Longhorn PHP 2026 With Ian Littman  🔗 **Source:** [Longhorn PHP 2026 With Ian Littman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSotBRIIEV0) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [longhorn-php, php-community, conference-organizing, regional-conferences, php-architect, community-corner, conference-pricing, hybrid-events, hallway-track, php-foundation, austin-tech, event-accessibility, worst-con, volunteer-organizing] > author: Scott Keck-Warren and Ian Littman (php[architect] Community Corner) > source: youtube.com (php[architect]) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSotBRIIEV0 > date created: 2026-09-02 08:40 > > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > > [!warning] Source notes > > A 22-minute php[architect] Community Corner interview (published 2026-09-02) — host Scott Keck-Warren, guest Ian Littman, Longhorn PHP organizer. ~3,900 transcript words from YouTube auto-captions. ASR artifacts: "Ian Litman" (Littman), "Elizabeth Baron" (Elizabeth Barron, PHP Foundation), "Daniel Shorser" (Daniel Scherzer, PHP 8.5/8.6 release manager), "David Stokes" / "Dave Stokes," "Worst Con" (WurstCon), "join.in" (joind.in), "merge PHP" (Merge PHP), "conkered" (unclear — likely "sick"). Sponsor read: CodeRabbit (mid-episode, ~90 seconds, with claimed usage figures that are the sponsor's, not the show's). The host discloses a $25-off ticket coupon in the episode description that "will be helpful both to him and to me" — a referral interest. No links in the captured transcript; all URLs below are spoken (longhornphp.com, phpa.me/coderabbit). > > # 🏷️ Title: Longhorn PHP 2026 with Ian Littman > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSotBRIIEV0 - Spoken: longhornphp.com (schedule, tickets, email list) · phpa.me/coderabbit (sponsor) - Mentioned: Merge PHP · joind.in · OpenCFP · PHP Foundation · Scotland PHP (2018 format precedent) · the prior Community Corner episode with Daniel Scherzer (PHP 8.5/8.6 release manager) ## 📝 Summary **What this is.** A conference-preview interview. Ian Littman — Longhorn PHP organizer since 2018, PHP community member since 2014, speaker since 2016, day job at Victory CTO, co-maintainer of joind.in and OpenCFP — walks through the 2026 edition: Thursday–Friday, October 15–16, Holiday Inn Austin Midtown (fifth year at that venue: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026), one tutorial day plus one conference day, main day streamed. **The organizing decision.** Longhorn cut from three days to two. Littman's reasoning is stated as a theory, not a finding: attendance broke down unevenly across the three days, Saturday ran lighter, and "the majority of the benefit that folks get would be — at least this is our theory — one day of tutorials and one conference day." The two-day format also matched the number of talk submissions this year, lowered venue cost (the venue agreed readily), and let the team keep ticket and sponsor prices "within reach" as costs rose. Keck-Warren adds the attendee-side case: three days drains introverts and takes more time from family; two is "a better sweet spot." **Pricing and regional positioning.** Keck-Warren's own trip estimate: ~$1,200 all-in (airfare, hotel, ticket) versus ~$3,000 for unnamed alternatives. Littman positions Longhorn deliberately as regional — attendees driving or local pay ticket plus hotel rather than airfare — and notes the Thursday–Friday schedule means Saturday return flights, which run cheaper than Sunday's. Target: 150–200+ in-person attendees, the size at which "things really start getting fun." **Streaming as accessibility, in-person as anchor.** The main day streams so information isn't "paywalled behind being able to physically get to the conference," and so the organizers can be strict about "if you're sick, stay home." But the hallway track and walking up to a speaker afterward are "effectively impossible to replicate in the same way online." **Lineup.** Opening keynote: Elizabeth Barron, PHP Foundation executive director. Closing: Eric Mann on ethics in software — Littman ties this to the growing output of a single developer and the need to point it "in a direction that you can feel good about." Also: Ben Ramsey, Dave Stokes (database/JSON types), Daniel Scherzer on PHP 8.6 plus a workshop on building PHP extensions in Rust, a full-day tutorial on refactoring and code cleanup, and "three release managers" on the roster per the host. **Social.** Thursday-evening Austin PHP / Merge PHP meetup at the venue, free and public, lightning talks. WurstCon (walk to a sausage place) TBD by day. After-parties pending sponsorship. Email list and socials (phpc.social, Bluesky, LinkedIn, X) for updates. **Bottom line.** A candid regional-conference operating model: shrink the schedule to what people attend, keep the price where a self-paying developer can reach it, stream for access but build for the room. The closing line is Littman's motive — "I would not be where I am in my career without events like this." ## 📖 Main Content **Three days to two — the reasoning chain.