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 Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author.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 > ## 🧭 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 leav [music] >> Hello developers and welcome to the PHP Architect Community Corner, where we have conversations with members of the web development community. I'm your host Scott Keck Warren, and today we're talking with Ian Litman about Longhorn PHP 2026. Ian is on the organizing team for the Longhorn PHP conference and merge PHP, helps maintain join.in and the Open CFP projects, and has generally been around the PHP community since 2014 speaking at conferences since 2016, and organizing one since 2018. These days he bounces between slinging code and helping his team sling code at Victory CTO. And when he's not doing that or PHP stuff, he's probably hanging out with his wife, nudging their shared cats off of his desk, or grabbing a tasty bite to eat in Austin, Texas. Thank you, Ian, for finding some time to talk to us today. >> Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be here. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm again I get to have the privilege privilege of talking to you about Longhorn PHP, which is coming up later this year. Can you just kind of give everybody a brief overview about what Longhorn PHP is? >> Sure. Uh it is a conference for folks who are uh either working on PHP or working adjacent to it. Um like the variety of talks that we have, I like to call them PHP and PHP accessories, because there are a lot of things uh either specific to the language or surrounding it that you really want to know and get better at when building solid software to solve real problems, and PHP's a great language for that. And I wouldn't be where I am today were it not for uh getting pulled up the learning curve by uh the community that I participated in over the years. So, this is um this is a way to make sure that that continues to happen for other folks in the community uh this year. The conference is uh uh a Thursday Friday event two days this year rather than three and dates on that are I believe October 15th and 16th. So middle of I think as as this will go out next month. We're doing things a little bit differently this year. Previously we had a three-day conference. We looked at numbers and in terms of what we saw last year and in terms of how the 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 one day of tutorials and one conference day and we've historically had a a bit lower attendance on Saturday so it was like okay if we're going to pull the good bits of the conference into a shorter schedule then the kind of Thursday Friday where you can kind of mix and match or or attend both days was kind of the way to do that and also match with things like the the number of presenters that had submitted this year and that sort of thing. >> Yeah and I think like I I I think like the like I really do like the like the the three-day kind of track was really is a really nice time span but it is a a of time. Like I don't know about other people, but like after 3 days I'm ready to go home. Like, I feel like maybe 2 days might be a better sweet spot for a lot of people, especially like those of us who are introverted. Cuz a lot of times I'd be like, I'm going to be at this conference and then I'm going to hide in my hotel room. And then I'm going to be at the conference and it's just like a lot to to manage. And I do think that like that is that is like a nice piece to it is like I'm not stealing a bunch of time from my family to go to go to a conference when it when it's only 2 days as opposed to 3. So, it's really I think it's a huge benefit to to people for it to be a 2-day conference. So, I'm I'm really curious to see how that that ends up being uh and then that ends up working out essentially for you all. >> Yeah, it's um I've attended conferences like uh Scotland PHP in 20, I think, 18 uh as well or or so was kind of a similar setup where you had a tutorial day on Monday and then a conference day on the next. And that seemed to work out well enough for them. Again, there there is a little bit of a different feel to that because of the ratio between uh talks and workshops, but you know, I I hear you on the uh introvert side of things. There's definitely when I've attended conference conferences, let alone organizing them or speaking at them, there's definitely been a case of like, "Okay, I can pretend to kind of sort of -ish be an extrovert for roughly 2 or 3 days and then I just, you know, hide for the entire next week because that was the end of my social battery." So, we'll we'll see uh how this works out uh this year, but as a result of um this revised format, we are able to um like our venue worked with us, same venue as we've had since 2021. So, this is, let's see here, 21, 22, 23, 25. This will be our fifth year uh at the Holiday Inn Austin Midtown. Uh great working relationship with them and um, when we came to them and said like, "Hey, maybe we do this as a 2-day event this year." They're like, "Yeah, fair enough." Uh, and uh, as a result of that, we've been able to, even as uh, costs have gone up over the years, um, just make sure that uh, conference uh, price is accessible for uh, both attendees and uh, for sponsors as well. Um, so that if somebody is paying their own way to attend, that uh, it's it stays within reach. Um, and yeah, it's it will will see how it goes, but I'm I'm cautiously optimistic uh, that um, that this is basically taking the good parts of uh, Longhorn PHP over the years and uh, compressing them and not really leaving anything out. >> Yeah, and so I um, I'm like somebody who is trying to figure out how to get there, right? Like I'm still I'm in that that phase. Um, and so like I do appreciate the fact that like I've I've been looking at pricing and pricing things out to try to 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 fairly obtainable for for somebody who might not be able to get work to pay for it. I think is is a big selling point. >> It and like as a conference that like our preference is to be somewhat more of a regional conference, realizing that the the conference situation for PHP conferences that are pure play in the US