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The PHP Podcast 2026.05.07
PHP Podcast – May 7, 2026 Hosts: Eric Van Johnson & John Congdon Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered: PHP Tek Is 11 Days Away — And Everyone Is Stressed The conference countdown is real: 11 days, 10 hours, and a handful of seconds on the clock. John’s travel plans hinge entirely on little league baseball — if his team wins their Tuesday playoff game, he coaches the Saturday game, then bolts for the airport. If they lose Tuesday, he’s sad but gets to Chicago earlier. Meanwhile, Eric is grinding through the PHP Tek TV redesign, trying to wire up the SessionIze API for schedule imports instead of doing it all manually from a CSV, and sending the design team a novel’s worth of badge and signage requests. Holly’s conference app now has notifications working: select a talk, and if Eric or John move it around, you’ll get pinged. Keynote and lunch notifications are also on the table for attendees who can never find the room. Conference Stress Dreams: The Motorcycle Gunman Edition John woke up mid-dream to his wife opening the blinds for the school run — and the dream he was pulled from was genuinely unhinged. He was in an Uber waiting for Uber Eats to arrive at an intersection when a motorcyclist pulled up behind them, got off, shot out the tire, then came to John’s door and started shooting at the lock to get in. The Uber app had briefly flashed the word “threat” on the map. John laid the seat back as far as it would go. The driver just stood there. Then the blinds opened and it was just a Thursday morning. John’s verdict: it’s conference stress. Hard to argue with that. JS Tek — An Honest Conversation John decided to say the quiet part out loud: JS Tek hasn’t brought in the JavaScript community the way they hoped. The PHP world is unusual in paying for speaker travel and hotel rooms; Joe in Discord confirmed this barely happens outside PHP, and somebody speaking at a Ruby/Rails conference once told Eric they not only weren’t reimbursed for travel — they had to buy their own conference ticket. Eric’s takeaway: the JS track itself is a great idea for PHP developers, but trying to recruit an entirely new community into the fold didn’t work out. Next year’s structure will probably look different. The PHP 7-to-8 Upgrade That Failed Three Times Eric’s consulting team has been struggling with a client upgrade from PHP 7 to 8 — unusual, because they’ve done this many times and know the pitfalls. After three failed attempts, a deep dive revealed the culprit: an abandoned Laravel Shift branch left behind by a previous developer who had started an upgrade and walked away, with missing config files baked right into the inherited codebase. The fix wasn’t just another attempt — it was getting the management team to produce a proper testing playbook, and more importantly, actually getting trained on the application. The team had been fixing bugs in code they’d never seen working correctly. Today they finally got that training session, and Eric says the excitement and “ah-ha” moments from his developers made it clear this should have happened much sooner. The Database on the Same Server Problem A related discovery from the same client: the database lives on the same machine as the application. Every upgrade means shutting the app down, exporting the database, migrating it somewhere else, and starting over. Eric’s head doesn’t compute why this is still the case in 2026. Even a second machine designated as a database server would be a massive improvement. In a moment of uncomfortable honesty, Eric also admitted that PHP Architect’s own conference site has the same setup — Forge makes it so easy to throw a database on the same box that you just don’t think about it, until you do. Laravel Shift, Laravel Cloud, and the Pre-Check Tool The conversation circled back to Laravel Shift — JMAC’s automated upgrade tool — which Eric notes has become less essential as Laravel’s upgrade paths have smoothed out considerably compared to the wild west of early Laravel development. But Shift is still out there and still useful. More interestingly, JMAC has a new free Shift specifically for Laravel Cloud readiness: run it against your app and it’ll tell you whether your application is compatible with Laravel Cloud’s serverless model, flag any system commands that won’t be available, and help you understand what services you’d need. Laravel Cloud itself is Taylor’s “don’t worry about servers” deployment platform, and if you’re not a sysops person, having a Shift that holds your hand through the setup could be the difference between trying it and not. PHP Internals Made Readable — Externals and PHP RFC Watch Eric plugged two tools for following what’s happening in PHP core. The first is externals.io — a much more readable front-end for the PHP internals mailing list, with search, read-tracking, and threaded discussions. The second is a newer discovery: php-rfc.watch, which focuses purely on RFCs, showing what’s active, what’s been voted on, and how the votes broke down. It’s more of a quick-glance dashboard than a full discussion forum. Eric also highlighted a specific RFC from Ben Ramsey: a proposal to update the PHP license, accompanied by a detailed blog post called “PHP License Simplified” that walks through the history and rationale. If you’ve ever been curious about why license choice matters (especially at the enterprise level where legal teams block open source based on license type), Ben’s post is worth the read. NeoVim’s Flash Plugin — Used Wrong for Years Eric has been using Flash.nvim, a NeoVim navigation plugin, for years. He recently discovered he had been using it completely incorrectly the entire time. He thought he understood what it did. He did not. A YouTube video explaining the plugin properly (titled something like “How to Jump Anywhere Instantly in NeoVim”) revealed that what he’d been doing was essentially pressing the wrong keybinding and stumbling through a fraction of the plugin’s actual functionality. This sent the conversation into a longer Vim origin story: Eric learned Vim because he was flying around the country installing Cyborg firewalls on remote servers and Vi was just there. John picked it up at an enterprise job and never thought about alternatives until he saw a developer using MacVim to write Rails and had his mind blown. The core message: you can use a tool for decades and still be using it wrong, and that’s okay — but watch the tutorial. Eric Doesn’t Know How Old He Is Eric has been confidently telling people for a full year that