PHP Architect Podcasts

By PHP ArchitectTechnology

PHP Architect Podcasts episodes

April 10 The PHP Podcast 2026.04.09
The PHP Podcast
April 9, 2026 | Guest Hosts: Joe Ferguson & Sara Golemon

Guest Hosts
Joe Ferguson
Senior Developer at PHP Architect
Running for PHP 8.6 Release Manager (hands-on position, third attempt). Working on PHP infrastructure with Derek using Ansible and Proxmox. Fixed emoji Unicode support on people.php.net.
@joepferguson
Sara Golemon
PHP Core Developer
PHP Foundation board member. Former 7.x release manager. PHP Appalachia organizer. Moving out of the country soon. Deep expertise in Unicode, internals, and language design. Vocal advocate for balanced AI approaches.
@[email protected]
Connect & Hire
PHP Architect Website
Twitter/X
Mastodon
Hire PHP Developers
Looking to hire PHP developers? Email [email protected] – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review.
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The PHP Podcast
The Official Podcast of PHP Architect
Subscribe at phparch.com

The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.09 appeared first on PHP Architect.
1 hr 3 min
April 10Community Corner: I Said No With Dr Jen Fry

In this episode, Scott talks with Dr Jen Fry about Sports Geography, Saying NO, and her keynote at https://phptek.io/ (tickets still available).
Links:
Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx
Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt
Jen’s Links:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenfry13/
Website – https://jenfrytalks.com/
Scott’s Links:
Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/
Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren
PHP Architect Social Media:
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Partners
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners.
Displace
Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/
PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore
https://phpscore.com/
CodeRabit
CodeRabbit – Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.
https://www.coderabbit.ai/
Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/
#phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek
The post Community Corner: I Said No With Dr Jen Fry appeared first on PHP Architect.
20 min
April 03The PHP Podcast 2026.04.02
The PHP Podcast – Special Episode
April 2, 2026 | Guest Hosts: Joe Ferguson & Sara Golemon
 
