Shortly after my lunch I saw the following tweet from David Pogue, technology columnist for the The New York Times.
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Today is my last day at The Bivings Group. Yesterday was my last effective day; as I write this, I’m flying over West Virginia on my way to a friend’s wedding in California.
Starting June 22nd, I’ll be working for Applied Security. I’ve learned a lot at The Bivings Group, and worked on a lot of great projects, including The Pickens Plan. I’ll miss the friends I made, but I’m glad that I’ll be able to see them again at the developer’s group meetings and conferences.
Good luck to the folks at The Bivings Group. See you soon.
8:19 am | Comment (1) | Print | Categories: Friday InspirationsThe PHP Community is a fairly large, rules-free community of people who share a common interest in programming. Many of us hang out on Twitter, our own blogs, or on IRC (usually on Freenode #phpc). So some events of the day certainly caught me by surprise.
This afternoon, while hanging out in a lesser known channel, I was kicked out for no reason besides the whim of the operator, Derick Rethans. No warning, no rude comment on my part, just a joke followed by a kick. Alison Lunde was also kicked for a seemingly bogus reason. Another person was banned.
How could this be, two weeks after the “community conference,” which Derick himself attended?
I was furious. I felt betrayed, violated, attacked personally for something that shouldn’t have happened. I hadn’t been kicked out of an IRC channel since before I was a teenager; this was a personal insult and by God, I was ready to fight. I talked to a number of my friends in the PHP community and told them that this slight was beyond insulting; I was going to tear Derick a new one on my blog and wash my hands of the community forever. After all, everyone in the channel seemed to support this decision, right? They were all still there, hanging out, perhaps hoping they wouldn’t be next.
But a few hours went by, and a few things started to happen. First, a number of people in the community told me that leaving the community would hurt the community overall. Others told me they were beside themselves at Derick’s action, and wouldn’t be participating in any “elite” channels. I got a number of supportive emails. A number of people said “well if we can’t be a part of that channel, we’ll start our own” and did just that. Not to be exclusive – just to reduce the noise level.
As time went on I realized that the community really is larger than any one person. Even when one person does something inconsiderate or rude, that doesn’t and shouldn’t define the community. I was really ready to let Derick have it, to walk away, and to never be a part of the community ever again. But no one person defines the community, and no one person can shape it, no matter who they are. That’s the point of the PHP community.
Instead I’ll practice some forgiveness. Derick, you’re welcome in any channel I’m in, any time. Xdebug is fantastic and your book on dates and times is perhaps the preeminent work on the topic. Your contributions to the core of PHP and its documentation are unmatched by anyone, and with 130 presentations to your name, you certainly are accomplished. You’re a part of the community, and I welcome you.
For those wondering how to join the community, it’s easy. Show up in IRC, or come to a conference. Find your users group in your area, or join one of PHP’s many project mailing lists. If you need direction, Elizabeth Smith (@auroraeosrose) always has direction on work that needs to be done in the community. Dive in, get involved, don’t be a jerk and meet people. Put on a thick skin, watch out for toes, put on your work clothes and get involved.
Tell them I sent you.
8:19 pm | Comment (14) | Print | Categories: CommunityOne of the greatest things about the PHP community is the willingness of people to help one another.
Picture this: you’ve got developers of all levels, working in the same room. They’ve been tasked with working on various open source projects. Only in PHP do you see expert level developers like Eli White, Matthew Turland and Sara Golemon teaching more inexperienced developers (like myself!)
Also in the PHP community: Sara Goleman was having a debate with a younger programmer who insisted that for loops were slower than while and do-while loops. Upon examining the source she discovered that in fact it was wrong – and she promised to look into it. You won’t get that in the Rails community.
The best thing about conferences is the community around them. Non-assuming giants in code and contributions work alongside newbie developers to solve problems and discuss important issues. People are willing to teach and others are eager to learn, making the PHP community grow.
12:30 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Conferences, Friday InspirationsDay 1 sure started with a bang, with Andrei Zmievski doing a phenomenal keynote on the future of PHP. There were great photos, including the (in)famous “ball of nails” quote from Terry Chay. Then it was off to the breakout sessions.
Eli White knocked one out of the park with “Highly Scalable Web Applications” while Wez Furlong did a great job with “Getting It Done.” Liz Smith rocked the house with “SPL To The Rescue,” a talk that was so amazing it was being talked about at the cocktail party that night.
Off to dinner, I had a great conversation with Snipe, and then we went to the cocktail party where we heard presentations of twenty slides, twenty seconds each. A great “first day” (second for those who came to the tutorials) at php|tek.
8:22 am | Comment (0) | Print | Categories: Conferences