** Littman gives four inputs: (1) uneven attendance across days, Saturday weakest; (2) affordability for attendees, sponsors, and the organizers' own costs; (3) the count of talk submissions this year; (4) a format precedent (Scotland PHP ~2018: Monday tutorials, Tuesday talks). He flags the output as "our theory" and says twice "we'll see how it works out." This is an organizer making a reversible bet in public and saying so. **The venue relationship as an asset.** Five years at one hotel meant the two-day proposal got "yeah, fair enough" rather than a renegotiation. Continuity with a venue is named as the thing that let pricing hold as costs rose — a lever smaller conferences rarely articulate. **Regional by design, not by default.** Littman acknowledges "the conference situation for PHP conferences that are pure-play in the US is a little bit thin right now." Rather than compete nationally, Longhorn optimizes for drive-in and local attendees: hotel plus ticket is the cost most attendees actually pay, so that's where price tuning goes. Airfare is treated as the minority case, and even there, the Thursday–Friday schedule shaves the return fare. **The streaming argument, both halves.** Keck-Warren's home-streaming experience — work interrupts "he's at home, we can just bug him," kids ask questions, "I just lost the whole train of thought" — is the honest case against remote attendance. Littman's is the case for offering it anyway: not paywalling knowledge behind travel, and enabling a stay-home-if-sick norm. Neither treats streaming as a substitute; it's a floor, and the room is the product. **Introvert economics.** Both host and guest describe "pretending to be an extrovert for two or three days" and then hiding for a week. The two-day format is framed partly as a concession to that — a design input most conference retrospectives don't name. **Lineup as ecosystem statement.** Foundation ED opening, ethics closing, a release manager presenting the release he manages, a Rust-extensions workshop ("talks that are not necessarily going to have dollar signs before the variables"), a full-day refactoring tutorial. Littman's frame: "PHP and PHP accessories" — the conference covers what you need to build "solid software to solve real problems" in the ecosystem, so people can "stay in the PHP ecosystem for longer" instead of switching tools. **Ethics closer.** The one place the conversation leaves logistics: Littman says "it's never been more important" as "the amount of work that a single person can do keeps increasing" — an oblique reference to AI-assisted development, never named — to make sure that output points somewhere "you can feel good about." A closing keynote on ethics at a PHP conference in 2026 is a programming choice worth noting. **Money and motive.** Keck-Warren: "this is a labor of love… you're not throwing money around after this." Littman: "happy to pay it forward." The host's coupon disclosure and the CodeRabbit read are the episode's commercial content, both flagged. ## 🗒️ Notes - **The two-day decision is a stated hypothesis with a stated test** ("we'll see how it works out"). Post-conference attendance and revenue numbers would confirm or refute it; the episode gives none from prior years beyond "Saturday lower." - **Pricing figures are the host's personal estimate**, not the conference's published numbers. Ticket price isn't stated in the episode. The $1,200/$3,000 comparison is one attendee's spreadsheet. - **Fifth year at the venue, with a gap.** 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026 — no 2024. The episode doesn't say why. Whether Longhorn skipped 2024 or moved venues that year is unstated. - **"Three release managers"** is the host's count; only Scherzer is named as one. Unverified. - **Name spellings** in this note (Littman, Barron, Scherzer, WurstCon, joind.in) are corrections from the ASR; verify against longhornphp.com before citing publicly. - **The CodeRabbit figures** (1M PRs/week, 3M repos, 100K open-source projects) are sponsor copy read by the host. Not the show's claims. - **The coupon disclosure** is unusually plain — the host says it helps "both him and me." That's an affiliate arrangement stated on air; cleaner than most. - **WordPress adjacency.** Nothing WordPress-specific in the episode. The transferable material is the operating model: schedule compression, regional pricing, venue continuity, stream-as-floor. ## 📚 References - php[architect] Community Corner, "Longhorn PHP 2026 with Ian Littman," YouTube, 2026-09-02, 22:38. - Longhorn PHP 2026 — longhornphp.com, October 15–16, 2026, Holiday Inn Austin Midtown. - Referenced episode: Community Corner interview with Daniel Scherzer (PHP 8.5/8.6 release manager) — not fetched. - Scotland PHP (~2018) — cited by Littman as the tutorial-day-plus-conference-day precedent; not verified. - Projects Littman helps maintain: joind.in (talk feedback), OpenCFP (CFP management), Merge PHP (online meetup). ## 🗣️ Paraphrase Longhorn PHP is going to two days this year — October 15 and 16 in Austin, one day of tutorials and