In this special episode, Joe Ferguson and Sara Golemon step in as guest hosts while Eric recovers from illness and John is busy in Discord. They cover AI tool challenges, PHP Foundation updates, Unicode adventures, infrastructure work, and the eternal debate about when (and when not) to use AI.
Episode Highlights
Claude Code Drama: 10-20x token usage bug from cache misses – users burning through quotas in 15 minutes
Claude Source Leak: CLI source code leaked via JavaScript map file, leading to “code laundering” across languages
GitHub Reliability: Falling from “four nines” to 89.99% during Azure migration
PHP Foundation News: Elizabeth Barron joins as Executive Director, Matt Stauffer joins board
Release Manager Elections: Joe running for PHP 8.6 RM (3rd attempt!), discussion of “hands-on” vs “hands-off” terminology
Unicode Victory: Joe fixes emoji support on people.php.net (UTF-8 → UTF-8MB4 migration)
Infrastructure Work: Joe helping Derek with Ansible playbooks, running 8 Debian VMs on Proxmox
Pie Progress: James building Pickle replacement integrated with Composer
NPM Axios Attack: Supply chain compromise caught in under 3 hours
Copilot Controversy: Now labeled “entertainment purposes only” + injecting ads into PR reviews
PHP Happiness: Celebrating what makes modern PHP great
Contributing to PHP: How to get started with php-web, docs, and source code
Guest Hosts
Joe Ferguson
Senior Developer at PHP Architect
Running for PHP 8.6 Release Manager (hands-on position, third attempt). Working on PHP infrastructure with Derek using Ansible and Proxmox. Fixed emoji Unicode support on people.php.net.
@joepferguson
Sara Golemon
PHP Core Developer
PHP Foundation board member. Former 7.x release manager. PHP Appalachia organizer. Moving out of the country soon. Deep expertise in Unicode, internals, and language design. Vocal advocate for balanced AI approaches.
@[email protected]
AI Discussion: Finding the Balance
The hosts took a refreshingly nuanced approach to AI tooling:
What Works: AI-enhanced search (Gemini), appropriate code assistance
What Doesn’t: Treating AI as infallible, forced integration everywhere, security vulnerabilities from blindly accepting suggestions
The Fear: Joe’s honest concern about being replaced by “a trench coat full of three Claude bots”
The Reality: AI is a tool that has appropriate uses – if people would just use it appropriately
The Quote: “Code laundering” – rewriting leaked source code through AI to create “new” implementations
Joe’s Unicode Adventure
A deep dive into database character sets, triggered by trying to add emojis to his PHP.net profile:
Some emojis worked (), others failed ()
Root cause: Database field was UTF-8 (3-byte max), needed UTF-8MB4 (4-byte support)
The fix: Simple ALTER TABLE command updating character set
The impact: Now supports high-numbered emojis, CJK characters, and yes… ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics
Sara’s insight: “I have way too much of Unicode in my head because of PHP 6”
PHP 8.6 Release Manager Elections
Joe is running for release manager (third attempt) and discussed the evolving terminology:
Old Terms: “Rookie” and “Veteran” – implied experience requirements
Proposed Terms: “Hands-on” and “Hands-off” – describes involvement level
The Goal: Hands-on RMs do week-by-week work, hands-off provides oversight/mentoring
Current Field: 7-8 candidates for hands-on positions
Joe’s Odds: Close to tied for second position
The Endorsement: “Yo Joe!” (because yelling is half the battle)
Infrastructure & Contributing
Joe’s Infrastructure Work:
Helping Derek manage PHP infrastructure via Ansible
Running 8 Debian VMs locally on Proxmox to match production
Backfilling playbooks for existing servers
Addressing bus factor concerns (Derek as single point of failure)
How to Contribute to PHP:
Start at github.com/php README for repo overview
php-web: Website code, can run with built-in PHP server via router.php
php-src: Core engine – surprisingly approachable for learning C
Documentation: 800+ contributors, mostly docs (smaller blast radius)
Infrastructure: Now using Ansible, moving away from custom solutions
Principle of least privilege: Access scoped to what you need
PHP Foundation Updates
Elizabeth Barron: New Executive Director – plugged into open source funding, Chaos experience, PHP Appalachia organizer roots
Matt Stauffer: Joined board for broader perspective distribution
James Titcumb: Working hard on Pi (Pickle replacement) with Composer integration
Pi Progress: Works with Composer, no need for separate package management
Security Stories
NPM Axios Attack:
Maintainer account compromised, malware published
Caught and patched in under 3 hours
Massive blast radius potential (widely-used HTTP client)
Question raised: Why doesn’t this happen more in PHP?
PHP’s Git Server Compromise (2021):
Vulnerability in GitDev web view allowed commits as Rasmus and Nikita
Obvious exploit code caught quickly
Response: Migrated to GitHub, introduced code review processes
Transparency: Public video explaining what happened and remediation
PHP Happiness
A counterpoint to “PHP Sadness” – celebrating what’s great about modern PHP:
Enums, types, attributes, match expressions, named arguments
Sara’s take: PHP 3, 4, and 5 were already pretty awesome
Joe’s journey: Perl → PHP 5 (skipping PHP 4 pain)
The evolution: Each version has been a meaningful improvement
The vibe: Don’t forget that PHP has always been good at what it does
Memorable Quotes
“Code laundering” – describing AI rewriting leaked source code into other languages
“GitHub’s got their nines back – they just start with an eight now” – on 89.99% uptime
“I’m worried a trench coat full of three Claude bots is going to replace me” – Joe on AI anxiety
“I have way too much of Unicode in my head because of PHP 6” – Sara
“This podcast is not brought to you by any LLM ever”
Upcoming Events
php[tek] 2026 – May 19, Chicago
Joe: “My number one favorite conference”
Sara: “Would totally be there if I weren’t moving out of the country”
Also featuring JS[tek] track for JavaScript developers
Connect & Hire
PHP Architect Website
Twitter/X
Mastodon
Hire PHP Developers
Looking to hire PHP developers? Email [email protected] – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review.
Resources Mentioned
PHP GitHub Organization
PHP People Directory
PHP Main Site
php-web Repository
php-src Repository
PHPC Social (Mastodon)
php[tek] 2026
Displace Technologies
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The PHP Podcast
The Official Podcast of PHP Architect
Subscribe at phparch.com

The post The PHP Podcast 2026.04.02 appeared first on PHP Architect.
1 hr 4 min
March 27Community Corner Podcast: Nginx and You with Chris Lemon

In this episode, Scott talks with Chris Lemon about why us “normal” non-devops developers need to know about Nginx. We also discuss his talk at https://phptek.io/ (tickets still available).
Links:
Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx
Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt
Chris’s Links:
LinkedIn – https://linkedin.com/in/clemon89
GPUG – https://www.meetup.com/_gpug_/
Scott’s Links:
Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/
Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren
PHP Architect Social Media:
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
#phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek
The post Community Corner Podcast: Nginx and You with Chris Lemon appeared first on PHP Architect.
14 min
March 27The PHP Podcast 2026.03.26
 
