running my AC on October 30th what what the hell is that about uh if you’re in our Discord Channel people are sharing pictures from Longhorn. There’s a picture what there’s a sort of omni and his Kegerator he usually has I think there’s 4 Taps on their so good. You open this up in my browser oh Jesus I don’t want to open how do I go to it in my open browser jeez oh flip man let’s go oh that’s cute. I was actually going to wear a Halloween shirt today but I didn’t you know I don’t I am not dressing up this year it’s weird. I’m not a big dresser upper person either I’ve never been I feel I feel bad because when the kids were young and they and they still do they they do a pretty job job at it that’s the Karina huh yeah oh I didn’t share you did not I’m on the wrong table. That is massive so he he Wheels this thing in every year. That’s cool that’s I assume that’s like a Well it can’t be a freezer right it has to be like a fridge yeah.

[12:06] Huh nice man got the stickers that’s fucking just hang around and talk and. Yeah and it’s the it’s I mean it’s the Holiday Inn, him Austin so it’s when I say this take it with a grain of salt but it’s the presidential suite yeah which is you know just a bigger room well it’s nice yeah. Yeah even marks the alcohol content oh that’s cool. Yeah I would know didn’t get get to go up there I I’m hurt to be honest with you you left so quick you left right after the meet up and didn’t even tell me you were leaving you were just gone I literally told you hey I’m I’m bailing and patted you on the back and you were talking to I forget who you’re talking about so was I supposed to like call you and wake you up saying hey I’m going up down these. Yes oh well you gotta tell me that. Yeah just come in and spoon with me I mean that would have been nice hi Chad my car my key card oh my God, oh my god listen listen this was too funny and I’m not making it up John fortunately was there and could validate it for me so if you haven’t been listening to the show,

[13:18] I’ve been living this nightmare where back in June I have a downstairs and I have 2 bathrooms downstairs and within. 2 months they both have these weird weird failures where the first 1 was the big 1 where the water tank on the back of the toilet cracked in half and flooded my whole pretty much my whole first floor, but we have a front bedroom that that was spared which has its own bathroom, and then like a month later that you know had a catastrophic failure and flooded that bathroom I don’t remember me telling me that I don’t remember the first 1. Oh you didn’t know about that no you really don’t pay attention to me at all you don’t share, I share everybody else here knows everybody else so anyways we’ve been dealing with insurance and the the people coming out to like, clean it up and then put it back together together and so a couple weeks ago that whole thing started, actually I’m going off course it doesn’t matter it’s almost done being repaired but it was a crazy crazy Journey.

[14:30] We’re in we’re at Longhorn and I think it was the first day you know we we we had flown in so I think it was the tutorial day right and we’re getting ready to go out to dinner, and so I run upstairs to I forget why to grab something you’re changing your shirt. I was changing my shirt that’s I didn’t want to get my shirt dirty yeah yeah yeah my my Polo and I stepped in my bathroom and I stepped in water, and my bathroom in my hotel room had flooded and I’m like. God you kidding me this can’t be happening it wasn’t me I promise everybody is not me I’m not blowing up these bathrooms. But I mean like I have got to have bathroom failures out of my life for like the next 20 years man it was too funny. And then our back and forth it was it was hilarious to because he did happen to take a phone call up there so asking did you hear the water running on their end, well that’s right oh I totally forgot about that I had gone to my room for a meeting and,

[15:40] funny enough it was with the same client and I must not have used the bathroom when I done that because you know obviously I I didn’t realize it at that point. Yeah I totally forgot about that do you said something man me and bathrooms I tell you what that’s fine that’s why nobody invites me over for dinner you’re terrified of them. You know their bathroom it’s horrible yeah all right I have an idea that I wanted to run by you. I do love your ideas you’re a good idea I don’t know if you’ve ever had a bad 1 so lay it on me PHP Tech coming up, love PHP tag oh wait wait let me share the website don’t you got you’ve got to warn me of this stuff I did let me share the website. The beautiful beautiful website PHP Tech main 19th through the 21st next year. 2026 which is next year 2026 correct that’s not what the flyer said that’s a whole another. All right we we sponsored Longhorn we are at Longhorn you know obviously we want people to subscribe to the magazine we want people to come to PHP Tech.

[16:58] Sorry we’re running a business that’s what we need people to do Eric we print out flyers to get to people and Eric sent it to me and said hey can you proofread this, and I don’t think I saw it in time and he’s like I’m ordering I was probably out doing something and we we were we were hitting a deadline because we had to get it to the hotel in time for them to put it in the swag bag so I’m like I got to order which worked so well I must I’m so happy we spent that extra money to get that done. We get there and they’re like we don’t have them and the hotel says we never got them and they let us go in the back room or looking through all the boxes. And I’m like it came from Staples where we have nothing from Staples. And they show me there’s this other little shelf up with a bunch of mail and they’re like this is just other mail that come in and I’m like that 1’s from Staples right there and they’re like oh son of a,

[17:53] anyway we we take out the stack of papers and realize crap it says 2025 instead of 2026.