one of talks. We looked at how attendance spread across three days, saw Saturday was light, matched it to how many talks were submitted, and figured most of the value fits in two days at a lower price for everyone. Our venue's worked with us for five years, so they said fine. We're a regional conference on purpose: most people drive in, so we tune ticket plus hotel, and a Friday finish means cheaper Saturday flights for those who fly. We stream the main day so nobody's locked out and so sick people stay home, but the conference is the room — the hallway and the question you ask a speaker afterward don't happen online. Elizabeth Barron opens, Eric Mann closes on ethics, and there's a release manager talking about the release he's running. Come to the meetup Thursday night; WurstCon is happening somewhere in there. I'm doing this because events like this are why I have the career I have. ## 📰 Newsletter **Longhorn PHP shrinks to two days and says why.** Organizer Ian Littman told php[architect]'s Community Corner that the Austin conference (October 15–16, 2026) is dropping its Saturday after years of lighter third-day attendance, matching the schedule to this year's talk submissions and to what attendees, sponsors, and organizers can afford. Five years at the same hotel meant the venue agreed without friction. The positioning is openly regional — Littman says pure-play US PHP conferences are "a little bit thin right now," so Longhorn tunes for drive-in attendees paying ticket plus hotel; host Scott Keck-Warren estimated his own trip at about $1,200 against $3,000 for alternatives he'd priced. The main day streams as an access floor and to let sick attendees stay home, but both men are blunt that the hallway track doesn't survive a webcam. Lineup: PHP Foundation ED Elizabeth Barron opens, Eric Mann closes on software ethics, and PHP 8.6 release manager Daniel Scherzer presents the release plus a Rust-extensions workshop. Free Thursday-night meetup, WurstCon TBD, after-parties pending sponsors. Littman calls the format change "our theory" and says they'll see — a rare organizer talking about a scheduling bet as a test. ## ✅ Action Items **DevRel** - The "stream as floor, room as product" framing is a two-sentence answer to "why should we still fund in-person?" Reusable in any event-budget conversation. `#action/h3` - Regional-by-design pricing (tune ticket + hotel, treat airfare as the minority case) is a positioning model for any meetup-scale conference. `#action/h3` **OSPO** - Not applicable to this source. **Community** - The two-day compression rationale — attendance distribution, submission count, introvert fatigue, family time — is a checklist for any organizer weighing a third day. `#action/h2` - Venue continuity as a price lever: five years at one hotel bought a no-friction format change. Name this in organizer training. `#action/h3` **WordPress teams** (Core, Core Performance, Core AI, Core Program Team, Mobile, Playground, Community, Training, Marketing, Support, Design, Documentation, Photos, TV, Polyglots, Accessibility, Meta, CLI, Hosting, Tide, Openverse, Themes, Plugins) - **Community:** WordCamp organizers weighing day counts have a peer data point here — a PHP conference cut a day, said it was a theory, and named the inputs. Worth a line in organizer handbook discussions of format. `#action/h3` - **Training / TV:** streaming-as-access-floor with an explicit "if you're sick, stay home" norm is a health-policy framing WordCamp guidance could borrow. `#action/h4` - All other teams: not applicable to this source. **The WPOCC** - Directly relevant: a sibling-ecosystem organizer explaining schedule compression, regional pricing, and stream-vs-room tradeoffs in plain language. Candidate source for The WPOCC's organizer-culture material. `#action/h2` - Littman co-maintains joind.in and OpenCFP — infrastructure WordPress events don't use but could learn from. Note for cross-community tooling discussion. `#action/h4` **FAIR** - Not applicable to this source. **Personal (Courtney)** - You're returning to The WPOCC and starting at Pantheon on September 14. Longhorn PHP is October 15–16 in Austin, regional, ~$1,200 by the host's estimate. If Pantheon has a PHP-community presence budget, this is a cheap first-quarter appearance. `#action/h3` - The two-day rationale is a clean citation for "how to make a format decision and call it a test." Pair with the lanyard-anarchism note for organizer-ethic material. `#action/h3` ## 🧪 Hypotheses - **H-A:** Longhorn's 2026 per-day attendance will match or exceed 2025's Thursday/Friday figures, validating the compression; total attendance will be within 10% of 2025. *Testable after October 16 if the organizers publish numbers.* - **H-B:** Regional positioning correlates with self-paying attendee share; Longhorn's self-paid fraction is higher than national PHP conferences'. *Testable via attendee survey, which the episode doesn't mention.* - **H-C:** Conferences that keep the same venue five-plus years hold ticket prices flatter than those that move. *Testable across the PHP/WordPress event record.