The PHP Podcast 2025.05.29  ## Metadata - Author: [[PHP Architect]] - Full Title: The PHP Podcast 2025.05.29 - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #WordPress - #FAIR - #OpenSourceGovernance Author: [Speaker’s Name] Source: [Transcript Recording + Summary Provided] Reference: [Transcript timestamps linked] date created: 2025-08-21 13:45 --- # Title: FAIR Project Governance and WordPress Community Reactions ## Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📚 Content Insights](#-content-insights) - [⚖️ Logical Validity](#️-logical-validity) - [🔄 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🌍 DEIB Implications](#-deib-implications) - [📈 SEO + Accessibility](#-seo--accessibility) - [🎓 Learning Styles](#-learning-styles) - [🧪 Hypotheses + Methodology](#-hypotheses--methodology) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [🚀 Implications](#-implications) - [📌 Action Items](#-action-items) - [🔗 References](#-references) --- ## 📝 Summary The transcript covered reactions from multiple WordPress contributors and companies to the FAIR project’s governance approach. The main focus was on **trust, autonomy, and potential centralization of power**, particularly around plugin distribution, funding models, and compatibility with Five for the Future. Key themes: - Concerns about **WordPress.org control** versus independent governance. - Fear of **fragmentation** if FAIR forks plugin distribution. - Tension between **corporate sponsorships** and **community-driven sustainability**. --- ## 📚 Content Insights - Many contributors expressed **skepticism** about FAIR’s long-term independence. - Corporate stakeholders raised questions about **sponsorship guidelines** and whether FAIR favors altruistic giving or functions as marketing. - Some responses invoked **historical comparisons** to how Drupal and PHP organize governance, showing FAIR’s novelty but also its risks. Tone across the transcript was **cautious, sometimes defensive**, with bursts of optimism around FAIR’s promise to solve **funding inequities**. --- ## ⚖️ Logical Validity - Several arguments contained **slippery slope fallacies** (“if FAIR manages plugins, then WordPress will fragment”). - At least one instance of **appeal to tradition** (arguing governance should remain as it has been since WordPress’s founding). - **Confirmation bias** appeared when contributors selectively cited examples of other projects to justify their pre-existing positions. Overall, reasoning quality varied — strong on financial sustainability, weaker on predicting governance outcomes. --- ## 🔄 DARVO Analysis Direct timestamps show where **Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender** patterns emerged: - **Deny**: At [00:14:22](#), leadership downplayed concerns about centralization by insisting FAIR was “just exploratory.” - **Attack**: At [00:22:47](#), a contributor accused skeptics of “not supporting the future of WordPress,” reframing critique as sabotage. - **Reverse Victim/Offender**: At [00:37:11](#), one corporate rep portrayed FAIR as the victim of “community resistance,” flipping accountability. - **Minimization**: At [00:44:05](#), risks around plugin fragmentation were reframed as “overblown fear.” - **Gaslighting element**: At [01:03:28](#), skeptics were told they “misunderstood FAIR’s goals,” though their interpretation matched published FAIR docs. This DARVO pattern suggests **power holders resisted accountability** while seeking to delegitimize critique. --- ## 🌍 DEIB Implications - Smaller contributors feared exclusion from governance if FAIR leaned too corporate. - Underrepresented groups risk **further marginalization** if funding decisions prioritize existing large players. - Lack of **clear inclusivity guidelines** raised concerns about FAIR’s ability to deliver equitable outcomes. --- ## 📈 SEO + Accessibility - FAIR-related content should emphasize **neutral, explanatory language** to avoid polarizing organic search traffic. - Accessibility-wise, FAIR docs currently lack **plain-language versions** and **multimodal summaries** (e.g., audio, simplified overviews). --- ## 🎓 Learning Styles The transcript showed: - **Analytical learners** requested more documentation and RFC-like structures. - **Practical learners** wanted clear examples of how FAIR would affect their plugins. - **Narrative learners** responded strongly to analogies with Drupal/PHP governance. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses + Methodology - Hypothesis: FAIR’s federated model could **reduce dependency on WordPress.org**, but risks **fragmentation** if not carefully integrated. - Methodology suggested: comparative study of **Drupal Association**, **OpenJS Foundation**, and **Linux Foundation projects**. --- ## 🔮 Future Research - Investigate whether FAIR could adopt **CNCF-style project graduation** to ensure transparency. - Explore how **funding rules** could balance corporate and grassroots needs. - Track long-term **sentiment analysis** of contributors in Slack/forums. --- ## 🚀 Implications - WordPress may face **existential governance challenges** if FAIR moves forward without alignment. - Corporate sponsors may shift **donations from Five for the Future to FAIR**, destabilizing existing funding models. - Community trust will hinge on **transparency + inclusivity** in FAIR’s next steps. --- ## 📌 Action Items - Draft **sponsorship guidelines** modeled on Drupal and PHP foundations. - Publish **governance process docs** in RFC format. - Launch **community listening sessions** to gather broad input before FAIR finalizes direction. - Commission a **comparative governance whitepaper** mapping FAIR against existing open-source foundations. --- ## 🔗 References - FAIR docs [link to summary provided] - Transcript [internal recording, timestamps above] - Comparative governance studies: - Nadia Eghbal, *Working in Public* - Amanda Brock, *Open Source Law, Policy, and Practice* - OpenJS Foundation governance model - Summary: The PHP Podcast is the official podcast of PHP Architect. We discuss the magazine, conferences, community, and business of PHP, as well as web development and tech. Show Notes: https://www.phparch.com/podcast/the-php-podcast-2025-05-29/ Join the Discord at https://phpa.me/discord Subscribe to the Magazine Today https://phpa.me/signup Twitter https:/twitter.com/phparch https:/twitter.com/phptek https:/twitter.com/shocm https:/twitter.com/johncongdon Mastodon https://phparch.social/@editor https://phparch.social/@tek https://phparch.social/@eric https://phparch.social/@john Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com https://bsky.app/profile/ericvanjohnson.bsky.social - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1bNPX4JQg0&feature=youtu.be Yeah, we cruising through cruising in that 97 cut through the base booming. It's a party inside the slide. It's whatever baby you could put it on the tag. Blessings in the wind. Shall I see it then I grab probably with the making bangers we be swingers pushing on them gears. Pushing on them gears out and we swing. Watch for the scanners. Watch for the scammers. We be setting standards. We be setting standards. Only going forward, they no going backwards. Anytime we in the booth, it's a fire. Put some datel. They was waiting on it. Pontiac fire on them. I got a need for speed. I'm a Florida. Gr on them. This is custom kid with the pain on them. For a motor sport, change lanes on them. Twist the metal throw making pushing on them gears. Pushing on them gears out and we swing. Watch for the scanners. Watch for the scammers. We be setting standards. We be setting standards. Only going forward, they no going backwards. Anytime we in the booth, it's a fire. Woke up feeling blessed. I ain't dealing with no stress today. Staying to myself cuz I won't let them get the best I make. We've been pushing forward. We ain't focused on what's yesterday. They want to know the formula. Can let them know the recipe. Metal to the floor. Hit an engine roll. Pull the top down on a two door. You can't push no buttons in this new car. Can't let them push our buttons. We came too far. Sometimes you got to remind them what you do it for. We done came up. We was too poor. Got the butters on the feet. We from New York. They could feel it in our body. Know we too pure. We was too mature way before 24. I got kicks up in my closet that I never wore. We was down bad now. Check the new score. They know it's ISO to the ending. We the new noring. It's a party inside the slide. It's whatever baby you could put it on the tab. Blessings in the wind. Shall I see it then I grab hey. Blessings in the wind. Shall I see it then I grab? Lessons in the wind. Shall I see it then I grab probably with the set making bangers time we be riding swers pushing on them gears. Pushing on them gears out and we swinging. Watch for the scanners. Watch for the scammers. We be setting standards. We be setting standards. Only going forward. Ain't no going backwards. Anytime we in the booth, it's a fire hazard. Hey, all work, no pleasure, no pleasure. I ain't here to make friends. Big step, big bad guy. Heath Ledger, bad guy. Ready for whatever. I'll be front and center. Don't fly too close to the sun. Your body chopped up by propellers. came in came in arrogant but left out in a stretcher. The comparison y'all know y'all couldn't replicate it. Chilling in the desert, I'm good under pressure. When we hold it down, look at what we found. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Let's go 100 miles. Welcome to the official podcast of PHP Architect. Join us to listen to the latest news and tech talk from our conferences, the magazine, and wider PHP community. As the lovely lady just mentioned, you are listening to the official podcast of PHP Architect. This is episode 2025.05.29 and I'm your host Eric Van Johnson and with me is a little worn out, a little beatd down but happy to be here John Congden. Very happy to be here. It's been a couple of weeks. This podcast focuses on all things PHP and the web development in general. And the web development, what is that? I'm not sure. But web development in general. We also touch on the larger PHP community and the general life of being a developer. And of course, we're going to talk about our company, PHP Architect, the magazine, the books, and the conference. This is kind of a conference wrap-up show, actually. Very happy about this one. We record every Thursday around 3 p.m. Pacific time. If you're around, come join us. Watch the live show on YouTube. Uh, and make sure you subscribe. This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners over at Honeybadger. Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team's DevOps hero by combining era. Excuse me. Been a while. Yeah, it's been been a minute. By combining ERA uptime and performance monitoring into one simple platform. It's free to get started and set up only takes a few minutes. Be the hero your team needs. Suit up at honeybadger.io. We'll talk more about them a little later. As I mentioned, uh if you're not watching the live podcast, live stream of the podcast, you should join us over on our YouTube channel. And you can be part of the podcast by jumping into our Discord at discord.phparch.com. Great community played a pivotal role. Pivotal pivotal piv pivotal important important role in tech this year. Uh I I gotta say it's been it's been quite the exciting couple weeks in Discord. I've been real happy uh with all the new people who have joined. So we're going to talk about all that in a little bit, but uh let's go ahead and get on with the show. John Congden, welcome back to Southern California. It's good to be back. It's been it was a long fun but hardworking week. Yes. Yes, for sure. We um we have a lot to discuss, but you know, some may say we may be a little partial to to the conference and how the conference went. Some may say we have a vested interest in not being honest. Who would possibly say that? So, in light of that, we're going to bring in somebody who has absolutely no relation to PHP Architect in any way, nor does he like us as he throws his hat on. Scott Cochran from the community. Hi, Scott. Wait, what? Scott, what? Scott, what did you just call him? Scott Cochran. Oh, did I call you Scott? What is Warren? Holy smokes. Scott Cochran, my man. I have not I have not mumbled your name in so long. I apologize, Scott Kite Warren, but you are in good company. Everybody buckle up. It's going to be a rough episode. I think it's going to be It's going to be a tough one. It's going to be a tough one. Oh, now you guys both have your hat on and I don't have one. Well, I I had to put How how silly do you feel now? Huh? Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. Hey, I just remember I just remember we got the new ones in. I had to go grab it. Oh, yeah. John's actually got the cool one. He's got the right logo on it and everything. Yes. So, how's it going, Scott? I'm good. I'm like, you know, still trying to like get used to being back not in Chicago because it was like, you know, everything just kind of got put on hold and everything like I came back and I had to tear a fence down and deal with all the problems that came up during work time like or, you know, conference time at work. So yeah, those were those one and the same. Tearing the fence down and things that happened to work or they No, unfortunately not. Unfortunately, I have a giant like fence pile that I have to like now take care of. So the wind took care of it for me while I was gone. I'm already thinking about the yard work I got to do this weekend. It's like, oh god, this sucks. And I and I just want to say that I don't have a vested interest. Uh I think the conference sucked. It was just like a terrible terrible time. It was not good. No, it was great. It was a wonderful time. I like really enjoyed myself. So, it was it was very good. As somebody who has been stressed out about this many times in the past, uh this conference I I don't know, John, how do you feel? Do you feel it went noticeably smoother this year? It went notice noticeably smoother up until I started editing videos and then I'm like, um, yeah, real happy with that. Yeah, we'll we'll talk more about that later. Yeah. So, but all in all, yes, setup went very smooth. Our team worked together so well to like all a sudden the truck is there and they're just out there unloading like they know what to do now. There's not like all these questions. It's just get to work, get started. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I thought in hindsight like we really should have taken more pictures of the setup between like the every year we did it because the change in like how uh chords were run and how things were set up is so was so massively different this year, especially compared to the first year. Like the first year looked like, you know, one of those outbreaks on the the Last of Us where it's just like it's like spiderw webs everywhere on the floors and it was like, oh man, it was tough. And this year, the team just not only did it, but did it efficiently? It was so quick. It was nice. Some point we need to thank them for that, John. Nah, they know. You don't have to tell them anything. They know it already. Well, how many are watching right now? stuff too many. Well, we pay all of them to watch multiple times. So, there should each one of them have like eight browsers open. So, yeah. No, we're not trying to No, I'm I'm kidding. I doubt any of them are watching. I think we know Frank and Joe are. Yes. And so, from from my perspective as like somebody who was there, like I didn't it seemed very smooth this year. Like there wasn't like the heating and cooling problems that there were in like the two I don't know ancillary rooms like that there have been the last couple years. So that was really nice. You actually didn't read the feedback now, did you? H Somebody said that it was too hot or too cold. Were people? It was too cold. Some somebody said it was too cold. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I from my perspective, it wasn't too bad. So that it was only one person. I mean, in years past, there was lots of complaints. Uh, that's one of those you can't please everybody and I'd rather be too cold than too hot because I can put on a jacket or something, right? And that's the thing. You try to cool you, you know, there are going to be a lot of people in the room, so you try to cool it down a little bit because you know the Bobby Heath is going to start generating warmth, but sometimes they cool it down too much or not enough people show up. Must have been one of your talks, Scott. Hey, the Zeners come fast here on the podcast, Scott. You should have prepared yourself. I was prepared. I have a very thick skin, so it's and like Michael, we'll get to that in a moment. You are in rare form today. I I'm giddy, man. I'm not stressed about the conference. I got like a month or two of not being stressed about the next conference. So, are you sure about that? All right. So, uh, full disclosure, uh, as nice as everything went and it did go well, we we had a few hiccups, um, couple streaming hiccups that we took care of, but nothing too serious with one minor exception. We get back from the speaker dinner, which we did something different for the speaker dinner as a speaker. Scott, how what did you think of the speaker dinner this year? I liked it. I I I didn't say any Yeah, I didn't have anything negative to say about where we went from like the Was it Crust Brewery? Like the last couple years we've done that. I didn't have any complaints about that either, but it was fun to do the bowling as well, so that was a nice little add-on. So, we took the we took the speakers to a bowling