php[podcast] episodes from php[architect]

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This week on the PHP Podcast, Eric and John talk about PhpStorm Plugins, Open-source IntelliJ IDEA, JetBrains AMA, PHP Foundation looking for a Executive Direstor, watch John NOT mention Eric in his latest podcast interview, and more…

Links from the show:

The PHP Podcast streams the recording of this podcast live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/er helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post The PHP Podcast 2025.12.04 appeared first on PHP Architect.

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PHP Architect Social Media:

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The post PHP Alive And Kicking – Episode 17 – TJ Miller appeared first on PHP Architect.

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Wendell joins the show with a literal fire background (the “this is fine” meme), which he admits he can’t use anymore because of company backgrounds. But it’s an accurate representation of daily developer life, and we can all relate.

At 16 years old, working in a small-town Brazilian school teaching Word and Excel, Wendell took a PHP course. Five or six months later, the teacher left and they asked Wendell to take over—teaching PHP to 13 and 14-year-olds when he was barely older himself. Students would ask questions he didn’t know the answer to, forcing him to say “give me a minute” while frantically searching the documentation. But that pressure? It taught him the most valuable developer skill: knowing how to find answers to things you don’t know.

Here’s the kicker: Wendell didn’t even have a computer at home during all this. He could only use the computers at work, so he’d finish lunch in 15 minutes just to get back to his desk and keep learning PHP. The obsession was real, and it paid off.

Everyone agrees—PHP’s documentation is insanely good. You can find almost anything without even hitting Stack Overflow. Comments from 15-20 years ago still work today because PHP maintains backwards compatibility like no other language. Those old comments aren’t just relics; they’re still valid, working code that new developers can learn from. Try that in JavaScript land.

Moving legacy code to modern PHP used to be a nightmare. Now? Install Rector and watch it automatically migrate your codebase to use new features. Wendell highlights this as one of PHP’s secret weapons—the community builds tools that make everyone’s life easier.

some literally can’t work without Claude, Cursor, and PHPStorm anymore. Not because he needs AI for everything, but because the anxiety of “what if I need to ask something?” kicks in if it’s not there. It’s wild how quickly we adapt to new tools—especially considering 25 years ago we barely had IDEs. We had Notepad. If we were lucky.

Everyone Googles stuff. Every. Single. Person. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are or how many packages you’ve written—at some point, you’re searching for answers. The skill isn’t memorizing everything; it’s knowing where to look and how to find the right answer. Mike and Chris both admit they struggle with imposter syndrome constantly. You’re not alone.

CLI apps? Easy. Web apps? Obviously. Desktop applications? Yep. Mobile applications with PHP? Absolutely—and Wendell admits he never thought that would be possible. With AI advancements and tools like the new official MCP SDK for PHP, the possibilities keep expanding. JavaScript might get there first, but PHP always catches up.

Frameworks already protect us from SQL injection and script injection. But now with MCP (Model Context Protocol) and AI integration, we have a new threat: prompt injection. How will PHP frameworks adapt? How do we secure AI-powered applications? These are the new challenges keeping the community on its toes.

Wendell drops a teaser—he’s publishing his longest blog post yet about how Laravel’s service container works. By the time this episode goes live, it’ll probably already be out. Worth the read.

Listen to hear why the PHP community attracts experts from other languages, and why everyone keeps confusing their show schedule with the video game Fortnite.

Wendell’s blog: https://wendelladriel.com/blog

Inside The Service Container: https://wendelladriel.com/blog/inside-the-laravel-service-container

Laravel Queues Under The Hood: https://wendelladriel.com/blog/laravel-queues-under-the-hood

Laravel Actions As A Service: https://wendelladriel.com/blog/laravel-aaas-actions-as-a-service

Best Practices For Laravel Applications: https://wendelladriel.com/best-practices-for-laravel-enterprise-applications

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post PHP Alive And Kicking – Episode 16 – Wendell Adriel appeared first on PHP Architect.

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This week on the PHP Podcast, Eric and John talk about PHP 8.5 released and we discuss what’s new, and more…

Links from the show:

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/er helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post The PHP Podcast 2025.11.20 appeared first on PHP Architect.

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In this episode, Scott talks with Kyrian Obikwelu about The Official PHP SDK for MCP and how we PHP developers can use it to create our own AI integrations.

Links:

Kyrian’s Social Media:

Scott’s Social Media:

The post Community Corner: The Official PHP SDK for MCP With Kyrian Obikwelu appeared first on PHP Architect.

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X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post PHP Alive and Kicking Episode 15: Below Deck with Frank Wallen appeared first on PHP Architect.

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Dan’s programming journey started in secondary school with Visual Basic—specifically building a cinema booking system. But it was university where things got real: HTML with tables (no CSS!), lots of style tags, and a very old version of PHP. If you’ve been around long enough to remember that era, you know exactly what he’s talking about. And if you haven’t? Be grateful.

Here’s a problem Dan noticed at previous agencies: sales teams would sell, sell, sell, and developers would end up working late nights trying to deliver something completely different from what the client expected. The disconnect was brutal. At Jump 24, they do something different—they’ve mastered the art of “client-speaking language.” Translating technical concepts without losing the client in jargon means fewer surprises, fewer miscommunications, and projects that actually match expectations. It’s not just about knowing Laravel; it’s about knowing how to explain Laravel to people who’ve never heard of it.