[18:12] Not only does it say that but where last year it said 22nd 22nd we just changed it to 21 ND the 21, yeah oh that’s what it was I knew I knew there was something else anyway anyway you’re getting me off track here PHP Tech next year we always have yes, like we always say PHP or P PHP adjacent web technology something developers are going to be interested in. Yeah yeah pretty much I mean basically the the talk doesn’t have to be a PHP talk it could be other things that PHP developers would would take interest in you that’s kind of our stable so my idea because I have a friend that’s been pushing me he he really wants me to throw a JavaScript conference. And I’m like. Like first thing he’s not a real friend go ahead like but my passion is PHP and our PHP community and that’s I don’t know enough. About JavaScript or JavaScript Developers. So anyway my in my in not to mention we don’t have the time to put on another conference there congen okay okay but hear me out what if we don’t put on another conference.

[19:27] But we I I like that but we have a sister conference JS Tech alongside PHP Tech we, figure out the room situation and we whether it’s 1 2 7 tracks whatever we need to put this on was talking about are you a Madman what’s wrong with you have you been you’ve been trying to pot again haven’t you yes that’s the problem that’s a different topic, I don’t I I don’t know, like Broad in the community that my thought is if if there’s JavaScript developers that are interested in learning more about JavaScript. We’ll have a track dedicated to JavaScript or 2 tracks whatever it is but they may be PHP curious, and they can come over to the PHP they can go to a PHP to you’re hoping to convert JavaScript developers to PHP yeah I don’t know man I’m just I’m curious Discord what would be your take on this. Feel free to chime in Chris Miller he’s just he’s just, that’s about it I mean not his position is but you can’t be that excited Chris and not only is he in he is so in shame is in

[20:45] that’s nice you’re a big topic last night Shane you and Simon and Native PHP mobile which I apparently you have to say every show now yep we will talk more about that in a little bit. Okay could just cut me I’m I’m trying to move on from this topic because I’m just weirded out man all right well then you’re not going to like this. I already opened a call for papers what I thought we had this conversation. I thought it was such a good idea I’m like what if I just start putting this in place and we just make it happen. I mean if I put it out there Eric can’t stop it exactly man where’s you got a link for it whereas the link I just I just put it in there. Although I realized I got to actually uh do 1 more thing, don’t tell anybody I’m fixing it as we speak refresh refresh take it out take it out. Almost done there’s like that it’s not just 1 Click huh no because you actually need to. Do this thing you actually have to pay for it oh that piece yeah that that piece.

[22:14] Hey you’re in trouble now because the links hit Discord so there we go we’re good now we’re good now yeah go over, call for papers JS Tech 2026 well this is weird it’s in the same Hotel I was thinking we just put them in a cheaper hotel for sure, must be fun I was I was thinking just putting some tents outside the hotel. PHP Tech yeah we’re gonna have to clean this up so that’s actually funny I like it I think how many people are actually can go show up JS Tech I mean JS conferences aren’t that big know are they know. Not a huge so the I mean we’re all we’re working together anyway let’s, let’s socialize together make something of it try it out see what happens interesting so it’s going to be interesting to see how many how many papers we get and so call for papers for Tech in this tomorrow tomorrow today. Today not tomorrow that’s the that’s the opening for. I opened them today for JS Tech so JS Tech is open all November

[23:26] to get an extra month I see you’re trying you’re trying yeah yeah I see where you’re yeah let me let me start it today and end it tomorrow that’d be great man 100% I’m sorry I keep putting grapes in my mouth because I’m addicted to grapes and I then I realized it’s hard to talk with it yeah you probably shouldn’t do that while we’re recording. Just saying so yeah let’s let’s try it out let’s see what happens it it may be a 1 and done type of thing this year. But are just a done type of thing I will fight you tooth and nail to the day of you better hope it doesn’t fail because I’m going to never let you forget it yeah, call for speakers for PHP Tech closes tomorrow please get your submissions in if you are interested in helping us rate the talks. I forget what we offered last year but we will discount a ticket to Tech for you in exchange for your help it does take. A couple of hours of your time it’s not it really does not a quick thing but it would it definitely helps us out as far as figuring out,