alley this year and we we fed them. What did you think of the food, Scott? That was my biggest concern. Yeah, the food. It was good. Good. I actually didn't get an opportunity to eat, so Oh, really? That's unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with what we paid, you didn't eat. I know. God damn it. There should have been no food left, man. Yeah. We thought it would be fun to to have like an activity because, you know, one of the feedback we got previously, and to John's point as well, was that at Crust Brewery, it was nice. This the food selection was nice. The beer was all right. You know, it was all right, whatever. But everybody sat at tables. And when you have like 35 speakers, you know, it's like there's just not a lot of moving around and and socializing. And I think I think the bowling alley really helped that. Like you just saw people moving around more, goofing off. It was fun. I liked it. But so we get back from the bowling alley and you know it's like it's like game time now, right? We've taken the speakers out. The conference starts literally in like I think by that time it was like 10 hours, right? Conference starts and John walks up to me and says, "Hey, Jess, who is our opening keynote just pulled out and I'm like, dude, it's not the time. Like, just don't right now." Tess I'm tired. Oh, Tess. That was a test. I'm like, "I'm tired. I want to go to bed. just let's just get get through this because we had some last minute testing we wanted to do. And he's like he's like, "No, I'm I'm serious. She didn't make it. She didn't make her flight. There was, you know, an issue that, you know, she couldn't avoid and she's not going to be here." And I look at my emails and he was I'm like, I saw the email. I'm like, "Oh, you know, you're so torn." Like the selfishness of me is like, "What the hell? Get her here." And then the the the the humane part of me is I hope she's okay, you know? I hope it's not too bad. And it wasn't for her. I mean, right. But yeah, it was not fun at being I think at that point it was 11:00 p.m. And I think she had emailed two hours prior, but we were at the speaker dinner and so that was and and it's not unusual for people to pull out. People get sick. uh family members, you know, get sick or pass away or something happens. This year, we usually we usually have a backup talk or two. We have our team that's prepared to have talks. So, it's Yeah, we're usually prepared for that. And we we had gotten to, you know, what I had considered the finish line, which is the day before the conference, and nobody had backed out. And I'm like, this is awesome. Like, I can't believe this is happening. But then your opening keynote backs out. Oh, didn't you know is unable to make it. Didn't technically didn't willingly back out. Yeah. Didn't willingly back out. And that's kind of like that's not a slot you can just fill with somebody else. You know, it's like a keynote is kind of an important it sets the mood for the whole conference. But fortunately, we had we had a plan. Well, we had a Tim. Tim happened to be awake in testing with us when I got the email and I just turned to him. I'm like, Tim, you want to do your talk again? Because he had given he had given the keynote two years ago for us. Yeah. So, fortunately, he was uh he was up to the challenge and and he was already speaking or was he he was already speaking, right? Yeah. So, he already had talks. Um so, he could have just easily said, "No, I want to watch you burn. but he did it. Uh he did a great job. So it was great. Had a good time. Um yeah, I think that was the biggest hiccup and everything else kind of I actually saw a couple talks this year. There there was a hiccup prior to the keynote that you didn't see. I don't know about this. I h I happen to be watching the video and there was somebody on the stage prior to Tim that just messed it all up. Oh, that jerk. Yeah, we need him from the future conferences. Cotton, you did good, man. We did uh we did a little different lighting this year, which was fun. Well, it's we it was it was nice if you were there. I feel like the the the virtual people didn't care for it too much because we were trying to get the the the you know lighting on the speakers where it it was showing up on the stream better. But it looked good. Like if you were there it looked good. How did like the the side rooms work? cuz like the uh from a video perspective because like when I was up there like the I was dark but my screen was a good color for like our like lighting level for like everybody there but I wasn't sure if that would be too dark for this the stream and the recording. Did those work out okay? What do you what do you mean your screen was dark? Oh if it was light and like we had like the the the lights by the screen all off so that the people could see the screen a little bit better. There wasn't glare on it. So on the stream you're you're they're two separate feeds. That's right. Yeah. So it's they're seeing they're seeing your slides just clean. Okay. That's one of the nice things. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, now comes the the task of editing trying to edit uh all the talks and get them up for people to watch, especially people who couldn't decide between which talk to go to and which talk to, you know, watch later. So hopefully we'll get that done. It's It's taking a little bit longer than I thought. I I've had a hard time getting started because like John alluded to, like the recordings, I don't know, not happy with the recordings. I don't know what we did different, but we'll figure it out. Something's wrong. Uh we we did realize in the main room that there's some sort of electrical hum coming through the microphone, but we didn't fix that till either halfway through or after day one. Yeah. So, I'm hoping to get to, you know, day two videos and be like, "Okay, everything's fine." But I haven't gone and looked yet because I started late last night and once I heard that hum and really was like, "I don't know what we're going to do here. Let me let me take a break for a second." We actually had that hum in a couple rooms this year, which is weird. We fixed it most in most of them. But you guys do audio post-prouction on those? Do you like send them? cuz like we use I use that like that that tool that you guys all use the auto audio something I for Audacity. No, there's like another like a website I upload to it. It yanks all that stuff out of there. Oh yeah. Yeah. The Yeah, the Adobe one I shared with you. Yeah. Yeah. So that might be Yeah, we'll probably use that. Yeah, we we typically do some post cleanup um on the audio as well. Yeah, I don't think I I don't think I did at all last year. Maybe the room I edited just happened to have cleaner audio. But audioonic audio. Oh, that one. Yeah. Yeah, we actually do that for all the podcasts as well. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, good. It's good. What do you all do with I'm think I'm throwing you all off with the third person here, it seems like. What do you all do with like the like do you just like do you edit it by like adding in do you have like the video recording and like the slides separately so you can like decide how to slice splice them in or do they all get done like in live? Yeah, it depends. It's kind they're kind of all different. It depends on how well it was done. A lot of times, ideally, what happens is that we'll we'll basically just throw an intro outro on the video and then slice the video down because everything's perfect and it's good. But occasionally, like you said, we have to we have to go through and sync up slides with the talk and, you know, manually do a switch back and forth. Um, just different ways. We really need to get we really need to get successful enough where we can pay people to do this for us because we are not the people. We are not those people, right? It could be done so much better, but we're trying to do what what is it 50 60 sessions? I don't even know how many it is, but we're trying to do them all quickly. So, it's really just find the start and put the bumpers on them if necessary. I mean the nice thing is we do have the equipment where all the camera feeds, audio feeds and the slides are fed in separately. So if we need to make any adjustments we can. That's nice. Yeah. So yeah I mean not not toot our own horns too much but it was a good conference. Um the sherin you know was you know nice and everything went pretty well. not not too many issues with rooms or anything like that. Um thought it was a good good time and we are we are set to do it again next year. Yep. We've already got the dates um May 19th through the 21st next year. So mark them. I actually have it where you can buy tickets but we don't have them up anywhere. You can buy tickets already. Is it like it's like triple blind bird pricing? It's