* - **H-D:** Stream viewership for the main day is a small fraction of in-person attendance and doesn't cannibalize ticket sales. *Both men assume this; the episode gives no viewer counts.* ### 📊 Methodology An interview, not an argument. Evidence is the organizer's stated reasoning plus one attendee's cost estimate. No attendance figures, ticket prices, or survey data appear. The strength of the source is candor — Littman labels his own decision a theory and names his inputs — not data. To evaluate the format change, get 2025 per-day attendance and 2026 totals from the organizers. ### ❓ Questions - What were the actual per-day attendance numbers that drove the change? "Saturday lower" — by how much? - Why no 2024 at the venue? Skipped year or different venue? - What's the ticket price, and how did it move year over year against costs? - Who are the "three release managers" beyond Scherzer? - Does the stream have a viewer count from prior years, and did it track against ticket sales? - Is the Rust-extensions workshop on the tutorial day, and does it require prior Rust? ### 🔮 Future Research - Check longhornphp.com for the published schedule, pricing, and speaker list to correct the ASR names and fill the gaps above. - After the event, look for an organizer retrospective on the two-day format. - Compare Longhorn's regional model with WordCamp US/Europe's national/continental one — different scale, same tension between reach and affordability. - Fetch the Scherzer episode for the PHP 8.6 content this one only gestures at. ### 💡 Implications **For organizers.** Shrinking a conference is easier to justify when framed as matching supply (talk submissions) and demand (per-day attendance) than as cutting. Saying "this is our theory" in public lowers the cost of reversing it. **For attendees who self-pay.** Regional conferences that tune ticket plus hotel are the realistic option when employers won't fund travel; the host's $1,200-vs-$3,000 spread is the argument to take to a manager. **For the PHP ecosystem.** With US pure-play PHP conferences "thin," a regional model that survives on 150–200 attendees may be the sustainable unit. WordPress's WordCamp network already runs on that logic at the city scale. **For hybrid-event policy.** Stream as access floor plus in-person as the product, with a stay-home-if-sick norm made possible by the stream, is a defensible post-2020 default. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment **Auditory** — the native mode; conversational, two voices, no visuals needed. **Read/write** — served by the auto-transcript, which is readable despite ASR name errors. **Visual** — not served; no slides, schedule graphic, or venue imagery in the audio content. **Kinesthetic** — indirectly; the calls to action (visit the site, join the meetup, walk to WurstCon) are concrete. **Sequential** — the episode follows a standard preview arc: what/when → format change → pricing → streaming → lineup → social → CTA. **Global** — the two-day rationale is spread across several exchanges; a listener has to assemble it. **Overall:** a podcast preview, best consumed as audio; the transcript works as a reference for facts. ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment Assessment of the captured transcript and the video's delivery. Not a WCAG audit of YouTube or longhornphp.com. #### Alternative text and non-text content Audio-first content; nothing in the conversation depends on visuals. Auto-captions exist but carry name errors (Littman, Barron, Scherzer, WurstCon) that a deaf or hard-of-hearing viewer can't correct from context. #### Keyboard navigation YouTube player standard; not assessed here. #### Contrast and readability Not applicable to audio content. #### Text resizing and reflow Not applicable. #### Media and captions Auto-generated captions only (per the ASR artifacts). No indication of human-corrected captions or a transcript on the php[architect] site; the host says an audio version exists there. Accurate captions would fix the proper-noun errors — WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) is met in letter by auto-captions but weakly in substance. #### Forms and interactions Not applicable. #### Standards reference WCAG 2.2 AA — 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) is the relevant criterion; 1.2.3/1.2.5 (Audio Description) don't apply to talking-head content. The conference itself: Littman frames streaming as an accessibility measure (not paywalling information behind physical travel), which is an access argument but not a WCAG one. ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth US-regional by design; Austin, drive-in radius, US flight economics. The PHP Foundation keynote widens the frame to the global language community. #### Inclusive language Neutral. "Folks," "y'all," "people." No gendered assumptions about attendees. #### Neurodiversity support Both speakers name introvert fatigue as a real design input for the two-day format — an uncommon and useful acknowledgment. The stream option and the "hide in your hotel room" candor normalize pacing your social energy. #### Representation Two men in conversation; the named lineup includes Elizabeth Barron (Foundation ED, opening keynote). Speaker demographics beyond that aren't discussed. #### Psychological safety Littman's willingness to call the format change "our theory" and say "we'll see" models organizer humility. The stay-home-if-sick norm is a health-safety statement made explicit. ## ✅ Logical Validity **Central claim.** Two days deliver most of the value of three at lower cost for everyone. **Support:** uneven per-day attendance (asserted, unquantified), talk-submission count (asserted), cost pressure (asserted), a format precedent (Scotland PHP, one case). **Assessment:** plausible and appropriately hedged as a theory; unfalsifiable from the episode alone because no numbers are given. **Secondary claim.** Regional positioning plus Thursday–Friday scheduling makes the conference more affordable. **Support:** the host's own $1,200 estimate, the Saturday-flight observation. Valid reasoning; one data point. **Tertiary claim.** In-person can't be replicated online. **Support:** two personal anecdotes (host's home distractions, guest's hallway-track value). Widely shared; not demonstrated. **Fallacies.** None. The one rhetorical move is the host's "I don't want to name names" — comparing to unnamed $3,000 conferences can't be checked. **Verdict.** Sound as organizer reasoning; thin as evidence. The episode is honest about that. ## 🛡️ DARVO Analysis Not applicable to this source. There's no conflict, accusation, or blame-shifting. The nearest thing to a defensive move is framing a schedule cut as compression ("taking the good parts… and compressing them and not really leaving anything out"), which is positive spin, not reversal — and Littman undercuts it himself by calling the change a theory. ## 🎯 Conclusion A regional PHP conference explains, in an organizer's own words, why it's cutting a day: attendance was uneven, submissions fit two days, costs rose, and the venue relationship made the change cheap. Littman labels the decision a theory and names his inputs, which is the episode's real value — a format decision made legible. The pricing argument is one attendee's spreadsheet ($1,200 vs $3,000), the streaming position is stream-as-floor-room-as-product, and the lineup (Foundation ED opening, ethics closing, a release manager presenting his release) reads as an ecosystem statement. For Courtney, this is a WordPress-adjacent organizer-culture source for The WPOCC and a cheap, well-timed conference option a month into the Pantheon role. Nothing to verify except the ASR-mangled names, which longhornphp.com will settle. ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Longhorn PHP 2026 with Ian Littman ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) #### [H1] Cut the day that attendance already left, and call the cut a theory > [!quote] ID:rw_01m1h1fatrpqfhs2tyhe9z38qv > "attendance has kind of broken down over the each of the three days realized that um in terms of having the most affordable conference both from attending and in sponsoring and also from a cost perspective on our side that the majority of the benefit that folks get would be at least this is our theory" Four inputs (attendance spread, affordability for three parties, submission count, precedent), one reversible bet, labeled as such. Tags: `#atom/literature/h1` #### [H2] Regional conferences compete on ticket-plus-hotel, and the spread is large > [!quote] ID:rw_01m1h1fatrpqfhs2tyhe9z38qv > "I have specked out conferences that have been like $3,000 for me to be away. And this this right now is looking at like $1,200 with the flight and the the ticket and the airfare I'm sorry, airfare, hotel, and the ticket." One attendee's estimate, but a 2.5× spread is the number to take to a manager. Littman's design choice — tune for drive-in — is what produces it. Tags: `#atom/literature/h2` #### [H3] Stream as an access floor and a sick-day norm, not as a substitute for the room > [!quote] ID:rw_01m1h1fatrpqfhs2tyhe9z38qv > "as an accessibility uh concern, it's really important to have these things where you're not kind of paywalling uh the the information that's shared um behind being able to physically get to the conference. Uh and you know, it it it also allows us to be a little bit more strict on like, "If you're sick, stay home." Two reasons to stream that don't depend on streaming being good. The hallway track stays in-person. Tags: `#atom/literature/h3` #### [H4] Organizers who were pulled up the curve organize to pull others > [!quote] ID:rw_01m1h1fatrpqfhs2tyhe9z38qv > "I would not be where I am in my career without events like this and I hope that other folks will will take advantage of of this lineup to level themselves up." The motive, stated plainly at the close. Pairs with Kane's lanyard anarchism: hold the role because it lets you be useful. Tags: `#atom/literature/h4` ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### [P1] A schedule cut framed as matching supply and demand, and labeled a theory, is cheaper to make and cheaper to reverse Compressing a conference reads as loss unless the organizer shows the inputs — per-day attendance, talk submissions, cost per party — and says what would change their mind. Littman does both, in public, before the event. The framing turns a cut into an experiment and pre-commits to reading the result. *Candidate; one source, but the move generalizes to any community event that's shrinking its footprint, and The WPOCC's organizer material has no clean citation for it.