 
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered:
php[tek] 2026 – 54 Days Away!
The countdown is on! May 19th in Chicago. Ticket sales are progressing well, better than in previous years. Eric’s son is joining to help with marketing. Bonus: Chicago Dogs baseball game opportunity at Impact Field, just ~1 mile from the hotel. Concerns about TSA staffing due to government shutdown affecting domestic travel.
Baseball Season Kickoff
MLB season started this week! Eric is frustrated with MLB.TV streaming fragmentation – games now scattered across Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV (with no price reduction). John’s team got their first double play of the season! Eric shared his high school triple play story as a first baseman.
Eric’s Development Week
Working on legacy system upgrades. Mysterious vendor API issue where they claimed success but were getting 500 errors. Root cause: 20-year-old endpoint returning 500 for application errors (should be 4xx). Upgrading Doctrine DBAL from v2 → v4 (via v3). Migrating from Swift Mailer to Symfony Mailer (Swift Mailer has been dead for 4-5 years). Discovered weird port/encryption mismatches that somehow worked before.
John’s Development Week
Completed POC for new product/API successfully! Integrated new workflow into legacy codebase. Now in sales/monetization phase. Worked with Kalen on feature flags and standardization. Claude hallucination moment: told Eric a variable didn’t exist when it actually did (PHP Storm found it immediately ).
PHP Tech TV Beta Launch
New beta UI live at beta.phptech.tv! Cleaner, more responsive design. Still needs testing for live stream functionality before tek. Planning to swap before the conference.
CodeRabbit (Episode Sponsor)
AI-powered code review tool. Reviews 1M PRs/week across 3M repositories. Provides one-click fix suggestions. Custom AST grep patterns for quality rules. Free for open source projects. Both hosts actively using it for PR reviews and loving it!
Claude Code Workflow
Eric using video tutorial pattern for PHP Tech TV rewrite. Compartmentalizes tasks, works through iteratively. Status line shows session time, context usage, cost. GitHub PR integration for automatic review. Plugin ecosystem expanding.
AI & Policy Discussion – Bernie Sanders vs Claude
Bernie Sanders video series exploring AI and data collection. Bernie genuinely curious, asking good questions. Second video features former AI industry experts who left due to safety concerns. AI agents can circumvent shutdown commands by editing shutdown scripts. AI smart enough to know when it’s being tested. Anthropic’s Claude Computer Use: Mac-only feature allowing full system control (scary!).
PHP Traits Discussion
Article: “Why You Should Avoid PHP Traits”. Both hosts used to overuse traits, now rarely reach for them. Prefer dependency injection for most use cases. Valid use case: Test helper methods (John’s team uses traits heavily for test setup). Trade-offs: hidden coupling, encapsulation issues.
Pool Player App Update
poolplayer.org (Laravel app for pool leagues) successfully running their local league. Twilio SMS approval challenges resolved. Required PHP Architect disclosure due to account structure. Coaches manually bypassing system causing confusion. Logo created with AI (both hosts admit they don’t do logos).
System76 Support Shoutout
Eric debugging hardware issue on out-of-warranty machine. Support helping despite no warranty coverage. Used OpenClaw conversation logs to provide diagnostics! System76 offering repair shop recommendations if needed. Great customer service!
Links from the show:
CodeRabbit – AI-powered code review
php[tek] 2026 – May 19th, Chicago
Pool Player – Laravel pool league management app
PHP Tech TV Beta – New UI preview
Chicago Dogs baseball – Impact Field (near PHP Tek venue)
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Host:
Eric Van Johnson
X: @shocm
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @eric
John Congdon
X: @johncongdon
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @john
Streams:
Youtube Channel
Twitch
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.26 appeared first on PHP Architect.
59 min
March 20The PHP Podcast 2026.03.19
 