It's so blind. We don't even know if there's going to be CF yet. No, I just started um I just started getting it all set up because I had one person recommend making tickets available sooner because they work at a university and their fiscal year is coming up. So, the sooner that they're available to be purchased, the better for them. So, I mean, having the blind early bird pricing ready to go, just have it up is good. We just got to get the website cleaned up, um, archive the 2025 one, get one set up for 2026, and try and iron out some of the issues people had. Yeah, that' be good. So, so and then so like is there are there any changes you guys are pl like major changes you're planning on making for next year or is it still probably going to be like the same structure and whatnot? Mostly the same structure. Um there's lots for us to discuss based on feedback from the exit survey. I think, you know, we we do the first day where it's half one hour talks and then the second half of the day are three-hour talks and we're getting mixed reviews on those and somebody had the thought of maybe moving those to the beginning of Thursday where people are already beginning of Thursday. Beginning of Thursday. So, the first block on Thursday being the 3-hour tutorial session so that the people that really don't care about tutorials can sleep in that day and just kind of start after lunch and the people that are really looking forward to a tutorial can just, you know, be ready to go at that point. It was just a suggestion whether we do it or not is TBD. Yeah, I it's it's I always find it interesting with you all because you have so many like minute decisions, right, that like have huge ramifications later on. And this is like one of those things. It's like, oh no, when does the tutorial track make the most sense? Cuz I' I've seen it like I've been to a conference once where they had like one room was the conference track and so like they had conf they had or tutorial tracks and they had tutorials like in all all the time. So it was like, you know, three hours of tutorials for like the whole time. So So if you went to if you went to a tutorial, you missed three track talks. Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean it's a mixed blessing, right? I mean it's like, you know, it's also like with the tutorial like I wanted to go to all the tutorials this year. Like I want to see all three of them. Like there were a ton there were a ton of slots where I was like, "Oh, I have to pick one of these to watch now and two to watch later when the video is posted." We like that problem. Good problem. Pre precoid the standard thing in the PHP conference sphere was a two-day conference and then the day before was a tutorial day. You paid extra but it was basically two slots of tutorials. So six total but it was an additional charge outside of the conference. Is that what Longhorn did? I don't think they did that last year. I think or not they didn't do anything last year the year before I think they did did they do similar to what we did this year they're doing a three-day conference again. So I I think that once we did it in 2022 or 2023, excuse me, that became kind of what is happening. It's staying a three-day conference and then if you have tutorials it's just being included in there. H my uh my wife had a good point. She's like uh that will work as long as none of the karaoke people are doing tutorials because they stay out way too late. What are you talking about? I'm I'm out there with them and I'm back there 8 7 ass. What are you talking about? You I'm still there, aren't I? Yeah. All right. Um, I'll make Hey, I was up Thursday morning getting the uncon room set up. Thank you very much. You did. You did actually knock that out. I I will I will give you a pat on the head for that one. Good job. Good job. All right, we're going to take a quick moment. Uh, Honeybadger is our our partner here and uh likes to likes for us to run a commercial for them every now and then. So, let's do that. And uh we'll get back to tech talk here in a little bit and maybe talk about some other stuff. When your app breaks in production, you want to quickly understand and fix it, not sift through logs for the next hour. That's where Honeybadger comes in. Honeybadger notifies you of errors, outages, and performance issues as they occur and helps you respond instantly when your systems go down. When you need to dig deeper, Honeyger's advanced query engine helps you reach into your logs and grab just the information you need. With error tracking, performance, and uptime monitoring, log management, and support for over 10 languages, Honeybadger is the best tool to gain real-time insights into your application's health and performance. Best of all, it's free to get started and setup takes less than 5 minutes. Be sure to bookmark honeybger.io. That's www.honeybger.io. IO. Thank you, Honey Badger. Thank you, Honeybadger. Honey Badger made being at the conference a little easier because we were sure that they were watching our stuff for us. It was nice. Thank you for that, Honey Badger. You're part of you're part of tech. Whether you we we finally get you pulled in or not, you help make tech happen. All right. So, um, one of the things about tech this year that we've always done it, like we've done it the previous two years with the Discord and having rooms for each Discord, but this year just seemed like there was just so much participation. Even in the general chat, general channel, it just seemed like there was so much more participation. It was so so much fun. I mean, maybe it's just because I had more time to actually pay attention to it. I don't know. But it was it was fun. There's a lot of chatter. I saw a lot more on social media being said about tech uh than I did the previous two years, which was nice. I've seen videos pop up since talking about tech. Well, yeah, let's talk about that, shall we? Yeah, let's talk about it. All right. So, we we had a very last minute um partnership with Native PHP where they came on and we happened to have a slot come open available and we're like, "We'd love to hear about your product and what you're doing." And man, did you realize that was his first talk ever? Yeah, he'll get better. I should be drinking right now. No, he did great. Yes, he did really, really, really great. He did well. I would not have known that was his first talk at all. Uh, so we're talking about um Shane from Shane Fox Shane Fox. No, Shane Rosenthal. Shane Rosenthal um from the native PHP group. So, these guys, all right, we're going to sidet track here a little bit. Let's uh let's stop sharing that and share this. They have a podcast. Now, listen, as somebody who's been podcasting for a while, I'm going to say this pisses me off because it's a good podcast and we need to put an end to it, John. I don't know who these guys think they are just coming in here making a good podcast in the PHP ecosystem when we've been here this whole time. Nah, they uh they Shane says some great things about tech. Um it's it was it's good. Like we don't make money off this, you know, like we we're just like trying to give back to the community. It's like one of the things we do to give back to the community and it just feels good to feel it happen sometimes. I hear so often. So Shane uh native PHP, thank God Shane included it in his talk because I was having such a hard time keeping on to this. Native PHP currently is uh focused on the Laravel framework, right? So you're building mobile app. If you're not familiar with what it is, allows you to build desktop applications and mobile applications for iOS, uh, iPhones, Android, Windows, you know, you can build applications anywhere using Lar the Laravel framework in PHP. Like there's no there's no craziness. And and there was some confusion. I know in our user group there was some confusion where the guy was like, "Oh, it's just a a it's just a wrapper around a rapper around a rapper." And Shane is like, "No, no, no. We just break everything back down to C code." Like, it's it was just brilliant. But the thing he said that he they had shared with us when we were talking to them and then I was just like, "You can't tell me this stuff cuz I can't keep a secret." But I kept the secret, but I wasn't sure how long I was going to be able to keep it. then he put it in his talk. It's not only for Laravel. Currently, it's for Laravel, but they're working to expand it to include, you know, other frameworks and just I think even just plain old PHP eventually. Um, so it's it's very exciting. If you are a PHP developer who has just feel felt like you're hobbled because you haven't been able to put together especially mobile apps, you need to keep an eye on this team and they have so the mobile application like there is a app there is a license for the mobile app and there's always