* Links: [[Hold the Visible Role as a Tool for Usefulness]] · [[Regional Conference Economics]] · [[WordPress Community Governance MOC]] Tags: `#atom/zettel/z1` ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - "PHP and PHP accessories" — Littman's phrase for ecosystem-adjacent programming (Rust extensions, database JSON types). Useful label for any language conference's non-language talks. `#atom/fleeting/f1` - Ethics closing keynote tied to "the amount of work a single person can do keeps increasing" — AI-assisted development named without naming it. `#atom/fleeting/f1` - Venue continuity as a pricing lever: five years, one hotel, format change approved on the spot. `#atom/fleeting/f1` - No 2024 at the venue — check why. `#atom/fleeting/f1` ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) 1. **Check longhornphp.com for Oct 15–16 pricing and schedule**; decide whether it fits the first Pantheon quarter as a PHP-community appearance. `#action/h3` 2. **Add the two-day-as-theory rationale to The WPOCC organizer-culture sources**, alongside the lanyard-anarchism note. `#action/h3` <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Articles/Longhorn PHP 2026 With Ian Littman.md|Longhorn PHP 2026 With Ian Littman by Scott Keck-Warren and Ian Littman (php[architect])]] ## Highlights - attendance has kind of broken down over the each of the three days realized that um in terms of having the most affordable conference both from attending and in sponsoring and also from a cost perspective on our side that the majority of the benefit that folks get would be at least this is our theory ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m1h20482pga6kjxf49zahhgc)) - Note: Cut the day attendance already left, and call the cut a theory. Four inputs (per-day attendance, affordability for attendees/sponsors/organizers, submission count, precedent), one reversible bet, labeled as such. #atom/literature/h1 - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - send it up to up the chain to see if somebody at work will pay for it or whatever. Um, and it is significantly cheaper than like some other conferences that I've that I've specked out. I don't want to I don't want to name names, but like I have I have specked out conferences that have been like $3,000 for me to be away. And this this right now is looking at like $1,200 with the flight and the the ticket and the airfare I'm sorry, airfare, hotel, and the ticket. Um, and then probably some food cuz I usually like to eat something fancy when I'm when I'm at these conferences. Um, so it is really like nice that it's it's ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m1h20p4b7ehfd44c9d7g66b7)) - Note: Regional conferences compete on ticket-plus-hotel: the host's own estimate is $1,200 all-in vs $3,000 for unnamed alternatives, a 2.5x spread. One attendee's spreadsheet, but it's the number to take to a manager. #atom/literature/h2 - Tags: atom/literature/h2 - available for streaming on the main conference day. Um as an accessibility uh concern, it's really important to have these things where you're not kind of paywalling uh the the information that's shared um behind being able to physically get to the conference. Uh and you know, it it it also allows us to be a little bit more strict on like, "If you're sick, stay home. Don't get people conkered." Um but uh at the same time, things like the ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m1h214nx0vasajhxqq3qe61f)) - Note: Stream as an access floor and a sick-day norm, not as a substitute for the room. Two reasons to stream that don't depend on streaming being good; the hallway track stays in-person. #atom/literature/h3 - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - from like I would not be where I am in my career without events like this and I hope that other folks will will take advantage of of this lineup to level themselves up. >> Yeah, I agreed 100%. Like go go to the conference. Go to conferences. Just all conferences. So, I have to say another heartfelt thank you to Ian for all of his time as well as for you for listening. If you're not already a subscriber, make sure you subscribe with whatever your preferred method is. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m1h21m9c7pg0s5fx9edcsm29)) - Note: Organizers who were pulled up the curve organize to pull others: the motive, stated plainly at the close. Pairs with Kane's lanyard anarchism (hold the role because it lets you be useful). #atom/literature/h4 - Tags: atom/literature/h4