he’s 55. His wife Bek has known for some time that this is not correct. The moment of reckoning came when Eric asked Alexa: “If I was born in 1969, how old would I be now?” Alexa hedged on the birthday thing but confirmed the range. Bek stepped in. Alexa, a full 30-60 seconds later, stepped back in and confirmed: “Your birthday’s May 8th, you’re turning 57.” Eric is apparently going directly from 55 to 57, having skipped 56 entirely. He also noted at the Padres game with his wife that their Costco membership is older than a 13-year-old kid they saw on the Jumbotron, and that it could legally babysit him. John is turning 50 this year. Everyone is fine. Links from the show: externals.io — PHP Internals Discussion Reader PHP RFC Watch — Track Active PHP RFCs Ben Ramsey: PHP License Simplified Laravel Shift — Automated Laravel Upgrade Tool Laravel Cloud How to Jump Anywhere Instantly in NeoVim (Flash.nvim Tutorial) PHP Tek 2026 — Chicago PHP Architect Store PHP Architect Discord Host: Eric Van Johnson X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Join Us Live Next Week Youtube Channel Got feedback? Join us on Discord at discord.phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.05.07 appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.04.30
PHP Podcast – April 30, 2026 Hosts: Eric Van Johnson & John Congdon Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered: The Drone Slayer Strikes Eric and John wrapped up a Padres game at beautiful Petco Park in downtown San Diego — and things got weird on the way out. A rogue drone started buzzing around a busy intersection, lingering on a guy on a scooter, before making a fateful attempt to fly in front of Eric’s car. It did not make it. The controller came running out, Eric kept driving, and John has already dubbed him “the drone slayer.” Eric still hasn’t looked at whether his wife’s car got scratched, which feels like the bravest choice of all. Baseball Week Never Ends The reason today’s episode started an hour early? Baseball. John’s week was wall-to-wall: a Tuesday night little league game, the Padres game with Eric on Wednesday, practice Thursday night, the playoff draft reveal Friday, a little league game Saturday, and another Padres game Sunday. Eric pointed out John was wearing his own last name on a jersey to a Padres game, which opened up a whole sidebar on why anyone buys a $200 jersey with a player’s name on it when players change teams every two years anyway. Walking Pneumonia and the Power of the Right Antibiotic John’s week was also scrambled because his son had been diagnosed with regular pneumonia — but after not getting better, a second doctor visit revealed it was actually atypical (walking) pneumonia, which requires a completely different antibiotic. Once on the correct medication, his son bounced back almost immediately. The kid had been pushing himself trying to feel well enough for sixth grade camp, but there’s really no faking it with the wrong treatment. The Archie Situation — AI Standups Gone Sideways Eric has had a rough stretch after Anthropic shut down OpenClaw, the platform that powered their internal Discord bot Archie (a.k.a. Alfred). Archie had been running daily team standups, generating weekly summaries, letting team members tag it with updates throughout the day, and even setting reminders. Everyone got spoiled by it. Since then, attempts to migrate to Ollama — both locally and through the web service — have been plagued by slow response times and dropped messages. Eric is close to pulling the plug and going back to the old manual method, and he’s not happy about it. Claude SSH’d Into Eric’s Server and Fixed Everything For weeks, Eric had been fighting a broken Postiz Docker container — a self-hosted social media scheduling tool he uses to post across platforms. After updates broke it and multiple attempts at a fresh install still left it broken, he dropped the problem in Claude’s lap and explained the whole situation. Claude asked for permission to SSH into the remote server on Eric’s Tailscale network, and Eric said sure. Thirty minutes later, Claude had identified the culprit — a Temporal workflow engine losing its configuration on restart — wrote a fix script, configured the service to reconfigure properly on boot, and even set up a cron job to restart the container on reboot. Eric’s still trying to find that chat to review exactly what it did, but the service is running. GitHub is Getting Hammered by AI Agents GitHub has had a rough patch of outages, and the numbers tell the story: 20 million new repos per month, 1.4 billion commits, 90 million pull requests — with a dramatic spike right at the start of 2026. Part of the culprit? AI agents being unleashed on codebases to automatically open pull requests from backlog tickets. Eric has a client doing exactly this, and while it sounds impressive from the owner’s perspective (“look at all this work getting done!”), the developers on the ground report that a high percentage of those AI-generated PRs require significant human correction before they’re anywhere close to mergeable. The comparison to Reddit’s early explosion — and the one engineer who basically didn’t sleep for two years — felt pretty apt. The GitHub Security Vulnerability Nobody Talked About As if the outages weren’t enough, GitHub quietly disclosed a serious security vulnerability: a specially crafted git push — using malformed options in the push metadata — could allow arbitrary code execution on GitHub’s own servers. Eric had to dig to find the blog post because GitHub was not exactly shouting about it. To their credit, they state that their investigation found no evidence the vulnerability was ever exploited in the wild. But knowing that a specific sequence of bytes in a git push could have handed someone the keys to GitHub’s servers is genuinely unsettling. The Creator of Ghosty Is Leaving GitHub Mitchell Hashimoto — creator of the Ghostty terminal and formerly of HashiCorp — announced he’s leaving GitHub, where he’s been a user since 2008 (user #1299). This comes shortly after the Zig programming language made the same move, also citing reliability concerns. Eric was mildly skeptical of the “announcing I’m leaving” genre of posts, pointing out that GitHub doesn’t especially need your permission to stop using it. Notably, Hashimoto’s post doesn’t say what he plans to use instead. John joined GitHub in 2009, which led to a fun live expedition through his commit history — turns out he got serious about coding right around July 2013, roughly when DiegoDev landed its first client. Update Composer. Like, Right Now. PHP