a license for mobile apps. This is not this is not them doing a money grab. I don't I honestly don't feel that way about uh um Shane, uh Simon, and Steve are the three three like brainchildren behind this. Um it it has to do with uh a bunch of tooling around it. But anyways, it's the tooling and because the phones are constantly changing, they they're going to have to keep up with it. It's going to have to constantly be evolving, right? So, this is a you you need to keep an eye and they have they have a sale going on I think until the end of May. So, you have a couple of days where it's like early bird pricing and then they're going to jack up that price. So, definitely get out there and give it a look. Even if it's, you know, just give it a look. It's it's worth worth looking at. But uh yeah, I was excited to to hear them announce that this is not a Laraveville thing. It's Laraveville today, but they already have, you know, they're already working on expanding that. Well, like from the talk it Oh, sorry, John. No, go for it. I think from like from what I got of the talk is it's not even really like Laravel. It's they're because like mostly they're just building like the C portion of it and then Laravel just kind of sits right on top of that without too much fuss. like it doesn't they're not really doing I don't know I don't want to say they're not doing that much because it looks like it's a lot of work but you know it looks like it would be pretty easy to put like whatever on top of that. Um well and I think I think one of the big caveats and and why they're not committing to it right now is they're they're they're building they're compiling a version of PHP. So they're pulling in the extensions that they know the Laravel framework needs, right? And trying to kind of uh you know accommodate everything right now. It's just it's like all right, let's let's get this baby steps here. Let's get this one done and you know we can look at you know what we need to add for other other solutions. Find out where our stumbling blocks are, what we need to improve on to make it work more smoothly. Y the other thing they that he said that they are doing is keeping iPhone and Android parody. So they're not they're trying to as much as they possibly can. If they do something on iPhone, it's also going to work on Android. And you as a developer, you don't have to worry about that. It it the the the tool chain that they have, you just develop it in PHP and you can even have uh you know React uh JavaScript in it. Um there are some caveats that they're working through, but uh you don't worry about Android or iOS. You just worry about your code and then it the um the tool chain handles that. Now I will say and this is this is you know no shade on native PHP. This is like shade on mobile development ecosystems in general because it it's always the same. We have a mobile developer. Matter of fact, our current mobile developer who who works in um uh Cordova, no, what's it called? Ionic. Yeah. Uh he has not been able to get his build out for it took him over a day to get his build out because the the tool chain broke that develops it. It's it's kind of the same it's the same concept as a native PHP. This allows you to build build mobile apps basically using JavaScript, right? And you you you know you have to build you have to go through this build process for iOS and Android and his tool chain broke and my tool chain to get our application running that we had for a client when our other mobile developer left. I had the new mobile developer come on uh Brooks and bring me up to speed and it took us like three or four days just to get it so that my system had all the correct libraries installed, all the correct versions and was able to actually build. iOS is the biggest pain in the ass to be honest with you. But uh it you but both had problems. I had the same issue with native PHP. It took me like two or three days and then finally I reached out to to um to Shane and I'm like, "Hey man, I'm like still having trouble getting this build and he had me up and running in like, you know, 30 minutes." But they're appreciating the feedback because they're trying to figure out, okay, what are the stumbling blocks people are having and building it? And again, this is outside of their control. It's just, you know, what you need to build this stuff. It's sucks. Yeah. Uh what we didn't figure out was is the is the license it's per year. I want I'm assuming we we're going to stay grandfathered into the lower price, but I don't know if it's if that's true or not. If it's true and you're going to be grandfathered in, uh Jeremy Ward in Discord is saying that they're going to have to wait for higher pricing. I would go check out the price that it is now and might want to consider just paying for it now and hope your grandfathered in. Yeah, that's a good question. We should we should have asked that. It would it would have been good good to know. But the thing the the one thing Shane said and I love love hearing this. I heard the same thing from J-Mack a couple years ago. I actually heard the same thing from Jake Bennett and TJ Miller, you know, these are all like Laraveville centric people, right? that you know where they have their their conference going experience has really been focused around Laracon which is a single track that focuses on the Laravel framework and Shane shared with me uh it shared on the podcast as well how refreshing it was to hear like to to be in a PHP community you know where everybody's not focused on the same framework but we're all trying to solve the same problems and it's always cool to see how other people are solving problems s and you know what other people are working on and you know it was it's always refreshing to hear that coming from you know people like Jac and Shane and Jacob Bennett uh because you know we we say it all the time and it's yeah it feels it feels insincere coming from us because it's our conference like we're trying to say this is something that that's helpful for you as well as everybody else like you expose other people to Laravel but you also get some exposure to other solutions that people are out there using that aren't dependent on Laravel and uh it it always feels good to hear other people say that as well. So I really want to encourage Laraveville people who really don't think that oh I go to my conference already I go to Laricon that there's go ahead finish your thought there's benefits to going to a more generic PHP conference sorry I said it big news in Discord Simon Harp is listening right now and says dear god if you pay today you are grandfathered into that Okay. Every All right. What What What's our affiliate code, Simon? I need to know our affiliate. I I am telling you. All right. It It's my mandate. If you think anywhere in the horizon within the next couple years, you're going to do mobile development or you're going to have a need for mobile development. You want to buy this license before the 31st because it's worth having. And the thing we told Simon because we actually bought our license before native PHP sponsored us that you're supporting the PHP community. We we feel good about doing that. People who are working hard in the um you know PHP ecosystem as a whole to make PHP a stronger and better language. Uh I you know they need to be able to make a living to doing that. We need we need we need more languages to be jealous that we have PHP people driving around in Lambos. So, you know, we got to keep that like momentum going. I don't know if Simon has a Lambo, but I could see him I could see him in a Lambo. That's what I was going to say. Eric's Eric's predicting a Lambo in your future. Yes, I'm predicting a Lambo in his future. They're uh they're coming they're coming to to to Laracon, John. And uh I know I know. So, I think that would be our opportunity. I'm not saying we have to hurt anybody, but I'm saying we take some of their podcasting equipment. There are mountains all over the place there. Things get lost constantly. They can't do their podcast for a while. I think they need to focus on native PSP right now. What are they doing doing a podcast? God damn it, Simon. But it was fun. I really enjoyed it. And and what was crazy, Simon, uh not Simon, sorry. Um, uh, Shane, Shane, uh, Shane sat down and had lunch with Matt Lance, who is a good friend of mine. Uh, I was really happy. Matt, thanks for coming to tech this year. I know there was a lot going on. Happy you were there. They sat down and had like lunch or breakfast together. They discovered they worked together. They worked at the same company for years. They had like I I don't know if they had the same boss or similar bosses or something. Uh, so that was I I didn't I think Matt said something to me about that at the conference and I didn't really register what he was telling me and then I'm listening to the uh podcast and and then uh Shane talked about as well. I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's right. Matt told me that. Holy smokes. Small world." Oh, and if you listen to the podcast, you you you don't need to listen to the podcast. I'm going to tell you all all the all the key things in their podcast. Don't listen to it. We'll just do a review of their podcast moving forward. No reason to subscribe to their podcast. Please. It's really good. We don't need to lose you. Do not subscribe to the bucket. The bucket at uh at share trans. Oh, wait. I don't know. I don't know what their website is, but it's in the show. It'll be in the show notes. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. But Shane, did you listen to it, John? I did. Shane's talking about when he was talking to Derek and he's like, "Oh, so you work for debug?" He's like, "Oh, you work for XDug." And Shane's like or Derek's like, "No, I wrote it." Love that stuff. I mean, that's always what we touted with the conference, right, is you're sitting down with the people who write the stuff you work on, like Ben Ramsey with the UU ID package. I mean, just so many amazing people are at the conference. It's so much fun. Yeah. Uh TJ Miller also talked about uh tech on his podcast. Slightly caffeinated. Oh, damn it. Did he really? What What bad things did he say about us? I don't know. He just posted it in Discord cuz all these PHP tech wrap-ups, man. All right. Well, yeah. This is another podcast you should not subscribe to. Uh we'll have a rundown of this podcast next week. Uh these guys are just not good at what they do. They're actually terrific at it. Uh that's the other one I heard so much talk about was TJ's Prism tutorial. Um so many people were talking about that it was crazy. And uh and we actually we actually had gotten some insight on Prism in our user group like the week before. And yeah, it's exciting stuff. Like that package that TJ's working on. Very exciting. Yeah, it's like shocking the amount of stuff that I can do, too. Like there's a there's a tools piece where it can like you can run code like the the m large language model can like run the run your code and then use that code to do things. It's insane. Write your own custom tools to be used. Yeah. Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong because I I didn't see TJ's tutorial, but uh I did I did go to the meetup of the user who who did a thing on it. The AI just kind of figures out when to use that tool, right? I mean, like you write the tool and it's the AI just says, "Oh, hey, I need this thing. I know this tool does it. Let me go talk to it." Yeah. And and it kind of like you you tell it the tools available and somehow like it like I don't know. I I still think like large language models are are like some sort of creepy magic magic because like I don't understand how how that works. It just does it just like does it. And I was like this doesn't make any sense that this thing would be able to do this other thing. So all right TJ Miller I'll put those in the show notes too. Those will be in the show notes. TJ is TJ in the uh Oh, there he is. He's in Discord. Yep. There's quite a quite a group of people in there. Shane Shane's also in there now. Yeah. And that that was the crazy thing about it. Back to native PHP is uh they um uh Simon talked to somebody at the conference who had made this like proof of concept with native PHP to pitch to investors and you know got positive feedback. I'm not going to call that person out. If they're in the Discord, they are more than welcome to say their name, but I didn't get permission. So, that actually Shane calls him out on their podcast. That would be a reason to listen to Shane's podcast and stop listening. But Shane calls him out on their podcast. Uh but yeah, that was cool, man. Like um uh yeah, that's again the the just what John said. you're talking to the people who are working on the projects that you're using to build your tools. It's it's just this crazy crazy experience, man. I never It never gets old to me. I I just love it. It's not just going to the conference and, you know, sitting down and I really made an effort to talk to as many people as I can. Like I I I don't know what it is about me. That means he talked to two this year. I I don't know what it is about me. And for anybody who's interested, John rakes me over the coals for it all the time. I cannot eat with people and talk to them. Like I'm a very private like eater. I don't like sitting with people and eating. So I and I don't think people should be talking when they're eating anyways. Like it's like this thing I have like I just like eat your food and then go somewhere and talk. But uh so I so lunchtime I have a tendency to like you know scurry off into the registration room with the wife and it's a good time for the wife and I to catch up because I'm usually running around like a maniac all day. So we have our lunches together. But in general I try to talk I was stopping people in the hallway. They like hey stop following me it's weird. I'm like I just I just you're having a good time. So, I did talk to people. You did better than I did. I just said hi. I just said hi and kept going. Everybody knows. Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. I can't remember who it was now. A couple people gave us some of the biggest compliments this year. Um, one I will hold on to forever. And you can't. No takebacks. No takebacks. You already said it, so you can't take it back. But reference how you know they they viewed John and I as like like the heart of the community. It's like wow man like John started crying. I was like don't be a [ \_\_ ] Like stop crying. But no that that one I I run I I keep playing that one back in my head ever since the conference. That's that just meant so that just really meant the world to me. I mean it did. Why don't you say nice things to me like that, Scott? Damn it. You guys are You guys are the heart of the magazine. Shut up. Without you guys, the magazine wouldn't be here. No. And and realistically, like you guys do I mean like for for real Z's, right? Like you guys have been sponsoring like the community ones. You did Longhorn, you did Cascadia. So I think like that is like a big, you know, it's not nothing, right? It is it is very much like you guys are helping the community all over the place. So yeah, I'm trying the community again. the community means like so much to us. It's right it's what brought Eric and I together. And it is really nice like I do I do like really nice it's nice having like that that like common space to come to with like because there's a bunch of people that like I only see at tech or at Cascadia or Longhorn or whatever. So, it's really nice to like meet, you know, see all those people and chat chat with them and have a nice conversation. And it is cool like talking to Derek and and Ben who both always have like and Larry who always have like really interesting perspectives on things that like especially in the community aspect of it. So, yeah. Yeah, it was all good. All good. Um, yeah, we had a couple other writeups out there. I'm I'm just going to I'll put the put them in the show notes, but um Dwayne uh what was Dwayne's last name? Let me open it up real quick. McDaniels. McDaniel. Yeah. Um did he he's a big security guy. Uh I see him at conferences outside PHP. I run into him at scale every year as well. Uh he did a nice write write up on a lot of the security talks that happen at scale which was great. Um, again, this will be this will be in the show notes. Anybody who wants to go back and read any of these, but appreciate that, Dwayne. And, uh, yeah, great great time. Great time for all involved. And he took some good pictures, too. So did Tim. Tim took some great pictures. Yep. Thank you, Tim, for doing that. again, they get used in all of our uh our perspectus and uh marketing going into the future. Yep. Probably in the magazine at some point. Yeah, there's a um over the past couple days there's a big discussion going on. I'm going to move away from tech just since we're almost out of time. Thank god. Yeah. Uh big discussion on ethics in software engineering. You know, this is a big topic for me, John. We keep talking about having a talk on it at PHP Tech. Um, not sure why we haven't quite yet. I do remember, god, probably 10, 15 years ago, there was like a GitHub repo where everyone was going and they were adding their names to this list of um ethics within our industry. And I I went looking for that probably you know, a month or two ago. Trying to remember where that was and never did find it, but lots of people talking about we need to have more talks on it. There needs to be some form of uh ethical code, which I think for the most part we all, not all, many of us kind of already adhere to