[24:31] the more people we have to do it we get an idea of what people are interested in seeing what talks sound good what talks don’t and then we we take those results. Start to decide what we what the schedule actually is. And honestly it’s pretty simple for you to do so the the the workflow is you’re presented with 3 stalks you you don’t see who’s giving the talks you’re just given the title and I think the synopsis, maybe yeah and that’s it right you don’t know who it is, yeah it gives you 3 at a time and it wants you to rank which talk you’d be most likely to go to of those 3. Yeah then second most third most ideally that’s how you do it 1 2 3 you can you can say skip talks like I have zero interest in this talk don’t show it to me again because the talks will come back and they’ll go up against other talks you know it’s the algorithm is just trying to figure out what what is what are the most popular talks so so that’s why it takes some time because

[25:32] all the talks that get submitted you rank them 3 at a time, but it’s not you don’t just go through the list 1 time you kind of circle back around and then then you start to gamify it it becomes torturous I’ve been at 89% for like 4 hours now come on. It’s funny because every now and then it’ll drop down and that that take up you go from like 84% to 73% it’s like what what just happened yes it does go down it doesn’t go down that drastically don’t be too freaked out it feels pretty drastic you doing it I will do a better job encouraging people this year like, if it’s a talk you have absolutely no interest in just say hey no like you can there’s a option or if it’s a talk you think definitely deserves to be in their rate it that like. This is a definite in definite out I think people are a little too worried about using those and I I think I’m going to encourage it more. Chris has already submitted a talk yeah don’t look at it though we can’t look at it because then we know who did it but cool man yeah help get the word out uh if this is something that interests you all.

[26:39] Yeah try to get the word out where where kind of crunched for time right now yeah this was a literally a very last minute decision. Yeah I think it came up today bad decision but sure all right cool I want to move on what else we have to talk about you did a good job last night oh wait before we do all that let’s thank our. Friends over at this place they’re they’re helping make this easier. Thank you to our partners over at displaced Technologies building PHP applications is your passion managing Cloud infrastructure shouldn’t be your headache. Displaces your partner in Cloud infrastructure orchestration giving solo developers and small teams the tools and automation to deploy enterprise-grade kubernetes clusters. Without the Enterprise grade complexity or cost. Their CLI tools streamlines everything from local development to fully managed Cloud deployments on AWS Azure Google Cloud platform and more.

[27:43] Skip the Steep learning curve of Docker kubernetes and terraform let their automation free you to focus on your core business without losing control of your infrastructure get started at displays. Tech. D i s p l a c e. T e c h and discover how the right tools can eliminate the need for a full devops team thank you this place this place, for this I got something good I was just gonna say for those that don’t know display Technologies is owned and run by our friends Eric Mann great member of the community highly recommend him, columnist PHP architect the security corner for PP architect yep so I heard I heard I heard a rumor and I don’t know if it’s true but it’s hysterical if it is maybe somebody in our Discord can confirm you know the the latest AWS outage they’re really it was like a crazy big outage they had, I guess this 1 company had been bragging about how oh yeah you know where where,

[28:46] we have Disaster Recovery we deployed to AWS and and Microsoft as aser Azure Azure Azure azure so if 1 goes down we’re still up. And then it came. To the realization that azer is dependent on AWS like it’s there’s some component about it so when AWS went down they went down, I don’t know if it’s true but if it is that would be just hysterical that is. Although I I didn’t check digital ocean I mean digital ocean could be in the same boat who knows yeah that that’s the whole thing right you’re supposed to be able to. Drop your stuff in your code and make it work in any of the environments but not if they all work together. That’s right yeah epic games had a huge outage so talking with Spencer who works for Rocket League. They were acquired by epic and technically their stuff didn’t go down because they’re not on us East 1 but the Epic. Login was down, because they host everything on us East or the Dynamo DB which is in Us East 1 or however that works.

[30:05] Is that true digital ocean is built on AWS I thought that I don’t know I wouldn’t be surprised I saw Shane put that in Discord yeah it it would be interesting to find that out yeah I don’t know.

[30:26] Oh was that that you just you just let people know that uh rocket League was down know it’s just it’s just interesting how you you can make your code work and be. Scalable and work in other regions and like if that happens it doesn’t affect you and so it does because you know some micros service that you rely on is. Requiring AWS in that region that’s all I was saying. It was good to see Spencer so fun fact for trivia questions in the future when we were just so crazy huge people will say did you know Spencer was Employee. 3 I guess if you and I are 1 and 2 Spencer was the first person to come work with us when we started Diego Dev. We oh that that University just passed actually yep when when you and I signed 2 days ago. Yeah submitted the paperwork for Diego de that’s crazy I saw that come up on my calendar I’m like wait what. How how 13 years ago yeah 13 years ago. Ah yep back in 2024 Shane April fools October 24 yeah of course.