developers tend to set Composer up and forget about it — but there’s been a serious security vulnerability patched in a recent release that you absolutely want. The fix is simple: just run composer self-update. It updates in place and keeps a rollback copy in case anything breaks. While you’re at it, if you have global Composer packages installed, run composer global update to catch those too. Eric noted that Composer should really warn you when you’re significantly behind versions, the way Claude Code does. Until it does, just make a habit of it. Linux Kernel Exploit — Patch Your Servers A CVE was shared in the phparch Discord that affects Ubuntu, Amazon Linux, and Red Hat: a Linux kernel exploit that lets an attacker gain root access with a remarkably small payload — around 732 bytes targeting setuid. It’s a good reminder that the old sysadmin badge of honor (“my server has 5-year uptime, never rebooted”) is the wrong mentality now. With tools like Terraform and infrastructure-as-code, spinning up a freshly patched machine is the move. Keep your operating systems current, especially Linux servers running in production. Holly Built a PHP Tek App — And It’s Already Good Community member Holly built a native attendee app for PHP Tek, available now in beta on iOS (via TestFlight) and Android. You can browse the schedule, select the talks you want to attend, and it’ll warn you if two of your picks are in conflict — a “merge conflict,” as Eric put it. Best of all, it sends push notifications when sessions you’ve favorited get moved or rescheduled, which happens constantly at tech conferences. Eric’s wife installed it without being told anything about it and figured it out on her own — about as good a usability test as you can get. The app is built natively in Swift and Kotlin. Be kind to Holly — this is a gift to the community. PHP Tek in 19 Days + New PHP Architect Merch PHP Tek is nearly here — 19 days out in Chicago. A brand new PHP Architect elephant is coming (tentatively named Holly, after a live-stream vote). Eric also walked through new merch at store.phparch.com: a v-neck version of the classic rainbow PHP Architect shirt, and his personal labor of love — the “I have standards, specifically PSR 0, 1” tee — which he admits has sold exactly zero copies. If the hotel room block is sold out by the time you read this, reach out to the team directly and they’ll see what they can do. Links from the show: Postiz — Open Source Social Media Scheduling GitHub Security Advisory: Remote Code Execution via Git Push Options PHP Tek 2026 — Chicago PHP Architect Store PHP Architect Discord An update on GitHub availability Migrating from GitHub to Codeberg Ghostty Is Leaving GitHub Securing the git push pipeline: Responding to a critical remote code execution vulnerability Composer 2.9.6 fixes Perforce Driver Command Injection Vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-40261, CVE-2026-40176) Copy Fail: 732 Bytes to Root on Every Major Linux Distribution. Host: Eric Van Johnson X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Join Us Live Next Week Youtube Channel Got feedback? Join us on Discord at discord.phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.30 appeared first on PHP Architect.
PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 29 Elizabeth Barron
Elizabeth Barron returns to the show just four weeks after her debut appearance for a wide-ranging follow-up on her first months as Executive Director of the PHP Foundation. Elizabeth shares the key findings from her community listening tour, covers the upcoming PHP community survey in partnership with JetBrains, talks about the Foundation’s plans for transparency, documentation, and guest blogging, and discusses the challenges of the PHP newcomer experience. The episode also features a candid conversation about public speaking anxiety, conference culture, and the enduring warmth of the PHP community. Topics Covered PHP Foundation Community Findings Main Topic Elizabeth published a blog post summarising the findings from her listening tour across the PHP community. Four key themes emerged: Foundation transparency — Many people don’t know what the Foundation is doing; the website is too generic and needs to better reflect the team’s actual work. Marketing of PHP — How PHP is perceived externally, and how the community can better promote the language. Community support — What the Foundation can do to better support developers, user groups, and sub-communities. The language itself — Feedback and ideas relating to PHP’s ongoing development. Elizabeth noted that the volume of feedback was a good sign — silence would be a much bigger problem. A Part Two of the blog post is in the works and will cover strategy and next steps. Newcomer Experience & Documentation Gap A recurring theme from the community feedback was how hard it is for brand-new developers to get started with PHP: There is no single central “landing page” for newcomers — help is scattered across Discord, Reddit, local user groups, and elsewhere. The PHP manual assumes a baseline of programming knowledge that true beginners don’t yet have. Many existing beginner resources have not been updated as the language has evolved. PHP lacks the kind of gamified, beginner-friendly learning apps that Python and JavaScript enjoy. Mike noted that most coding bootcamps are JavaScript-first, leaving a gap for PHP-based introductory learning. Elizabeth is exploring whether the Foundation can help coordinate and amplify existing resources rather than compete with them — and fill in the gaps that remain. Matt Stafer’s recent involvement with the Foundation was highlighted as a potential access point for reaching newcomers, given his large following. PHP Community Survey (with JetBrains) The PHP Foundation is running a community survey in partnership with JetBrains (makers of PHPStorm). The goal is to generate open, usable data that anyone — including the Foundation, JetBrains, and the broader community — can analyse. Community members were invited to suggest their own questions (the submission window closed on the day of recording). The full survey was expected to launch in early June. Foundation Transparency & Hiring Update The Foundation’s developer hiring process (which had been open in a previous cycle) was paused while Elizabeth settled into the role and internal processes were stabilised. Many of the Foundation’s developers currently work in silos; improving collaboration and communication across the team is a near-term priority. The Foundation’s blog will be opened up to guest bloggers — Elizabeth teased an