is a little bit thin right now. But as um as a event that uh tends to be a little bit more regionally focused, um having when your ticket price and your hotel price is something that people are more likely to to be paying versus um necessarily a flight in because they're either driving in or they're local, um being able to play with the the pricing there and get that to a more affordable point while still keeping the the great content that um and we're really happy with the lineup this year. Uh there are a number of folks that uh are first time for Longhorn, um that I'm really excited about. The being able to have that accessible for folks whether you're you're local or whether you're paying for hotel and ticket or whether you're paying for a flight, which like one silver lining on having a Thursday, Friday event is Saturday flight prices at least within the US are a little bit cheaper to get back home versus your Sunday like oh well, you know, flight prices are a higher because you got to get back for work on Monday morning. Uh so those kind of little um you know, quality of life tweaks uh to keep this accessible for the the largest set of folks possible. Uh as an in-person event, yes, we are streaming it as we have in previous years, but the anchor to this event is is in-person first. And we we want to see as as many of y'all there as as we can get because honestly it's it's a lot more fun to have um you know, that you know, 150 200 plus uh attendee uh count um at an event like this. That's when things uh kind of really start uh getting fun. >> Yeah. And And I think that like the the like going to the con Like I've been I've streamed conferences before. And there is like uh a a diff- It's a very different feeling. Especially since like for me at least like I'm at home and I'm trying to watch the the the stream of whatever's going on. But then like work is like, "Oh no, he's at home. We can just bug him." And like my kids are here and they're asking me questions. And like then I'm like, "Well, I just lost like the whole train of thought in this entire presentation." Um so it it is there is like And then then just being able to talk to people in the hallway is like so worth it. It's It's like the one of the best parts of of going to those conferences. So like yes, I I I am My fallback plan is online. I'm really hoping I don't have to do that. So um and so like it And it's kind of interesting as like I'm simultaneously a massive proponent of uh in-person events, whether that's user groups or conferences, while still um like I've I've worked remote for the vast majority of my career and I've um like I assist with Merge PHP. Longhorn PHP is 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 hallway track, things like being able to walk up after uh a speaker finishes their presentation and ask them uh questions, not necessarily in front of the whole class, is something that I feel is effectively impossible to replicate in the same way online. And uh each time that I've gone to conferences as an attendee, I've I've been happy I did. >> And we'll be back after this word from our partners. >> As a programmer, you know that code reviews are critical, but are also time-consuming. Code Rabbit acts as your AI co-pilot, providing instant code review comments and potential impacts of every pull request. Beyond just flagging issues, Code Rabbit provides one-click fix solutions and lets you define custom code quality rules using AST grep patterns, catching subtle issues that traditional static analysis tools might miss. Code Rabbit reviews 1 million pull requests every week across 3 million repositories and is used by 100,000 open source projects. Code Rabbit is free for all open source projects repos. Get started today at phpa.me/coderabbit. That's phpa.me/coderabbit. >> There is a great like lineup of of speakers this year. It's like one of these one of these situations where I'm just like you know, sometimes there's three tracks and and like sometimes when I go through conference talks and say like, "Well, what do I want to watch here? What do I want to watch there?" I'm like, "Oh, I don't really want to watch any of these." That might be like a break period. But like there's a lot of them where it's like, to watch these two and these three all at the same time." And so that's always like a a tough thing cuz you do have like um so there's going to be as far as I can tell three um release managers, two speech PHP managers. We have Elizabeth Baron, who's the Oh, I forget what her title is at the at the foundation. She's part of the the PHP Foundation. I I apologize. I did I did executive director, I feel like is what it's supposed to be. >> Yes, that's it. Yep. >> Okay. Um so and there's just some amazing people. Ben Ramsey is going to be there who a lot of us probably use his package even if his libraries even if we don't know it. There's just a bunch of people there who are who are amazing members of the community even out especially like outside of like PHP. Like David Stokes is going to be there and he has some really good database talks. So, I'm I'm really like excited to see a lot of the talks that are that are going to be presented. >> Yeah. And we were able to like I'm I'm super happy with the fact that you're able to get Elizabeth um to have our opening keynote for kind of giving a view into the community from the PHP Foundation's perspective because that's more and more becoming an important kind of focal point for making sure that the language moves forward. And likewise it's going to be great having Eric Mann round things out with kind of a a um ethics and software focus because there's like there is a very real slippery slope out there of like okay, well, just just you know, ship this code. Ship this code. Don't don't necessarily pay attention to you know, what what things are being used for at the end of the day and I think it's never been more important as as the amount the amount of work that a single person can do keeps increasing in terms of software dev making sure that's pointed in a direction that that you can feel good about. You know, to highlight a few other talks you you mentioned Dave Stokes um and talking through this year we chatting through the kind of JSON data types um, on the database side. You've