[31:39] Good 1 yeah that was crazy so so yeah Spencer worked with us for for a long time and uh then bailed and went to work for a rocket league and. Yeah he worked on a couple of crazy projects the the the mafia game 1 was very interesting, oh this is this was with us that this isn’t 1 of epic’s games I forgot about the mafia game we’ve had some weird clients but yeah Mafia game was 1 of our first customers yeah oh I forgot about that 1 holy smokes. Copy him. Yeah we had we’ve had some we’ve had some challenging clients yeah she’s causing all sorts of trouble in our Discord look at that now people are coming coming back saying no no no no. Yeah so John good presentation yesterday last minute throw together thank you shouldn’t have been so last minute considering we knew for a couple of weeks that we did not have a presenter and that 1 of us was going to have to present. And concerning you did the last 1 I probably should step up and then I mean I did take an easy way out PHP 8.5 what you need to know I just went through the,

[33:00] deprecations the what’s being removed and then what was new in PHP 85, I felt like I don’t know how long it actually took because I paused my timer, early on as we were still getting things set up and figured out and I never started it back up and we got started super late because. The place we host babies needed to be saved Jiang you you monster babies needed to be saved, the place that hosts us for the Meetup. It’s it’s a co-working space and this group of people that teach CPR uses the same space. But they weren’t supposed to be there last night and I didn’t get there till 6:00 and they started at 5:30 so I I walk in and there’s like 10 people in there and. Like hitting babies and smacking them and blowing in their face for some reason it was very weird, that’s not really what happened but anyway I opened I’m like damn it and closed it and walked back out and started looking around for where where we were going to host.

[34:07] Because we were expecting 10 to 15 people ourselves, luckily they they came out what a quarter till and said oh we’ll be done in 15 minutes and like 30 minutes later I finally like looked in and she’s like oh you can come in as she’s hitting the back of a baby, by the way these are CPR dummies I don’t know if we made that clear but she’s like you can come in. And she’s like holding it by the neck I’m like I don’t think that’s how you do that yeah I I heard from our host by the way he apologized and said uh there was a he he didn’t understand what happened because. You know he he has some poll and so he apologized and tracked down what the problem was and assured us that he make sure that doesn’t happen again but but it was a good turnout in the really interesting thing about it so we had a quite a few new people quite a 1 new old person like 1 person who was around you know before the pandemic hit and all that as a regular to our meetups showed up it was good to see him again.

[35:13] So yeah the topic of actually I think John brought it up native PHP mobile and somebody was like okay what what’s what’s that what’s that we just ended up going down this Rabbit Hole of of you know what it was how you use it like you I like how you said well if you were here last month you would know all about it or the last meet up I had, yeah yeah that was my that was actually my talk so snarkiness with them.

[35:54] Yeah see ya QR code working it come on man it’s holding me up, holding me up man oh all right we talked to what I want to do well let’s do this 1 because we talked a couple weeks ago about. I’m assuming this is what I think it is. This is the 1o is on I think it was 1 was it anyway. The foundation is was is was or is giving out a $1,000 prize for redesigning php.net. It’s time for a facelift although nobody nobody needs to submit anymore it’s it’s been. Basically locked down now locked down with this 1 because yeah this is the winner, I think so let me before I share it I’m trying to find the announcement I I can’t even find it now come on, PHP Foundation I should not have to click around to find that okay yeah what John said is truthful I I will I will vouch for that but yeah no I mean I don’t I’m not sure there’s a reason to for anybody to else to submit. There’s our winner right there is this it right here oh no.

[37:09] It was this was actually shared in our selection I think Chris is actually 1 of the posted in the slack Channel yeah you you if you if you’re a young person you weren’t around for the early days of the internet you might not have the same appreciation for this but like the visitor count up here in the right hand corner beautiful just beautiful yeah yeah this is great, you know what’s funny is like it really doesn’t look that bad like there’s some obvious stuff that looks bad but like these boxes like this box here that’s that’s nice little CSS work there the spin the spin it the spinning elephant. Yeah I I can’t figure that 1 it’s supposed to be doing why is it spinning maybe that’s the loading the the the Ajax loading thing instead of the spinner. It would be you know you know oh we need to make a browser error page like Google’s, dinosaur jumping and make it a elephant jumping there you go that’s what we need to do,

[38:09] but yeah this is great and somebody spent time on this actually real time and I’m sure they weren’t expecting you to get what is that what is that I didn’t even see this. They spent way too much time on it. So I when I Googled for this contest. Oh here here it is I’ve got a link to it now yeah link design contest yes here. Oop and I’ll drop it over here. Yeah grand prize $1,000 sponsored by jet brains honorable mentions with credit in the footer of the page for I guess a few Runners up. Uh I don’t know when this closes how does oh I didn’t even see this deadlines already passed October 22nd. Uh I didn’t see this see nobody likes JavaScript John minimal know it’s actually a requirement for this, no new build tools or Frameworks that’s a big like fuzzy thing to say. All right mobile first and F oh please tell me this is B where’d it go where’d it go. Where’d it go John did do I still have it open I don’t know oh that’s I’m sharing we’re gonna do this live we’re gonna open the inspector.