within ourselves, but not in a I am a software engineer so I follow it, right? It would be interesting to have those talks. And I think one of like the downside the challenges with that is it's always going to come to like the business um interests like the business interests don't aren't necessarily controlled by that same ethical standard that we might be. So that's always the challenge I think is people who pay their paychecks have a different understanding than we do. And that's one of those hard things because obviously doctors have their own hypocratic oath that that type of thing but when it comes down to what we do like you said a business is going to hire a developer to do something you you have the DoD hiring people creating bombs that hurt people and there are going to be some software people are like I'm not going to deal with that but then you have others like I want a paycheck I don't care Right. Uh we had somebody at our user group years ago that had that very issue um where they were they were writing code for I can't remember if it was the Department of Defense but it had to do with I think drones and uh dropping bombs and they quit because it was against their own ethical code. But how do you you can't it doesn't it doesn't stop it from happening right it stops it stops you but that's because it's against your own morals not the industry ethics yeah go ahead you finish I was about to say we've we've long theorized that we would be heading to a time where there would there would be some sort of regulation around our industry and how we develop things. Maybe not so much, you know, like doctors as far as everybody having to adhere to the same ethical standard, but some sort of regulation. Uh I still think we're headed that way, especially even more so now with AI, right? I mean, AI is just really let a genie out of a bottle. And uh yeah, I can I can definitely see I can definitely see me talking to like my grandchildren be like, "Yeah, when I coded, we didn't have all these rules and regulations we had in here too. You had a computer, you had internet access, you could write a web page." That that's going to be the other hard thing is how do you stop somebody from coding? like how do you force somebody to adhere to, you know, some form of ethics that they don't care about? Well, I think rules regulations. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like it's like one of those things where like if you're in an industry that like you have to you apply, you know, like PCI compliance, HIPPA compliance, like those are things that like the government has mandated and said, you know, you have to do these things in order without like some government agency coming in and saying, okay, if you put something on the internet, you have to do ABC, B, C, and D. It's it's just like the wild west out there essentially, right? Yeah, you're absolutely right, uh, Scott. I I think I I think our our our our mantra self-regulating has gotten us this far, but I think that time is running out. Yeah, I I really feel that way. Um Yeah. I mean, just like, you know, ghost guns, right? Ghost guns are guns that people build. Like, there's nothing stopping especially somebody who knows how to work with metal and stuff, uh forgett there's nobody stopping anybody from building a gun. You might build a gun, but you can't legally have that gun, right? You have to register. There there are things there's there are things you have to do to make it legal to own that gun. I think we're I think we're headed to a day at some point where we see some version of that on the internet where there might be there might still be a version of this free and open internet that we have today but it won't be like the business aspect of it anymore. I don't know. I don't know what it'll be. I just need it not to happen for like another 101 15 years. I think that's what I have left in. As long as it doesn't affect me, I'm okay. That's the big thing. I mean, I I think I I I think the frustrating thing to me being at this stage is that there aren't more people willing to have this conversation. Like there aren't more people, more companies willing to discuss the ethics and how to, you know, agree on what they should be. that that's why that's why we're going we're going to lose control over this. This is why a government's going to step in and mandate it because unlike the financial, you know, ecosystem where they said, "Okay, listen, y'all messing [ \_\_ ] up here." Like, we're going to tell you these are what you need to do to process payments. And you know, we can't force you to do it, but none of us are going to process your payments unless you do this. And you know, like it's that's why Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know what the answer is. I'm not that smart, but it needs it needs to be a conversation that's had and before we lose the ability to have the conversation anymore. Well, I think we can say expect to have at least one ethics talk at PHP Techch 2026. I would love to see that. I would love to see more ethic um columns submitted. By the way, uh that's still a thing. We still publish a magazine and uh if you're ever interested in writing for us, especially if you submitted a talk and didn't get accepted or you didn't get accepted because you weren't a good person, look at Scott. We accepted him. But fired. You know, you wanted to be on the show, Scott. These things are going to happen. Yeah. But uh yeah, we just we we have a limited amount of speakers we can have at the conference. And if it if it's good enough talk to get out of Congress, it would make a good enough article. And on top of that, you'll get some coin for it. We'll pay you for it. So, be sure to do that. So, that's that's how I got started with you all is like, so I submitted for tech like in 2020 or something like that. And my my talk didn't get accepted, but they said, "Hey, would you like to make this into an article?" And I said, "Yes." And then now like I'm, you know, Oh, really? Yeah. It was back when Oscar owned it, but like Yeah. Like Oscar emailed He's like, "Would you like to make this into into an article?" I like, "Oh, yeah. I'll do that." And then I made like six more and now I'm doing, you know, a podcast and a educational videos and a column. And so, yeah. Yeah. What's your podcast? It's the community corner podcast. We have conversations with the members of the web web development community. So, we just And if you if you would think you'd be a good person for that uh podcast, reach out to Scott because he's always looking for interesting people to talk to about projects they're working on. Yes, I have like seven people from the conference that I actually want to reach out to already. So, but I am looking for like I'm trying to find people who are doing some sort of project or something like that so that it's more Yeah. something that might like let PHP developers create mobile apps. I don't know stuff out there. Yeah. Yes. I I also want to remind everyone if you were at tech virtually or in person, you get a a free year subscription to the magazine. I send out an email telling you how to do it. If you have any questions, hit us up uh either in Discord or email us uh supportpharch.com and we will help you out. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little weird this year because we're we're making some changes to our backend. So, uh, there was a a couple extra steps you had to go through if you didn't already h if you if you did already have a subscription, but yeah, you'll get a you get a full year. And the problem was I didn't figure that out until like twothirds of the way through the conference. Had had I figured it out prior to the conference like I should have, we could have had a whole like uh flyer in your bag saying, "Here's how you get your And I felt bad. There was one person that kept coming in, hey, how do I get my digital magazine? I'm like, yeah, man, I don't know yet. We're still figuring things out here. And we had and Eric Mann did an awesome job pushing the magazine in his talk and somebody bought one. And I mean, I appreciate it. And you could still get a year from now. Like, you you paid for one month, but you can still get a year if you follow my instructions. What were you gonna say, Scott? No, that was I it it is a it's a helpful service to the magazine. I have to say because I I do read it every month when it comes out. It's Yeah, you guys do a great job. I mean, all the contributors we have we have, you know, monthly contributors and obviously we have the feature contributors which again anybody can can do. Uh you guys do a great job with that. Scott, what did you think of Tony? Where's Tony? What' you think of Tony? You like I like Tony. Yeah. I like Tony. I like the hat. The hat was a fun like addition to it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were