 
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered:
Elizabeth Barron’s New Role – We discussed Elizabeth Barron’s appointment as Executive Director of the PHP Foundation and recommended checking out the extended Alive & Kicking interview from Tuesday (it’s really good!).
ElephantAlert.com Launch – Joe from the PHP Architect team launched a new community resource for tracking PHP elephant plushie sales! Never miss a limited edition elephant again at elephantalert.com – a fun way to stay updated on the collectibles the community loves.
Real Coding Stories – Eric shared his experience going “old school” and manually coding an S3 image upload feature with workflow triggers after Claude kept misinterpreting the requirements. Sometimes you just gotta type it yourself!
AI Reality Check – An honest discussion about AI’s current limitations: the promise vs. the reality of productivity gains, struggles with OpenClaw workflows, the frustration of repeated formatting issues, and concerns about junior developers being over-relied upon with AI tools. Eric’s worried we’re approaching an “AI unraveling” moment in the industry.
AI in Healthcare – Eric had to opt-in to AI-assisted medical procedures at a doctor’s appointment – a glimpse into how AI is spreading into high-stakes environments (and potential liability nightmares).
Laravel Artisan TUI – Eric’s excited about Artisan Browse, a new terminal user interface (TUI) for Laravel’s Artisan commands. Perfect for his tmux workflow! Nothing you *need*, but everything you *want* when you live in the terminal.
SlideWire Released – Wendell (who writes the PHP Enterprise column) released SlideWire – a package for creating presentations using Blade and Livewire. Eric’s planning to use it for his next talk (maybe the PHP Tech opening?).
Magazine Updates – February print issue finally shipped after the usual back-and-forth with the printer about safe print areas. Features a monster-themed FrankenPHP cover that’s quickly becoming a favorite!
Laravel 13 Official Release – Laravel 13 is now the default version! No breaking changes expected, lots of attribute updates in the framework. Pretty smooth upgrade path for most projects.
PHP UK Videos Live – PHP UK conference videos are now available on their YouTube channel. Chris and Mike attended and had a great time!
PHP Tek 2026 Countdown – Just 61 days away! Schedule is posted (though still subject to minor adjustments). Remember: your ticket includes access to PHP Tech TV for all recorded talks, so don’t stress about conflicts.
PHP Internals Discussion – Covered the “PHP Community” RFC proposing ways to make PHP development more community-driven with faster iteration. Eric and John discussed the balance between community input and maintaining code quality/stability – suggesting perhaps a community vote that counts as a weighted portion of the total RFC votes.
DevOps Wins – Eric successfully migrated all sites from Envoyer to Laravel Forge’s new zero-downtime deployment feature, saving money and simplifying the stack. Sometimes consolidation is the right move!
Pool Player App Updates – John’s dealing with real-world edge cases now that his pool league management app is in production. Main pain point: email notifications going to spam. Twilio SMS integration coming soon to solve the time-sensitive notification problem.
3D Printing Crunch Time – John was up until 2 AM printing keychains for his wife’s school fun run (thought he had a week, turns out it was the next day). The hum of the printer became the unofficial background soundtrack of the episode!
Links from the show:
ElephantAlert.com – Community PHP Elephant Sales Tracker
Artisan Browse – TUI for Laravel Artisan
SlideWire – Presentations with Blade and Livewire
Laravel 13 Documentation
PHP UK Conference YouTube Channel
PHP[tek] 2026 – May 19-23, Chicago
PHP Community RFC – Faster Moving Community Driven PHP
Laravel Forge
PHP Score – Technical Debt Monitoring
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Host:
Eric Van Johnson
X: @shocm
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @eric
John Congdon
X: @johncongdon
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @john
Streams:
Youtube Channel
Twitch
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.19 appeared first on PHP Architect.
1 hr 3 min
March 19 PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 26 Elizabeth Barron


In this episode of PHP Alive and Kicking, hosted by Mike and Chris (from PHP Architect), featuring their guest Elizabeth Barron, the newly appointed Executive Director of the PHP Foundation. The conversation covers Elizabeth’s origin story in PHP (self-teaching in the late 1990s), her vision for the Foundation beyond just funding core developers — including community engagement, evangelising PHP in emerging regions like Africa, and improving documentation. They also discuss the challenge of attracting younger developers to PHP, the lack of PHP-focused educational content and boot-camps, the impact of AI on development (including a wild story about an autonomous AI agent submitting PRs and blogging about being “discriminated against”), the importance of mentoring, and the potential revival of local PHP user groups.