You know that feeling when you look at someone’s code and realize a simple change requires editing 15 different files? Dan does too, and he’s built Jump 24 around avoiding exactly that nightmare. The team has found the balance—code that’s elegant without being overcomplicated, maintainable without being overly abstracted. When your former colleague can debug your code without pulling an all-nighter, you’ve done something right.

When Laravel launched its partner program, Dan jumped on board immediately. Why? Because he’d seen too many clients pick development teams based solely on price, only to end up with missed deadlines and terrible code. The partner program creates that first level of trust—a signal that says “these teams know what they’re doing.” Beyond the badge, it means direct communication with the Laravel core team, event sponsorship opportunities, and a level of credibility that genuinely helps the business.

Dan’s been there—working weekends, pulling all-nighters to meet deadlines at previous jobs. When he started Jump 24, he made a promise: no more of that. Sure, they have some clients with SLAs requiring evening support (and team members are properly paid for that), but the general rule is simple: clock off at 4 or 5, and actually be done. No emergency debugging sessions. No weekend work to catch up on sold features that were never properly scoped. It turns out when you don’t overcomplicate your code and you communicate well with clients, you don’t need to live at your desk.

Scroll through Twitch looking for PHP streams and you’ll struggle. Hunt for Laravel content on TikTok and you’ll find… not much. Meanwhile, JavaScript, Python, and Java developers are everywhere—live streaming, posting short-form content, racking up tens of thousands of views. Dan points out the uncomfortable truth: where are the PHP people? Sure, Nuno Maduro is doing incredible work (though he may not sleep), and resources like Laracasts and Laravel Daily are fantastic, but it can’t all fall on a handful of people. The PHP community needs more voices, more content, more people willing to make mistakes on stream rather than hiding behind perfectly polished videos.

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post PHP Alive and Kicking Episode 14 – Dan Newns appeared first on PHP Architect.

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The PHP Podcast streams the recording of this podcast live, typically every Thursday at 3 PM PT. Come join us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/er helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post The PHP Podcast 2025.11.13 appeared first on PHP Architect.

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X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post PHP Alive And Kicking Episode 13 – Shane and Simon appeared first on PHP Architect.

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Rob’s journey into PHP started in 1995—way back in the last century, as he puts it—when he got headhunted from a C++ role testing mobile phones. The twist? He was in an online gaming guild that needed a website, discovered PHP 3, and thought “this is way easier than writing C++.” Three decades later, he’s still here.

After years at various companies—some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t—Rob found himself constantly getting made redundant through no fault of his own. Companies got bought, restructured, or just folded. Eventually, someone planted the seed: “Why don’t you just go independent?” Fifteen years later, he’s still doing it, and the variety keeps it interesting.

When people ask what Rob does, the answer is simple: APIs. REST APIs specifically, though he’s increasingly working with OpenAPI specifications. Need someone to build the backend that talks to your mobile app? That’s Rob’s specialty. Building the thing that other systems talk to? Also Rob. He’s carved out a niche and he’s sticking to it.

Here’s the challenge nobody talks about: how do you get clients when your clients aren’t developers? Rob’s clients are CTOs and CEOs who need developers, so traditional developer networking has to work backwards. He speaks at conferences, writes for PHP Architect, stays visible in the community—and hopes it eventually translates into someone saying “I know a guy.”

In a delightful tangent, Mike shares the story of how he injured his finger setting up speakers at PHP[tek] and got to experience American urgent care. For the record, it was a lighting speaker that fell on his finger, not a human speaker. This injury happened right before meeting Chris for the first time—who Mike thought was American until Chris spoke with a very British accent. Brain: officially confused.

“Community” sounds so much less intimidating than “networking,” doesn’t it? Rob, Mike, and Chris all agree: being part of the community—whether online or in person—has been the single biggest factor in their career success. You don’t have to be an extrovert. You don’t have to speak at conferences (though Mike just submitted talks to Tech 26—someone’s growing!). Just show up. Say hi. Join the Discord. Play chess. Answer questions when you can.

Mike admits most of his interaction in the PHP Architect Discord wasn’t even technical—he set up a chess club and gave Eric and John tips on the game. That level of “just being around” eventually turned into a job. The lesson? You don’t need to know everything about PHP to be part of the community. Just be present.

Rob drops wisdom for anyone terrified of public speaking: the audience wants you to succeed. They’re not hoping you fail. You could talk about your dogs for 15 minutes and people would still cheer you on. It’s only a slight comfort when you’re “absolutely bricking it,” but it’s true.

Listen to hear why Rob thinks remote work hasn’t killed in-person community building, and how being on a C++ mailing list 30 years ago set the foundation for everything that came after.

X: https://x.com/phparch

Subscribe to our magazine: https://www.phparch.com/subscribe/

This podcast is made a little better thanks to our partners

Infrastructure Management, Simplified

Put Your Technical Debt on Autopay with PHPScore

Honeybadger helps you deploy with confidence and be your team’s DevOps hero by combining error, uptime, and performance monitoring in one simple platform. Check it out at honeybadger.io

https://www.epidemicsound.com/

The post PHP Alive And Kicking – Episode 12 – Rob Allen appeared first on PHP Architect.