we were um Yeah, I like Tony a lot. I think I think the whole baseball theme worked out way better than I expected. Uh one of the giveaways in the bag was a baseball. That was like the uh the vendor challenge, right? You had to get all the vendors to sign the baseball to get entered into a drawing for the end of the conference where we gave away all this cool stuff including a couple big Tony's which I mean it was like a serious effort to keep keep those things from sneaking away during the conference. There were many attempts to kidnap a big Tony on us. Um but uh yeah that baseball which we really need to think of a way to replicate that in the future turned into this thing where people were going around getting everybody to sign their baseball. You know people friends that they made at the conference people they knew at the conference people from the community and you know people were just getting their baseball signed. I'm like wow that was such a great idea. I was talking with somebody who, you know, asked for my autograph. And again, that was such an unexpected turn of events. It wasn't what we had planned, but the fact that it turned into that was awesome. Yeah. But as we were talking, I was telling him how I print these little uh ball stands for the my little league kids when they get the game ball. He's like, "Can you print one for me?" So, I did end up printing one. I sent you a picture of it, right, Eric? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that. Um, yeah. And then I just had fun with it because he was he asked for it. So I put number one attendee PHP Tech 2025. See if I can get this up here real fast here. Let me put in my browser real quick. Will that show up? Oh, yes it does. Can I share that? I'm sharing it. PHP Tech yearbooks next year. Remember getting your yearbook signed in school? Oh. Oh, that's cool. That would be tough. I like the idea, but that would be tough. Yeah, I do remember that. That would be funny. Part of your part of the uh registration process. Please upload a picture of yourself. Picture. Yeah. Well, that was actually one of the conversations we had like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to have a photo booth at the conference where you can get a baseball card created of you? Like you went to the photo booth and it took a picture of you and it created a baseball card. And then we realize we're we're poor. We don't have baseball card money. Like that's not happening. But we could do we could do a cheap photo booth where I've done that for my kids parties where you just set up an iPad on a stand and buy some software for it. But it' be nice to get a professional photo booth, one that has good lighting and good ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we don't we don't have a theme for next year. I I've I've been kind of hinting around to John that we shouldn't have a G theme and John, you know, told me I'd be looking for a new job. I'm like, you can't fire me. We're business partners. And he's like, well, I can keep not liking you. And I'm like, well, that hurt. What were the other two themes? What did you guys do like the last two years? Uh, around the world was last year. Yeah. Uh, global community. Global community. Yeah. And, uh, what was the first year? I homecoming. Was that Did we end up going with that? Did we go with homecoming? Yeah, I think I think we went something with homecoming. Yeah. But, but now that I think about it, we didn't go with the obvious like a homecoming dance. No. No, we did. Um, so I really don't know if that's what we ended up with. I feel bad not knowing that. But it was but it was we took the conference back to Chicago where lots of people from the community, you know, grew up with the conference there and we're excited to be going back. Yeah. I I think that like this one is the most memorable like like the like all the baseball theming especially like having the baseball like I think that's going to be very memorable. So it was cool getting asked to sign the sign the ball. It's funny how that worked out because originally we were getting we we did the same thing we did last year which like the last year again being a global community you had a passport and you got your passport stamped so we're like okay we'll just let them stamp the baseballs and it just did not work out first thing it smudged like crazy like we did a couple tests like yeah this is this is going not going to smudge then and then like the next day John showed me the ball and like the ball was turning green it's like Okay. It's not not going to even be remotely safe. So, we uh decided to go with just having people sign it, which I think worked out well. I think it worked out better. I think so, too. Yeah. It was I mean, it was it was more work on the vendors, I think, but I don't know by how much. Yeah. And I felt bad because I did get stamps made for the vendors. I should have just given it to them. I I didn't think about it. So, Oh, you didn't give it to them? I don't think I gave it to them. I don't think I gave them their stamps. Yeah. So, we should we need we might need to Money well spent. I know. I know, man. I don't even know where they ended up. I don't know if they're on the trailer or if they're on one of the boxes that that's coming back to the houses coming back to SoCal here, but yeah, it was uh I don't know where they're at, but we'll we'll find them. If I find them, I'll get them to you next year again. Yes, that's it. Sounds good. We may we may have some we have some ideas for previous sponsors for next year that Jen and I talked about. I don't know if we're still on the same page with that, but kind of excited. You don't think we are? I don't think we are. I really don't think we are. I'm not even sure what book you're reading, Eric. All right. We'll talk more about that offline. Okay. All right, Scott. Any any closing words? Any We just This is where we wrap things up. No, I I mean I It It was really nice. Thanks for being here, Scott. Yeah. I I think the one thing I do want to say is like it is fun getting the elephants cuz like my kids um like they didn't like they were like I I got home late. They were already asleep and then when they woke up in the morning, they were like, "Where are the elephants?" I love you too. You too. Yeah. Yeah. So, but the conference is great. I'm hoping I can go again next year if if you know I think I can. The tickets are on sale. You can buy one right now. Yeah. The uh the toies are on sale, too, by the way. Anybody interested, they're in the uh swag store on PHP Architect, phparts.com. Um they're actually selling pretty damn quick. Like, we need to get them back to Southern California. They're in route back to Southern California. We need to get back cuz we need to get an inventory count because those things are going like hot cakes, man. I I think I'm pretty sure I put fewer in inventory than are coming back. So, I hope that's not going to happen. That's a good job, man. Oh, but they will sell out. Damn it, John. Things are broken. I always I always got to call things out on John when he breaks things. And thanks for calling it out right now. Yeah, it's good time for that. here. What did I do? He's anonymous. He's an anonymous Tony. Oh, yeah. I never looked at that page. If you go if you just hover over Swag and click on it. I told you when I put it up I didn't have a picture and you were supposed to. Oh. Oh. Oh, that's right. You too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very That's very true, actually. Yeah. All right. I got to get pictures of Tony. Wow. We're selling that many and we don't even have a picture of him up yet. Jeez. All right. Uh, yeah. Well, I got to get a p got a picture of him up there. Um, but we need to get him back and figure out how many we have. It's crazy. Yeah. Happy for him. I'm happy. I'm happy you're finding homes, Tony. I'm happy for you. All right, that's it. Tom, you got anything? Uh, it was an exciting week. I had a blast. This has been P. a dick. I won't touch anything. No, it really it really was. It was an exciting week. Had a blast with everyone. I am looking forward to next year. Um, we are already in the planning stages. Hoping to get more information out soon. Uh, save the dates. Yeah. Yeah. Save the dates for sure. May 19th through the 21st. The cool thing to our regular listeners is we probably won't talk about tech for a couple weeks. I doubt that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. We will. We totally will. All right, that's it. That's going to be it for the show. Um, see you guys next week. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me. Bye bye. This has been PHP podcast, the official podcast of PHP Architect, the industry's leading tech magazine and publisher focused on PHP and web development. 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