[39:36] We’re going to go to mobile, it’s me it’s mobile it’s 100% mobile look at it I guess it is yeah it’s beautiful oh my God this is so I’m voting for this. Dragon so beautiful oh I want to know who did it. Short list announced October 2nd list was already announced and the winner is going to be announced on Saturday where’s the short list I don’t know. I’m just looking at the Timeline it says a short list is going to be announced on October 23rd which is well past at this point. What 20 23rd the 23rd yeah you’re right yeah that’d be interesting Community voting ends today. So I don’t know where where you do that at, were we supposed to be taking part in this process there’s Community voting like for anybody or just internal people it says Community I need more information see the pinned con there you go. But see the pin lost it already contest tracking issue with all entries for easy browsing.

[40:50] Or give me a link buddy scroll down to the timeline. Uh scroll down there’s a timeline right here yep and right above that that Blue Link contest tracking issue. Don’t worry we’re doing it live people hey it’s it’s How We Roll the migrate alone you monster yeah they’re actually really bad for dogs. I had I had it’s actually my cat oh. I had to have my dog’s stomach pumped because he ate grapes are you kidding I thought I thought they weren’t good because they are choking hazard the the dog got. No no I think they’re I think groups are poisonous to dogs if I remember oh jeez that is horrible yeah so wait, okay what am I you said something I don’t know we’re we’re wasting too much time I don’t know we’re not wasting time I’m having a good time you’re wasting time if you’re not enjoying yourself if you don’t like being part of the community then yeah maybe you should become a JavaScript developer John

[41:47] I’m sorry I’m lashing out. I want to see supposedly on the issues they’re supposed to be here I just don’t know where at yeah I don’t I don’t get it I’m not seeing the entries. You said you said there was there should have been a pin song right I don’t see anything pinned no not pinned it just it was just this. I was just this yeah maybe nobody maybe nobody submitted why do they why do they keep submitting this link. I I don’t get it man there’s a there’s a design contest channel on the phpc chat service. Okay well I I didn’t I didn’t take part of it so what whoever whatever design they pick I I do not support it. You your vote then account is what you’re trying to say yeah yeah, you know they don’t they don’t hear from me they make that clear a few releases ago they didn’t want me to be part of their though Insight Circle I mean I should become a JavaScript developer you know. More accepting of us people I don’t know if that’s true desire.

[42:55] Right um I had something I want to talk about I forget what it was now oh you’re gonna like this I keep getting to talk about this I gotta share this because I keep forgetting to talk about you you can throw it in your in show notes if you want I don’t care but, for the merch store you know I’m always trying to think of like new merch ideas to do and 1 of our, 1 of our developers Brooks who, oddly enough is a JavaScript developer might explain a lot he he’s a big Aquaria aquarium person he has a lot of sea urchins and he sent this uh this link to me and I’m like, I want to see urgent now you can buy hats for your sea urchins. I’m like okay new swag idea this is happening we’re we’re buying we’re making peace be an elephant hats for urchins sea urchins. Uh yeah yeah I thought this now now now I want to see urchin look at the it’s the top hat I mean come on awesome funny is that. They’re only twenty dollars in Mickey Mouse hat,

[44:11] with the with the clown fish so that’s a that was a thing I like that, oh man according to. Boss jab I’m sorry I’m not sure of how how to say it uh voting has been extended until November 2nd so your vote can still be. Put in yeah you know we didn’t talk about work at all have you been doing any PHP development have I. No No I didn’t I’m still in this yes I have been I’m still in the the free switch world so I’m switching from asterisk to free switch and yes so this week I had to install an extension event socket Library library extension for. PHP to connect to free switch and finally got that working oh interesting the documentation wasn’t clear that and I’m. Not reading top to bottom on like I know what I need to do because I want to exactly what I did in asterisk it’s like how do I do this in free switch and. I made it work I finally got it there for some reason I was able to call a method send on this connection which maybe maybe you know or somebody can help me.