upcoming post she’s excited about but couldn’t yet name. Developer applications are expected to reopen in autumn 2025. Public Speaking Anxiety & Conference Culture An unexpectedly personal and engaging segment where all three speakers opened up about their experiences with social anxiety and public speaking: Mike shared that despite running the show and talking to guests regularly, he struggled to approach familiar faces at PHP conferences in person. The group discussed strategies: preparing thoroughly (Elizabeth and Shane), improvising with bullet points (Chris), and the benefit of pairing up to speak (Mike and Chris’s planed joint talk). Elizabeth reminded Mike that audiences are always rooting for the speaker — and encouraged him to keep pushing through the discomfort. Chris mentioned Merge PHP (online conference, 14th May) as a useful middle step between podcasting and live in-person talks. PHP Appalachia — A Community Origin Story Elizabeth shared the story of PHP Appalachia, one of the earliest informal PHP community gatherings, held in the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area starting around 2006. Around 12 people from the PHP IRC channel (phpC) rented a cabin with Wi-Fi, gave talks, and sat around a campfire — and Elizabeth is still friends with every single person who attended. Links & Resources PHP Foundation The Executive Director’s Manifesto — Chris’s article on PHP Architect, based on Elizabeth’s previous episode (free to read) Merge PHP — Online PHP conference, 14th May (Andy Snell: “More than just a cache, data-structured databases”) PHP Tech Conference — Coming up in a few weeks, running alongside JS Tech for the first time PHP Architect Magazine — Use code ALIVE3 for the first 3 months of a digital annual subscription free PHP Architect Store — T-shirts, caps, mugs and more PHP Architect Discord — Join the community, ask questions, and chat with PHP core contributors PHP Architect Social Media X: https://x.com/phparch Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com PHPArch.me: https://phparch.me/@phparch Discord: https://discord.phparch.com Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partner. Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified. Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease — without the steep learning curve of Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform. Perfect for solo developers and small teams who want enterprise-grade infrastructure without the enterprise-grade complexity. https://displace.tech/ Music Provided by Epidemic Sound The post PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 29 Elizabeth Barron appeared first on PHP Architect.
Community Corner: Storyblok with Daniel Mendoza
In this episode, Scott talks Storyblok with Daniel Mendoza and his talk on using AI to help developers learn new technology that he will be presenting at JStek 2026. Links: Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt Daniel’s Links: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-mendoza-503396152/ Personal Site – https://danieljmendoza.com/ Scott’s Links: Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/ Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/ Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren PHP Architect Social Media: 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/ Partners This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners. Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore https://phpscore.com/ CodeRabit CodeRabbit – Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. https://www.coderabbit.ai/ Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ #phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek #jstek The post Community Corner: Storyblok with Daniel Mendoza appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.04.23
PHP Podcast – April 23, 2026 Hosts: Eric Van Johnson & John Duration: ~1 hour 10 minutes Episode Summary Eric and John return to the podcast after a few weeks away, discussing everything from Disneyland trips and bowling tournaments to EAV database nightmares, editor wars (Vim vs. PHPStorm), AI coding tools, and the state of in-person PHP community events. Thank You to Our Sponsor Displace Technologies – Building PHP applications is your passion. Managing cloud infrastructure shouldn’t be your headache. Displace is 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. Get started at displace.tech Show Notes & Timestamps [00:00] Welcome Back – Eric and John return after Joe, Sarah, and Sammy filled in last week [02:45] Technical Difficulties – Eric’s streaming setup continues to cause problems [04:30] PHP Architect Consulting – Reminder that PHP Architect does real-world consulting work (augment teams or full team) [06:15] PHP Tek Countdown – 26 days away! Less than 4 weeks [08:30] John’s Disneyland Trip – Family spring break trip with a clever 3-day pass hack [12:00] Bowling Tournament – John competed in Reno for U.S. Championship (singles: 1,963rd, doubles: 2,599th, team: 607th) [14:00] Joe Ferguson News – Congratulations to Joe on becoming PHP Release Manager! [16:30] EAV Database Nightmare – John’s journey removing Entity-Attribute-Value system after 10+ years (running out of bigint IDs) [28:00] Editor Wars: Vim vs. PHPStorm – Eric’s return to NeoVim after trying VS Code. Discussion of keybindings, speed, and muscle memory [38:00] AI Coding Tools – Using Claude Code with subagents (front-end, back-end, database, QA). Discussion of productivity gains and QA bottlenecks [46:00] Docker Sandbox for Claude – John explains running Claude in Docker sandbox mode for project isolation [52:00] PHP Tek Mobile App – Holly (listener/mobile dev) offered to build an attendee app with wallet pass integration [56:30] Trailer Disaster Averted – Holly got trailer tires changed just before record flooding at the storage location [01:01:00] PHP Verse 2026 – JetBrains virtual event. Discussion of value of in-person vs. virtual conferences [01:08:00] Bitwarden CLI Security Alert – Trojan horse in version 2026.4.0 (credential stealer). Verify your installation! [01:13:00] Security & AI – Discussion of supply chain attacks, npm pre-install hooks, and risks of AI-generated code without review Links Mentioned Displace Technologies – Episode sponsor PHP Podcast Discord PHP Architect on YouTube PHP Architect – Consulting & Magazine PHP Tek 2026 – 26 days away! PHP Verse 2026 – JetBrains virtual event SessionEye – Conference schedule management Quotes “I’m still coding but I’m not doing like a full end-to-end coding anymore… I don’t know if I need PHPStorm anymore.” – Eric on how AI tools have changed his workflow “It’s like you go away on vacation and you have a great time… but you come home and you lay down in your bed and you’re like, ‘Oh wait, this feels better.'” – Eric describing his return to Vim “I’m embracing these early adopters of ‘we don’t need developers anymore, we have AI’ because I’m charging them a lot of money here in a couple of years.” – Eric on fixing AI-generated code Host: Eric Van Johnson X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Next Episode Join us next week for more PHP news, tech talk, and community updates. See you at PHP Tek! Got feedback? Join us on Discord at discord.phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.23 appeared first on PHP Architect.