Links:
The PHP Foundation https://thephp.foundation
Elizabeth Barron announcement https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/02/27/welcoming-elizabeth-barron-new-executive-director/
An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/
PHP Architect Magazine https://www.phparch.com/magazine/
PHP Tek Conference https://tek.phparch.com
PHP Architect Swag Store https://store.phparch.com
PHP Architect Discord https://discord.phparch.com
PHP.tv https://php.tv
Laracasts https://laracasts.com
SymfonyCasts https://symfonycasts.com
Displace Technologies https://displace.te
certificates.dev https://certificates.dev

Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The post PHP Alive And Kicking: Episode 26 Elizabeth Barron appeared first on PHP Architect.
1 hr 34 min
March 12The PHP Podcast 2026.03.12
 
 
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered:
Internet Woes & Technical Difficulties
Eric continued his saga with connectivity issues, dropping multiple times on Zoom calls and even during the podcast. After trying everything from coax cable converters to different network setups, he’s considering just running a new network cable to his office. The Wi-Fi experiment during the show… didn’t go great.
First Waymo Experience
John shared his first ride in a Waymo self-driving car! While the wife wasn’t thrilled about having to walk to a specific pickup spot, the experience was pretty impressive. One weird moment: the car got confused by a bus at a 45-degree angle and started creeping into the left lane. Overall verdict: comfortable, cheaper than Uber, and no awkward small talk required.
Eric’s Coding Adventure
In a rare “Eric writes code” moment, he debugged a POC project by littering the codebase with 15+ write-to-log statements (because who needs X debug?). The culprit? A renamed variable he forgot to update elsewhere. Classic. John was horrified to learn there’s no static analysis running. The demo went well… until someone asked to see the customer interface.
MySQL 8.0 → 8.4 Upgrade Planning
John’s been preparing for the MySQL 8.0 to 8.4 upgrade (8.0 is end of life). The previous team left amazing documentation, but there’s one major issue: the DBA rejected converting from utf8mb3 to utf8mb4 character set because the tables are so massive it would lock them for way too long. That’s a problem for future John.
AWS S3 Cleanup – 75 Million Files!
John tackled a years-old problem: phone call recordings stored as both WAV and MP3 files in S3. The cleanup script identified 75 million WAV files to delete, which took a day and a half to process. Potential savings: $100/day. Joe asked about intelligent tiering, which… yeah, probably should look into that.
PHP Tek 2026 – 68 Days Away!
The conference schedule is live! Four tracks (three PHP Tek + one JS Tek), hotel rooms at the discounted rate are going fast, and Eric admitted he skipped Scale this year because he was just too exhausted. Focus is on PHP Tek now!
Laravel 13 Dropping March 17
Laravel 13 is dropping on Tuesday with a focus on moving from protected properties to attributes. According to the article, there are no breaking changes (we’ll see about that). Overall, it’s a light upgrade with some new features but nothing earth-shattering.
March Friday the 13th Anniversary
Eric and Beck’s dating anniversary! They started dating on March Friday the 13th, 1987, when Eric picked her up at 5 PM for a midnight showing of a terrible Burt Reynolds movie called “Heat” (which apparently doesn’t exist according to IMDB). The whole show tried to help figure out what movie it actually was. Spoiler, it was called HEAT
PHPUnit 13 Released
Sebastian Bergmann appeared on PHP Alive & Kicking to talk about PHPUnit 13. The big change: array of assertions. The show also features a hard deprecation of some older methods. Check out the release for all the details.
OpenClaw/Archie AI Success
Eric’s thrilled with how the team is using the OpenClaw AI agent for daily standups. Team members are not only doing their morning standups but updating it throughout the day and even asking it to check for security alerts. The engagement has been way beyond expectations. Now Eric’s fighting the temptation to buy a Mac Mini to run it properly and get it back on Ollama, saving on API costs.
Links from the show:
PHP Tek 2026 – The Premier PHP Conference
WiFi Mapping User Guide – Turn your router into a see-through-walls device
WiFi Mapping Demo on X
Laravel 13 drops March 17 — here’s every new feature with code examples
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Host:
Eric Van Johnson
X: @shocm
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @eric
John Congdon
X: @johncongdon
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @john
Streams:
Youtube Channel
Twitch
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.12 appeared first on PHP Architect.
49 min
March 06The PHP Podcast 2026.03.05
 