[45:37] I have the extension installed in a Docker container dude look at this chord. But PHP storm doesn’t seem to know anything about it while I’m heading over there trying to we were just talking about this individual and how much we missed them. Buttery buttery where your ears burning to somebody reach out to you we were talking about you I don’t think we talked about it on the show look we do have a hat on an elephant we do. Yeah you can’t change that though it’s sewn in did we talk about buggy on the show I think I was on the show. Oh okay all I can remember Yeah couple weeks ago we missed you buddy uh just out of curiosity I’m not I’m not dating you or trying to go down any Rabbit Hole or anything but did you use AI at all to help you try to figure this out. Of course, oh okay cool I I bounced around from Claude and chat GPT a lot as far as like trying to get answers quickly on how to do things I used chat gbt for Something Completely,

[46:45] non code related that I felt like oh shit that that was actually helpful I need to, remember to do that more often I I use it a lot for non-coded stuff actually really I never I mean I don’t have a lot of non Co code stuff that I’m not already a master and so you know you know what I’m saying, but yeah yeah talking about coding. I have wondered in I have wondered into a codebase of our a legacy application.

[47:19] We always knew like. Not the greatest code that we we inherited we we’ve been trying to like clean it up clean it up I ended up in a function. A fucking function job 639 lines of function that was there was a bigger class around it, God I can keep any of that in your head he just can’t. And and it’s funny because you know so the the the project that. I I’ve been teasing for a while that we’re getting ready to release I mean I’m not teasing it like nobody can use it it’s a customer project that for their clients I mean it’s not like it’s not like it’s anything cool but. It it it’s been a lot of time a lot of effort to get this thing developed and we’re so close we’re so close and we’re working out some. Nitty-gritty stuff but 1 of the nitty-gritty stuff we’re working out is trying to decide should we. It happens to be the same client I had the school bees and we’re we’re thinking okay should we make this a microservice like we keep playing this game of

[48:36] yeah I was big on the micros service bandwagon for a while but like nobody seemed interested in it it was really hard to get people to understand the architecture and how we’re going to use them so I had backpedal more at backpedal from it I’m like yeah this actually makes sense like who wants to manage all these repos and every time laravel they were all laravel apps so every time the laravel came out we’d have to start updating you know go through and start updating a bunch of repos I mean it has its benefits because like if a microser went down the whole application would go down so that was a plus but that topic has come up again it’s like should should this phone application be its own microservice that the the things that it needs to use, and you know I keep going back and forth and then I look at this codebase I’m like yeah no this is why we need microservices because shit like this like we’re trying to add this you know 1 little functionality in the codebase that has a function that’s 639 lines.

[49:33] So that’s what I’m dealing with right now with phone burner, we had the Legacy app that is massive and a pain in the ass to work in and has Legacy issues just because it didn’t start out. With where it’s at today start out as something completely different for completely different industry a lot of the ways that the things work like. You would think organizations have users and it’s just not that same way within the code base very hard to deal with. And that’s when we spun up that new framework. Based on what we use on the day-to-day basis but much more optimized and it is a pleasure to work with but, for for the for the record he he’s not being vague when he said that new framework it was a framework they had developed internally right it the, yes yeah and it’s open source it’s available. It’s called salt light know now it’s called pinch a little pinch of salt pinch I like that we we it was renamed anyway then we went down this microservices path and I kid you not I get so frustrated because it’s like.

[50:48] When you start talking about making a change is like well where do I make the change what who’s supposed to know what who’s not supposed to know what and it just gets to be a little frustrating because it’s like. I want to run this new application but I need like 4 or 5 microservices and it’s it’s a nightmare, like I I did I get the appeal like what you’re talking about you want to spend this 1 little thing off to do something but man is it a pain in the butt, yeah I guess there are a lot of like approaches you can take with it, I think it was Frank of our team it’s like well let’s just make you know the microservices should be like whatever domain they’re in control of you know that’s it should be like a domain driven microservice, I’m like oh that makes a lot of sense but yeah these all these going to be pluses and minuses I mean again depending on what your budget looks like microservices just mean more servers maybe smaller servers but more servers,

[51:49] right so like yeah there’s a lot of pluses and minuses I can’t. I can easily be convinced to go either route the authentication piece is a nightmare yeah everything is. Just a lot a lot to wrap your head around I’m sure once you get into it, it’s fine but with a small team having a lot of microservices makes it hard where if it’s it’s different if you have a very large team and each team has its own microservice that they maintain. It seems a little more doable but really I need more of an explanation what do you mean microservices are a corporate architecture not a software architecture that’s an interesting comment but yeah. Yeah yeah I get what you’re saying yeah that’s that’s a real issue but again the other plus thing about it is microservices if you have a big enough team. You know teams can be assigned to a microservice. Exactly what I just said oh is it I’m sorry I was reading about a re stuff yeah yeah I don’t know man that’s what I was saying it’s definitely different if you have the the teams behind it,

