The PHP Podcast 2026.08.13

🎙️ PHP Podcast – August 13, 2026

Hosts: Eric Van Johnson & John Congdon

Eric and John reunite after weeks apart to talk Laracon in Boston, more diverse voices coming to this time slot, CPX finally giving PHP an npx, a stripped-down PHPStorm Light, and PHP Tek’s extended CFP.

🔀 Stepping Back to Make Room for More Voices
Eric and John open by explaining a shift in the show: they’re not disappearing, but they’re stepping back a little so more people from the PHP Architect team can take the mic. As John put it, the goal is “more diverse voices of the community,” and folks like Joe, Sarah, and Holly have been stepping into this time slot.

Eric and John have committed to appearing at least once a month, since they have the most holistic view of what’s happening across the company. When they’re on, expect the “inside baseball” episodes — the behind-the-scenes look at what PHP Architect is up to. The rest of the time, this slot will keep going with other hosts, so the show never goes dark.

They also reminded listeners there’s both a live stream and an audio RSS feed. Some folks apparently only recently discovered the audio version, while longtime audio listeners never realize the show streams live. Either way, head to phparch.com, click on podcasts, and you’ll find every way to subscribe.

🏙️ Eric’s Laracon Boston Recap
Eric attended Laracon in Boston and, as always, has a love/hate relationship with it. On the plus side, it’s where he catches up with a lot of friends, and the talks were solid — Pauline Voss gave a great presentation on JJ (Jujutsu) and atomic commits, and Nuno showed off Pest 5. Eric noted the framework itself is moving much slower now, which is actually a good thing for anyone running a business on it, even if it makes the conference less essential-viewing than it once was.

The venue was industrial and good-looking with a fantastic stage setup, but seating was a genuine problem this year. Eric arrived late to Nuno’s talk and there was nowhere to sit; the team scrambled to bring in more chairs. When it rained on day two, they ran out again. Despite that, staying in the same hotel as folks like Eric Barnes, TJ, Jake Bennett, and Michael Dorinda made for the kind of hallway-and-breakfast camaraderie he values most.

Eric also hit the social events he usually skips — he sat out dodgeball (bad knees, slip-on shoes, and being a big target), but went to the Laracon Prom, which required an RSVP and an approved request. It turned out to be way cooler than expected, with people fully decked out, DJs, and an after-party plus a VIP dinner where Laravel’s marketing team worked the room. He also caught up with folks like Matthew Weier O’Phinney of Zend/Perforce and had a chat with Taylor.

📰 Running the Laravel Magazine Site and Taylor’s Blessing
Eric shared that PHP Architect is now running the Laravel Magazine website, which previously belonged to Marijn (Marion) Pop. He’s been publishing tutorials, keeping things current, and making changes to the site he’s proud of. The articles are short, quick reads — and one of the Laravel wrap-up pieces mirrors the same article on the PHP Architect site.

At the after-party dinner, Eric took the opportunity to run the name past Taylor directly, since he wasn’t sure the original owner had ever gotten official approval to use the Laravel name for a magazine. Taylor’s response was essentially “that’s fine, don’t worry about it” — so Laravel Magazine lives on. Eric even set up a newsletter signup, though he admits he’s not sure yet whether he’ll actually send a newsletter.

⚙️ CPX — A PHP-World npx
One of Eric’s favorite discoveries from Laracon was CPX, essentially the PHP equivalent of npx. Just as npx lets you run JavaScript packages without installing them into a specific project, CPX lets you run tools without a global composer install or a per-project dependency. Eric already swapped his global PHP CS Fixer and Laravel Pint setup over to CPX aliases, so he now always runs the latest version without dependency headaches.

John pushed back a bit, pointing out that tools like PHP unit and Rector usually live in your vendor directory anyway because your CI pipeline depends on them. Eric agreed that’s a valid workflow, but framed CPX as ideal for the occasional-use tools and for lowering the barrier for people outside the PHP world who want to dip in without fully committing. Chat chimed in with Rector as a great CPX use case, and they walked through examples like spinning up a fresh Laravel app.

🧠 Laravel LSP and PHP Storm Light
Eric was genuinely excited that Laravel now has its own Language Server Protocol. Most IDEs had already built their own Laravel-aware workarounds, but for Eim’s Neovim setup, the LSP finally makes things like jumping from a route to the view it points to work correctly — something PHP Storm had solved long ago but Vim hadn’t.

He also spotted something called PHP Storm Light at the JetBrains booth: a trimmed-down, experimental build with faster startup, lower memory, and fewer features. It’s available through the Toolbox app as an EAP, so it’s free and explicitly experimental. John, who’d been hitting memory limits in regular PHP Storm, decided to install it on the spot, and Joe mentioned using it for one-off file edits — sparking a conversation about whether it fills the gap left by JetBrains’ old standalone editor.

🎤 PHP Tek CFP Extended + Ticket Options
John announced that the PHP Tek call for speakers has been extended through October 31st. The team experimented with opening the CFP very early this year to help attendees whose fiscal-year approvals depend on a locked schedule, but the community felt it was too early to know what would be relevant next April. So they extended the window and made cfp.phptek.io point straight to the call for presenters (thanks to a suggestion from A. Woods).

On tickets, they’ve broken out a bundle that includes hotel nights so attendees can hand their boss a single lump-sum figure (airfare not included). There are also food-and-beverage-only tickets for partners and kids, single-day track options, and dedicated days for Laravel, JavaScript, and DevOps — one track each, with the other two tracks running the usual PHP Tek content. John flagged a possible issue with DevOps being the default CFP track, since it’s pulling in a flood of generic, seemingly AI-submitted talks he’ll need to sort through.

Links from the show:

Host:

Eric Van Johnson

John Congdon

Streams:

- Youtube Channel
- Twitch

📬 Connect & Hire

Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Eric, John, and the team are available for consulting, team augmentation, direction, code review, and even mobile development work.

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