Community Corner: The AI Refactor with Kumuda Sreenivasa
In this episode, Scott talks Kumuda Sreenivasa about her talk on using AI to help with refactoring/replacing legacy system that she’s be presenting at JStek 2026. Links: Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt Kumuda’s Links: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kumudas/ Scott’s Links: Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/ Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/ Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren PHP Architect Social Media: 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/ Partners This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners. Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore https://phpscore.com/ CodeRabit CodeRabbit – Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. https://www.coderabbit.ai/ Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ #phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek The post Community Corner: The AI Refactor with Kumuda Sreenivasa appeared first on PHP Architect.
PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 22 Sara Golemon
Sara Golemon returns to the show — her first appearance was way back in Episode 2 — for a deep dive into Git Worktrees, a powerful but underused Git feature that lets you work on multiple branches simultaneously without the overhead of stashing, context-switching, or rebuilding from scratch. The episode covers practical real-world use cases, a live demo on the PHP source repo, Docker/Lando integration, and some lively chat about AI, scripting, and developer productivity. Topics Covered Git Worktrees Main Topic Rather than switching between branches and losing build state, Git Worktrees let you check out multiple branches into separate directories — all sharing a single .git history. How Worktrees differ from standard git checkout branch switching Why they shine for projects with build artifacts (compiled code, minified JS) — no recompile on directory switch Working with PHP’s multi-version release branches (8.1 → 8.2 → 8.3 → 8.4 → 8.5 → master) simultaneously Merging a fix up through all active PHP release branches in a live demo Pushing all branches at once from a single shared .git directory Cleaning up with git worktree prune — just deleting the folder isn’t enough! git worktree add <path> <branch> git worktree list git worktree prune git branch -d <branch> # Only works after pruning Worktrees + Docker / Web Development The hosts explored how Worktrees fit into a typical PHP web dev workflow with Docker. Run multiple Docker Compose environments simultaneously — one per Worktree/branch Port clashing is real; solutions include scripted aliases and Lando (handles conflicts automatically) Sara’s Git alias new from Facebook/Meta automated Worktree creation and assigned unique IPs per ticket composer install only needs to run once per Worktree — not on every branch switch PHP Architect Social Media: X: https://x.com/phparch Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com PHPArch.me: https://phparch.me/@phparch Discord: https://discord.phparch.com Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/ Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The post PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 22 Sara Golemon appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.04.16 with Sara, Joe, and Sami
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered: Sammy Powers Returns! – After 4 years away from the PHP community, Sammy joins us from Germany where he’s working on immigration and building quantum trade schools Quantum Computing & PHP – Deep dive into quantum technology, post-quantum cryptography, and why PHP developers should care about SHA-3 and quantum-safe algorithms Joe Ferguson Named PHP 8.6 Release Manager – Congratulations to Joe on being selected alongside Mateo Botticelli and Daniel Szmida for the 8.6 release team PHP Foundation Updates – Elizabeth Nacin’s new blog post summarizing community outreach and the Foundation’s direction PHP Tek 2026 – Coming up in Chicago at the Sheraton O’Hare – Eric shares stories about the signed baseball tradition PHP Day Verona – May 14-16 in Italy, organized by release manager Mateo Botticelli PHP Roundtable Memories – Nostalgia about the show’s history and vision for community-driven episodes CodeRabbit Sponsorship – AI-powered code reviews for your pull requests Links from the show: The PHP Podcast 2026.04.16 with Sara, Joe, and Sammy CodeRabbit – AI Code Review Co-pilot PHP Foundation Blog – Elizabeth Nacin’s Community Outreach Summary Subscribe to PHP Architect Magazine externals.io – PHP RFCs and Release Manager Announcements PHP Architect YouTube Channel PHP Tek 2026 – Chicago PHP Day 2026 – Verona, Italy (May 14-16) PHP Architect on Mastodon PHP Architect on Bluesky PHP Architect Discord 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 X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.16 with Sara, Joe, and Sami appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.04.09
The PHP Podcast April 9, 2026 | Guest Hosts: Joe Ferguson & Sara Golemon Guest Hosts Joe Ferguson Senior Developer at PHP Architect Running for PHP 8.6 Release Manager (hands-on position, third attempt). Working on PHP infrastructure with Derek using Ansible and Proxmox. Fixed emoji Unicode support on people.php.net. @joepferguson Sara Golemon PHP Core Developer PHP Foundation board member. Former 7.x release manager. PHP Appalachia organizer. Moving out of the country soon. Deep expertise in Unicode, internals, and language design. Vocal advocate for balanced AI approaches. @pollita@phpc.social Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The PHP Podcast The Official Podcast of PHP Architect Subscribe at phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.09 appeared first on PHP Architect.