[53:00] in each theme has its own it’s responsible for its microser when you get together and you’re like we need to work together here’s how we’re going to do it but you’re making. Ahead of the time you know okay I’m responsible for this and I’m making the change in my micros service where right now everyone is in charge of every micro service and then. You know that if I add something to codebase a that relies on codebase B. I’m going to do it and then they’re going to say no that should have been a code base B the whole time and I’m going to be like all right well the way my brain works especially with development I have a hard time jumping into code bases code you know I need to like that you know get like get my footing again especially if it’s a code piece I haven’t visited in a couple months and that’s the other part part with microservices like oh why did I do it this way and I was like I created the microser I I should know why it’s architected a certain way and I’m like I’m trying I’m trying finding myself trying to remember why I’ve done it and.

[54:04] Mhm yeah I don’t know what we’re going to do. Oh sometimes yep yep okay you had reminded me of something I want to talk about totally forgot what it was before we wrapped up. Yeah new a new Alive and Kicking tomorrow this will be a recorded a recorded show uh they did have a live 1 on Tuesday if you want to go back and watch it great great show by the way, I actually got in there doing a lot of chatting they had I saw that yeah I didn’t I didn’t mean to throw them off as much as I guess I did yeah yeah I saw you I saw you were in there I was actually not around I think I was dealing with the house people at the time. And I I just gotten like the social media. Out before I went and dealt with them but yeah a lot of kicking Community Corners still going strong and then like John was saying earlier so Scott kick Warren does more than Community Corners Community corner is like an abbreviated version of a live and Cakey or a live and kicking is like an extended version of community Corner a community corner he talks Scott talks to people in the community for these quick

[55:14] interviews like 15 minutes typically but he he also has these this longer format where he does educational videos which I love he’s really kind of. Finding his Pace with that he does a really good job with that so uh if you haven’t checked him out if you’re listening to the audio podcast head over to our YouTube channel like we said earlier PHP Arch and uh subscribe. Yeah I forget I forget what else you you mentioned something like oh shit we should bring that up and then I figured out what it was urgent hats know we talked about that that’s for Urgent nope that’s not it no, yeah yeah I don’t remember the other day it’ll probably soon as we hit yeah we almost I got a question for you before we hang up, before before we end this because I really don’t want to have to talk to you again this week it’s gonna take me a while to get over this JS Tech conversation we had as somebody who, you you know you you do a good amount of meetings I do a lot a lot of meetings like my meeting schedule is getting more and more packed and I I’ve always hated me meetings but I understand and,

[56:20] in this situation it’s a little different so when I worked for a big Enterprise I was literally in meetings pretty much 80% of the day every day. And we all work for the same company like why are we in so many meetings it drove me bonkers I even had suggested to our CTO like we should just say 1 day a week nobody can schedule meetings like this seem like simple to me you know like 1 day a week nobody schedules meetings but so I’ve I’ve always been very anti I’ve always been anti project managers and like the daily standups used to drive me crazy I’m like you’re, you’re our project manager why do I have to sit into a daily standup with you listening to everybody’s status why don’t you already know everybody’s status which is actually something I’m working on, today where I’m I’m making sure I’m keeping track of everybody’s status every day without disturbing them but, the last I think it was last week before we left for Longhorn I feel like I couldn’t get out of Zoom,

[57:20] and it wasn’t always a meeting like I you know Casey people were saying hey you got a few minutes I want to talk to you about something and I feel bad because like Frank was 1 of them Frank was like, hey I really want to talk to you about this 1 thing and I’m like I’m trying to make time I’m trying to make time for you and I just could never make the time to talk to him and then of course that 1 Thing came up in the meeting today and I’m like yeah Frank’s been talking about it we we need to get our heads together and architected and it’s my fault anyways, I have honestly been thinking and maybe there’s a solution out there that I don’t know about but I’ve honestly thinking for our internal team. Just starting up a zoom session and if you need to talk to me just jump into the zoom zoom chat you know it’s like stop asking me if I have time to start a zoom just if that Zoom chat’s going jump in and talk to me.