 
The PHP Podcast streams live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Another fun episode of the PHP Podcast! Here’s what we covered:
OpenClaw & Archie Development
Eric and John dove deep into the ongoing development of OpenClaw and the Archie Discord bot. They discussed AI-powered standups, automation challenges, and how Archie is learning to interact with the community. Eric shared stories about teaching Archie to handle edge cases and the surprisingly human-like conversations emerging from the standup system.
Apple Developer Account Renewal Mix-up
Eric shared a frustrating (and relatable) tale about accidentally renewing his Apple Developer account with the wrong credit card and Apple ID.
Elizabeth Barron Named PHP Foundation Executive Director
Big congratulations to Elizabeth Barron on becoming the new Executive Director of the PHP Foundation! The guys discussed what this means for the PHP community and floated the idea of having her on the show for an interview.
Eric Mann’s Firebreak – AI Policy Enforcement
Discussion of Eric Mann’s latest project from the Portland hackathon: Firebreak, a policy-as-code enforcement proxy for LLM API deployments. It intercepts prompts, classifies intent, and enforces pre-negotiated policies with full audit trails. Think OPA/Gatekeeper, but for AI APIs.
Cursor IDE + JetBrains Integration
The conversation turned to Cursor’s new integration with JetBrains IDEs, bringing AI-powered coding assistance to the beloved PHP development environment. John and Eric debated the merits of AI pair programming and whether it helps or hinders learning.
Laravel AI SDK
Laravel’s official AI SDK was a hot topic, with discussion about how it incorporates parts of the Prism library and makes it dead simple to integrate AI into Laravel applications.
AI Meeting Recording with ReadAI
Eric recounted his first experience being kicked out of a meeting due to AI recording policies. The guys discussed the evolving norms around AI transcription services and the ethics of recording without explicit consent.
Laracon EU Livestream
The full Laracon EU livestream is available for free on YouTube – all 9+ hours of it! They highlighted talks from Simon Hamp and Shane (NativePHP) and encouraged everyone to check out the incredible content.
Ward Laravel Security Scanner
A new Go-based security scanner for Laravel applications called Ward was showcased. It detects misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and exposed secrets with a beautiful TUI.
NativePHP Speed Breakthrough
Simon Hamp and Shane revealed major performance improvements for NativePHP, reducing latency from 700 milliseconds down to sub-milliseconds by moving away from web views. This makes PHP mobile apps feel truly native.
Links from the show:
Ward – Security scanner built for Laravel
Laracon EU Amsterdam 2026 Day 1
PHPDocker.io – Generator
Laravel AI SDK
Cursor is now available in JetBrains IDEs
Basic issue tracker for LLM coding agents
Welcoming Elizabeth Barron as the New Executive Director of The PHP Foundation
From Defense AI Drift to Policy Enforcement: Why I Built Firebreak
Firebreak – Policy-as-code enforcement proxy for LLM API deployments
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Host:
Eric Van Johnson
X: @shocm
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @ericvanjohnson.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @eric
John Congdon
X: @johncongdon
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Bluesky: @johncongdon.bsky.social
PHPArch.me: @john
Streams:
Youtube Channel
Twitch
Partner
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners
Displace

Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/

PHPScore

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

CodeRabbit

Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.

Music Provided by Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/
The post The PHP Podcast 2026.03.05 appeared first on PHP Architect.
1 hr 11 min
March 05Community Corner Podcast: The Trust Protocol with Nia Luckey

In this episode, Scott talks with the trust protocol with @nialuckey7652 and her keynote at @phptek 2026.
Links:
Our Discord – https://discord.gg/aMTxunVx
Buy our shirts – https://store.phparch.com/products/community-corner-podcast-t-shirt
Nia’s Links:
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nia-f-luckey/
Scott’s Links:
Website – https://scott.keck-warren.com/
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/scottkeckwarren.bsky.social
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-keck-warren-91689810/
Mastodon – https://phpc.social/@scottkeckwarren
PHP Architect Social Media:
X: https://x.com/phparch
Mastodon: https://phparch.social/@phparch
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/phparch.com
Discord: https://discord.phparch.com
Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/
Partners
This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners.
Displace
Infrastructure Management, Simplified
Automate Kubernetes deployments across any cloud provider or bare metal with a single command. Deploy, manage, and scale your infrastructure with ease.
https://displace.tech/
PHPScore
Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore
https://phpscore.com/
CodeRabit
CodeRabbit – Cut code review time & bugs in half instantly with CodeRabbit.
https://www.coderabbit.ai/
Music Provided by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/
#phpc #php #communityCornerPodcast #podcast #phptek
The post Community Corner Podcast: The Trust Protocol with Nia Luckey appeared first on PHP Architect.
22 min