Community Corner: I Said No With Dr Jen Fry
In this episode, Scott talks with Dr Jen Fry about Sports Geography, Saying NO, and her keynote at https://phptek.io/ (tickets still available). Links: Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt Jen’s Links: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenfry13/ Website – https://jenfrytalks.com/ Scott’s Links: Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/ Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/ Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren PHP Architect Social Media: 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/ Partners This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners. Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore https://phpscore.com/ CodeRabit CodeRabbit – Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. https://www.coderabbit.ai/ Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ #phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek The post Community Corner: I Said No With Dr Jen Fry appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.04.02
The PHP Podcast – Special Episode April 2, 2026 | Guest Hosts: Joe Ferguson & Sara Golemon In this special episode, Joe Ferguson and Sara Golemon step in as guest hosts while Eric recovers from illness and John is busy in Discord. They cover AI tool challenges, PHP Foundation updates, Unicode adventures, infrastructure work, and the eternal debate about when (and when not) to use AI. Episode Highlights Claude Code Drama: 10-20x token usage bug from cache misses – users burning through quotas in 15 minutes Claude Source Leak: CLI source code leaked via JavaScript map file, leading to “code laundering” across languages GitHub Reliability: Falling from “four nines” to 89.99% during Azure migration PHP Foundation News: Elizabeth Barron joins as Executive Director, Matt Stauffer joins board Release Manager Elections: Joe running for PHP 8.6 RM (3rd attempt!), discussion of “hands-on” vs “hands-off” terminology Unicode Victory: Joe fixes emoji support on people.php.net (UTF-8 → UTF-8MB4 migration) Infrastructure Work: Joe helping Derek with Ansible playbooks, running 8 Debian VMs on Proxmox Pie Progress: James building Pickle replacement integrated with Composer NPM Axios Attack: Supply chain compromise caught in under 3 hours Copilot Controversy: Now labeled “entertainment purposes only” + injecting ads into PR reviews PHP Happiness: Celebrating what makes modern PHP great Contributing to PHP: How to get started with php-web, docs, and source code Guest Hosts Joe Ferguson Senior Developer at PHP Architect Running for PHP 8.6 Release Manager (hands-on position, third attempt). Working on PHP infrastructure with Derek using Ansible and Proxmox. Fixed emoji Unicode support on people.php.net. @joepferguson Sara Golemon PHP Core Developer PHP Foundation board member. Former 7.x release manager. PHP Appalachia organizer. Moving out of the country soon. Deep expertise in Unicode, internals, and language design. Vocal advocate for balanced AI approaches. @pollita@phpc.social AI Discussion: Finding the Balance The hosts took a refreshingly nuanced approach to AI tooling: What Works: AI-enhanced search (Gemini), appropriate code assistance What Doesn’t: Treating AI as infallible, forced integration everywhere, security vulnerabilities from blindly accepting suggestions The Fear: Joe’s honest concern about being replaced by “a trench coat full of three Claude bots” The Reality: AI is a tool that has appropriate uses – if people would just use it appropriately The Quote: “Code laundering” – rewriting leaked source code through AI to create “new” implementations Joe’s Unicode Adventure A deep dive into database character sets, triggered by trying to add emojis to his PHP.net profile: Some emojis worked (), others failed () Root cause: Database field was UTF-8 (3-byte max), needed UTF-8MB4 (4-byte support) The fix: Simple ALTER TABLE command updating character set The impact: Now supports high-numbered emojis, CJK characters, and yes… ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics Sara’s insight: “I have way too much of Unicode in my head because of PHP 6” PHP 8.6 Release Manager Elections Joe is running for release manager (third attempt) and discussed the evolving terminology: Old Terms: “Rookie” and “Veteran” – implied experience requirements Proposed Terms: “Hands-on” and “Hands-off” – describes involvement level The Goal: Hands-on RMs do week-by-week work, hands-off provides oversight/mentoring Current Field: 7-8 candidates for hands-on positions Joe’s Odds: Close to tied for second position The Endorsement: “Yo Joe!” (because yelling is half the battle) Infrastructure & Contributing Joe’s Infrastructure Work: Helping Derek manage PHP infrastructure via Ansible Running 8 Debian VMs locally on Proxmox to match production Backfilling playbooks for existing servers Addressing bus factor concerns (Derek as single point of failure) How to Contribute to PHP: Start at github.com/php README for repo overview php-web: Website code, can run with built-in PHP server via router.php php-src: Core engine – surprisingly approachable for learning C Documentation: 800+ contributors, mostly docs (smaller blast radius) Infrastructure: Now using Ansible, moving away from custom solutions Principle of least privilege: Access scoped to what you need PHP Foundation Updates Elizabeth Barron: New Executive Director – plugged into open source funding, Chaos experience, PHP Appalachia organizer roots Matt Stauffer: Joined board for broader perspective distribution James Titcumb: Working hard on Pi (Pickle replacement) with Composer integration Pi Progress: Works with Composer, no need for separate package management Security Stories NPM Axios Attack: Maintainer account compromised, malware published Caught and patched in under 3 hours Massive blast radius potential (widely-used HTTP client) Question raised: Why doesn’t this happen more in PHP? PHP’s Git Server Compromise (2021): Vulnerability in GitDev web view allowed commits as Rasmus and Nikita Obvious exploit code caught quickly Response: Migrated to GitHub, introduced code review processes Transparency: Public video explaining what happened and remediation PHP Happiness A counterpoint to “PHP Sadness” – celebrating what’s great about