This month, we take a moment to speak with—well technically email with—a member of the PHP community. We are very fortunate to have a community filled with people who care about making PHP stronger. Today we speak with Derick Rethans (@derickr), author, conference speaker, PHP 7.4 Release Manager, host of the PHP Internal News Podcast, […]

Within Texas, is the beautiful city of Austin. One of the fastest-growing cities in the United States and the State Capital of Texas. Austin has caught the eye of more than cowboys and musicians. It’s caught the eye of tech with several Fortune 500 companies establishing a presence in Austin. Logan has taken the time […]

This month, in our little community corner, we travel back to Canada, Toronto, more specifically. This city sports a population of over 5.6 million people who speak over 180 languages and offices of some of technology’s heaviest hitters such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

For our next stop on our tour of user groups, we travel to the Great White North of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver is often listed as a top city to live for quality of life, and it’s one of Canada’s densest and most ethnically diverse cities. Over recent years, Vancouver has gotten the tag […]

Have you ever contemplated whether it’s necessary to contribute to open source? Ever been at a point where you think open source is too complicated to delve into? Have you ruled out open source because you believe it’s a community where people come to massage their ego? In this article, we’ll be looking into how […]

You might recognize me as one of the contributors to the php; if you’re not familiar, it’s a great companion to the magazine and the community of PHP podcasts! I’ve been a subscriber to the php[architect] magazine since 2003, so I was thrilled when Oscar Merida asked me if I would be interested in contributing […]

Back in 2012, Scott Hanselman wrote a blog post on Dark Matter Developers, and I think the concept still rings true today, maybe more. So what are they?

I was researching user groups on various websites such as php.ug and friendsofphp.org, as well as Meetup for work. As I did, I saw three trends forming which I’m sharing here.

Eric, John, and Oscar discuss Symfony 4, legacy code, and interview Karl Hughes about what it takes to run a user group.

In my first year of co-organizing the Chicago PHP User Group, I have learned a lot and met many wonderful people. Combining insights from the community with some of my own, I wanted to pass on some of the things I’ve learned about building and maintaining a thriving technical community. Whether you’re an organizer or attendee, I hope this gives you some insight into what goes on behind the scenes of running a user group.