[58:10] And I’m like I wonder if that’s actually a service like, virtual code room or something where you know you can just get these like things going and yeah it is service called Zoom just do it yeah because I mean it’s just even like the, I I don’t know what it is if I’m in Zoom if I’m working on something if somebody Pops in to talk to me, it doesn’t sound as disruptive it doesn’t feel to me as disruptive as somebody mentioned me on slack me going over to see what the notification is saying okay having a quick hey I want to talk about this you got time you know I got time all right let me start a zoom all right start a zoom all right I’ve joined and waiting for you to join are you joining oh okay you joined okay okay join and join, it’s just like oh my fucking god this is so deep gather town. Chris Miller just posted it gather town and I want to know if you want to me, well no it’s a thing it’s a thing but I don’t know how is any different than like Zoom I just I just jumped over to slack because you said Chris Miller posted it.

[59:17] Oh my god oh yeah a virtual workplace interesting gather town. So yeah I wonder I wonder what this is not an endorsement of this we’re just looking at it I I’m curious space looks more interesting. What was it Kumo space Kumo space it’s almost like a virtual office where you can walk around it seems so silly. No it doesn’t man I like it so everybody has their little space going am I sharing because I’m yeah yeah you are we can do you can do free for up to 5 people let me try it out. Hey you see if some you see if somebody’s online and if they are you walk over to that I I assume. I assume like you don’t hear anybody you know like a video game like until you come up next to them or something we got to try this out man this might be some this might be something. I’m gonna have to wear pants more frequently which is disappointing but for the people I will do it. I like this maybe this is I really wouldn’t mind giving this a try.

[01:00:23] Yeah yeah cool thanks whoever recommended that who recommended that Chris Miller. Dude don’t you have work to do what time is it for you oh that was that’s by the way if you’re here in the US if. Pretty much around the world right now we we changed clocks if you change clocks we change clocks this week. But the UK changed their clocks a couple weeks ago and that’s been fun trying to keep that in mind that, their clocks changed there’s there’s changed what a week or 2 before ours yeah yeah so they fell back so it’s I think it’s. Better right now because it’s actually earlier for them it’s an hour earlier. So they’re not honestly but when we when we jump ahead when they jump ahead an hour that’s what sucks right because their day is actually an hour later. Then what it used to be, until until we catch up so hate time zones everybody should be you should just should we need like a Bitcoin for time zones or everybody should just work off grindage means time or something I don’t know I’m tired of it I’m tired of trying to figure this stuff out.

[01:01:33] It’s frustrating I know it’s like I have I have in a in I talked about this all the time I I know we’re running along you got bowling tonight I do have bowling tonight all right I’m fine, anything then I I I I’m so addicted to this now, and I’m trying like I keep tweaking the flows that are leading up to, the show so I have the 1 that sends out the reminder to people hey you know a show is scheduled and it’s going to start soon and need to make it so that people can you know add themselves and remove themselves but. There’s something weird about the time zones with n8n like every time I ask it to tell me what time it thinks it is it shows me the time in my time, I’m like okay, so which just makes sense because I’m running it on my laptop and I’m like okay all right so yeah you’re you’re in the PAC Pacific Zone the time zone for this laptop is, Pacific that’s perfect but every time I try to schedule a cron to that the cron never runs,

[01:02:34] Emily what the heck so I think it was on Alive and Kicking I realized the crown is working on GMT. And so I have to set the the time to GMT not to. Pacific Coast so now I gotta go through all my little recipes and update them all but I think that was the issue because I don’t think it fired today either so I don’t know I honestly don’t know I am so tired of time zones it pissed me off. All right that’s a good way to end the show you anything else Sean nope we’ll have more next week I’m sure oh we’re doing this again oh. I thought we were maybe not okay all right if you’re listening to the audio podcast head over to our YouTube channels put a comment on this show episode 2025. 10.30. And let us know Pro thumbs up thumbs down on JS Tech during PHP Tech so they’re both held at the same time same location. Different rooms. I I’m I’m actually warming up to it I think 1 night we should just have a boxing ring or just maybe to throw knives in the middle of the room and just you know let a PHP developer go out of JS developer see who lives like that’s I think that would work.

[01:03:52] But yeah let us know how you guys feel about what your thoughts of it if you’re listening and you want to submit Do It show notes are over on PHP architect in the blog. I usually put a link to the show notes, on the YouTube channel as well so go there and check it out but yeah the the the session I used to submit talks to jste, are there very short window so we’ll see how many talks we get and then we’ll have another discussion on whether or not we’re actually going to follow through with this all right,

Air date	October 30, 2025
Hosted by	Eric Van Johnson, John Congdon
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The PHP Podcast 2025.10.30

Host:

Eric Van Johnson

John Congdon

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Music Provided by Epidemic Sound

Epidemic Sound

Host:

Eric Van Johnson

John Congdon

Streams:

Partner

Displace

PHPScore

Honeybadger.io

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound

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PHP Podcast – Episode Transcript

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