modern PHP: Enums, types, attributes, match expressions, named arguments Sara’s take: PHP 3, 4, and 5 were already pretty awesome Joe’s journey: Perl → PHP 5 (skipping PHP 4 pain) The evolution: Each version has been a meaningful improvement The vibe: Don’t forget that PHP has always been good at what it does Memorable Quotes “Code laundering” – describing AI rewriting leaked source code into other languages “GitHub’s got their nines back – they just start with an eight now” – on 89.99% uptime “I’m worried a trench coat full of three Claude bots is going to replace me” – Joe on AI anxiety “I have way too much of Unicode in my head because of PHP 6” – Sara “This podcast is not brought to you by any LLM ever” Upcoming Events php[tek] 2026 – May 19, Chicago Joe: “My number one favorite conference” Sara: “Would totally be there if I weren’t moving out of the country” Also featuring JS[tek] track for JavaScript developers Connect & Hire PHP Architect Website Twitter/X Mastodon Hire PHP Developers Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review. Resources Mentioned PHP GitHub Organization PHP People Directory PHP Main Site php-web Repository php-src Repository PHPC Social (Mastodon) php[tek] 2026 Displace Technologies Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The PHP Podcast The Official Podcast of PHP Architect Subscribe at phparch.com The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.02 appeared first on PHP Architect.
Community Corner Podcast: Nginx and You with Chris Lemon
In this episode, Scott talks with Chris Lemon about why us “normal” non-devops developers need to know about Nginx. We also discuss his talk at https://phptek.io/ (tickets still available). Links: Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt Chris’s Links: LinkedIn – https://linkedin.com/in/clemon89 GPUG – https://www.meetup.com/_gpug_/ Scott’s Links: Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/ Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/ Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren PHP Architect Social Media: 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/ Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ #phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek The post Community Corner Podcast: Nginx and You with Chris Lemon appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.03.26
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered: php[tek] 2026 – 54 Days Away! The countdown is on! May 19th in Chicago. Ticket sales are progressing well, better than in previous years. Eric’s son is joining to help with marketing. Bonus: Chicago Dogs baseball game opportunity at Impact Field, just ~1 mile from the hotel. Concerns about TSA staffing due to government shutdown affecting domestic travel. Baseball Season Kickoff MLB season started this week! Eric is frustrated with MLB.TV streaming fragmentation – games now scattered across Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV (with no price reduction). John’s team got their first double play of the season! Eric shared his high school triple play story as a first baseman. Eric’s Development Week Working on legacy system upgrades. Mysterious vendor API issue where they claimed success but were getting 500 errors. Root cause: 20-year-old endpoint returning 500 for application errors (should be 4xx). Upgrading Doctrine DBAL from v2 → v4 (via v3). Migrating from Swift Mailer to Symfony Mailer (Swift Mailer has been dead for 4-5 years). Discovered weird port/encryption mismatches that somehow worked before. John’s Development Week Completed POC for new product/API successfully! Integrated new workflow into legacy codebase. Now in sales/monetization phase. Worked with Kalen on feature flags and standardization. Claude hallucination moment: told Eric a variable didn’t exist when it actually did (PHP Storm found it immediately ). PHP Tech TV Beta Launch New beta UI live at beta.phptech.tv! Cleaner, more responsive design. Still needs testing for live stream functionality before tek. Planning to swap before the conference. CodeRabbit (Episode Sponsor) AI-powered code review tool. Reviews 1M PRs/week across 3M repositories. Provides one-click fix suggestions. Custom AST grep patterns for quality rules. Free for open source projects. Both hosts actively using it for PR reviews and loving it! Claude Code Workflow Eric using video tutorial pattern for PHP Tech TV rewrite. Compartmentalizes tasks, works through iteratively. Status line shows session time, context usage, cost. GitHub PR integration for automatic review. Plugin ecosystem expanding. AI & Policy Discussion – Bernie Sanders vs Claude Bernie Sanders video series exploring AI and data collection. Bernie genuinely curious, asking good questions. Second video features former AI industry experts who left due to safety concerns. AI agents can circumvent shutdown commands by editing shutdown scripts. AI smart enough to know when it’s being tested. Anthropic’s Claude Computer Use: Mac-only feature allowing full system control (scary!). PHP Traits Discussion Article: “Why You Should Avoid PHP Traits”. Both hosts used to overuse traits, now rarely reach for them. Prefer dependency injection for most use cases. Valid use case: Test helper methods (John’s team uses traits heavily for test setup). Trade-offs: hidden coupling, encapsulation issues. Pool Player App Update poolplayer.org (Laravel app for pool leagues) successfully running their local league. Twilio SMS approval challenges resolved. Required PHP Architect disclosure due to account structure. Coaches manually bypassing system causing confusion. Logo created with AI (both hosts admit they don’t do logos). System76 Support Shoutout Eric debugging hardware issue on out-of-warranty machine. Support helping despite no warranty coverage. Used OpenClaw conversation logs to provide diagnostics! System76 offering repair shop recommendations if needed. Great customer service! Links from the show: CodeRabbit – AI-powered code review php[tek] 2026 – May 19th, Chicago Pool Player – Laravel pool league management app PHP Tech TV Beta – New UI preview Chicago Dogs baseball – Impact Field (near PHP Tek venue) 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 X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.26 appeared first on PHP Architect.