got, um, Daniel Shorser talking about, uh, the PHP 8.6, upcoming release. It's great to have a release manager talking through the release they're managing. As well as, uh, presenting a, uh, workshop on, uh, building PHP extensions in Rust. So, like, when I say PHP and PHP adjacent, uh, there are talks that are going to be there that are not necessarily going to have dollar signs before the variables because, uh, we like, it's always been a case of right tool for the job, and being able to pick, uh, a tool so that you can you can really stay in the PHP ecosystem for for longer versus having to pick up, uh, something that's maybe less fit for purpose, uh, is is really important. And having, um, you know, having a forum for sitting down for, you know, 3 hours or even an entire day, like, we've got a full day, uh, tutorial this year on kind of code cleanup, refactoring, and basically making sure that, um, that code bases get more maintainable over time rather than the less, uh, is is actually really important, and we're we're happy to be able to, uh, provide a venue for folks to learn about that. >> Yeah, and and we did like, um, we just talked to Daniel about about his work as the as the 8.6 and 8.5 release manager. Um, and so, if you if you go with, I think it's like the previous interview. I can't I can't remember how that all works out, but like, we did we just talked to him both about like his work as the release manager and his talks at Longhorn, um, because I was I was interested in what he had to talk about. And like, the one of the things that he's talking about is like building extensions within PHP, um, and I think he's using Rust, but I can't remember. >> Yes. >> Uh, but but essentially like it's we're it's it's always like fun to watch. Like, I always like go I don't understand how I'm going to use this in my normal day-to-day um like work, but I appreciate that this is a concept that we can use. You know what I mean? I'm I'm glad that this is a thing that exists and and is and is available to all all of us. Um and then it also is really interesting like hearing all of the different features that they're throwing in for uh 8.6. So, that's that's like in of itself I think is worth the time is learning about extensions and learning about what's coming up in 8.6. So, those are those are excellent talks, too. So, um is there any any like So, usually there's like a social piece to this? Is is there going to be um any kind of like after hours things that are going to be occurring at the conference? >> Um well, we're still currently working through what exactly will be kind of sponsored events uh at the conference. With that said, um we will, as with previous years, um on the tutorial day, after the tutorial day, that evening, we'll have an Austin PHP meetup kind of merge PHP-ish in person uh using uh that venue. Probably kind of lightning talks are similar to what we've done last year and the in in years in the past. Uh that will be free and open to the public if you're in the area. Um there I'm sure we will have Worst Con somewhere along in there uh depending on uh how the sponsorship situation shakes out, uh we'll figure out which day we'll uh walk people over to the uh nearest provider of fine uh hot dogs and sausages and um have a little bit of fun there. Um The historically we've had uh one or two after parties. Um TBD on that at the moment. Uh yeah, pending additional sponsorship, we'll uh we'll add something in where, you know, potentially Friday evening, we'll uh have uh yeah, pizza and stuff after the closing keynote. Uh best way to find out about those sorts of things would be to sign up for our email list and assuming uh Google does not decide to shove everything into the promotions tab like they have with a few of our emails, uh you'll see updates on that. And we're also on uh various social networks including uh PHP social, uh Blue Sky, LinkedIn, and the site formerly known as Twitter. Um so, you can follow us there and uh get updates as we uh lock down additional sponsorship and uh add uh those events in. But, at the very least, like we're going to have uh the awesome PHP meetup uh Thursday evening, and then um you know, a group of us will we'll go somewhere and uh and do Worst Con uh sometime during the conference. >> Yeah, Worst Con is really fun. Like, if if people aren't aware of that, it's basically like a community thing where just people go and eat and drink beer. Um and there's a whole story around it. Um but, it is like it's it is a highlight of of the the PHP conferences for me is that they have that last night of just everybody getting together and having fun essentially. Um so, unfortunately, I do have to draw this conversation to a close. Um is there anything that you want us to direct our listeners to before we let you go? >> Uh I would say, you know, find us on socials on on your preferred method. Um go to longhornphp.com. We have had our schedule up for a little bit now. And again, I'm I'm really happy with uh how that's panned out this year. So, take a look at that. If you like what you see, grab a ticket and I hope to see you all in Austin in October. >> Yeah. And thank you so much for for everything you're doing to I know this is like a labor of love. It's not like you're not, you know, throwing money around after this. So, I would do appreciate all of the effort you guys are putting into this. >> Thank you. I'm you know, happy to pay it forward 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. Maybe share this episode with a co-worker so they can learn about Longhorn PHP. Maybe send it to your boss and see if they'll pay for the ticket. It is quite affordable. The podcast is available both in an audio version on the PHP Architect website as well as a video version on our YouTube channel. Ian was nice enough to let me know after the record that he's going to give us a a $25 off coupon code that will be available in the description of this episode. So, if you want to check that out, that will be helpful both to him and to me. But, this is Scott Keck Warren for the PHP Architect Community Corner signing off and remind you to keep listening, keep coding, and keep reading., Longhorn PHP 2026 With Ian Littman, Scott Keck-Warren and Ian Littman (php[architect]), 01m1h1fatrpqfhs2tyhe9z38qv.