The PHP Podcast 2026.03.19
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered: Elizabeth Barron’s New Role – We discussed Elizabeth Barron’s appointment as Executive Director of the PHP Foundation and recommended checking out the extended Alive & Kicking interview from Tuesday (it’s really good!). ElephantAlert.com Launch – Joe from the PHP Architect team launched a new community resource for tracking PHP elephant plushie sales! Never miss a limited edition elephant again at elephantalert.com – a fun way to stay updated on the collectibles the community loves. Real Coding Stories – Eric shared his experience going “old school” and manually coding an S3 image upload feature with workflow triggers after Claude kept misinterpreting the requirements. Sometimes you just gotta type it yourself! AI Reality Check – An honest discussion about AI’s current limitations: the promise vs. the reality of productivity gains, struggles with OpenClaw workflows, the frustration of repeated formatting issues, and concerns about junior developers being over-relied upon with AI tools. Eric’s worried we’re approaching an “AI unraveling” moment in the industry. AI in Healthcare – Eric had to opt-in to AI-assisted medical procedures at a doctor’s appointment – a glimpse into how AI is spreading into high-stakes environments (and potential liability nightmares). Laravel Artisan TUI – Eric’s excited about Artisan Browse, a new terminal user interface (TUI) for Laravel’s Artisan commands. Perfect for his tmux workflow! Nothing you *need*, but everything you *want* when you live in the terminal. SlideWire Released – Wendell (who writes the PHP Enterprise column) released SlideWire – a package for creating presentations using Blade and Livewire. Eric’s planning to use it for his next talk (maybe the PHP Tech opening?). Magazine Updates – February print issue finally shipped after the usual back-and-forth with the printer about safe print areas. Features a monster-themed FrankenPHP cover that’s quickly becoming a favorite! Laravel 13 Official Release – Laravel 13 is now the default version! No breaking changes expected, lots of attribute updates in the framework. Pretty smooth upgrade path for most projects. PHP UK Videos Live – PHP UK conference videos are now available on their YouTube channel. Chris and Mike attended and had a great time! PHP Tek 2026 Countdown – Just 61 days away! Schedule is posted (though still subject to minor adjustments). Remember: your ticket includes access to PHP Tech TV for all recorded talks, so don’t stress about conflicts. PHP Internals Discussion – Covered the “PHP Community” RFC proposing ways to make PHP development more community-driven with faster iteration. Eric and John discussed the balance between community input and maintaining code quality/stability – suggesting perhaps a community vote that counts as a weighted portion of the total RFC votes. DevOps Wins – Eric successfully migrated all sites from Envoyer to Laravel Forge’s new zero-downtime deployment feature, saving money and simplifying the stack. Sometimes consolidation is the right move! Pool Player App Updates – John’s dealing with real-world edge cases now that his pool league management app is in production. Main pain point: email notifications going to spam. Twilio SMS integration coming soon to solve the time-sensitive notification problem. 3D Printing Crunch Time – John was up until 2 AM printing keychains for his wife’s school fun run (thought he had a week, turns out it was the next day). The hum of the printer became the unofficial background soundtrack of the episode! Links from the show: ElephantAlert.com – Community PHP Elephant Sales Tracker Artisan Browse – TUI for Laravel Artisan SlideWire – Presentations with Blade and Livewire Laravel 13 Documentation PHP UK Conference YouTube Channel PHP[tek] 2026 – May 19-23, Chicago PHP Community RFC – Faster Moving Community Driven PHP Laravel Forge PHP Score – Technical Debt Monitoring 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 X: @shocm Mastodon: @eric@phparch.social Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @eric John Congdon X: @johncongdon Mastodon: @john@phparch.social Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social PHPArch.me: @john Streams: Youtube Channel Twitch Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.19 appeared first on PHP Architect.
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 Partner This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners Displace Infrastructure Management, Simplified Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease. https://displace.tech/ PHPScore Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore CodeRabbit Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit. Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ The post PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 26 Elizabeth Barron appeared first on PHP Architect.