The Bob Bloom Show

All my shows are now "Bob Bloom" podcasts now. Plus, real life happened with my first interview.

We should skip the rigid conference format in favor of a modest, interactive, grassroots gathering near Union Station focused on hands-on workshops, panel Q&As, and building the local PHP community.

WordPress and PHP "powering" 70% of the web is about to be a thing of the past. This dominant market share, that seemed to last forever, is over. It is over, and it is never coming back. WordPress' install base is vast, for now. But, it is being abandoned on the margin, which is a disaster for the eco-system. The numbers that were the basis of the "powering" boast are now communicating a new reality. This situation might actually help PHP evolve as a language, and as a project.

With the heavy development for my custom podcasting application done, I am now using my new app daily. And, smoothing the rough edges as I go along. My attention is turning to finding my merry group of intrepid sponsors. And, getting my podcasts on a regular schedule.

I am sunsetting my PHP Serverless Project Updates podcast show.

After a six month journey, including a big hiatus from podcasting, my new custom podcasting application is ready for my production use. There are rough edges to smooth out, but after several iterations of deployments and early production use, the remaining issues are minor. I am not undertaking new features for a while, so as to focus on using my new app for the first time. The new podcast and guest management features will help me publish passion PHP podcasts, in volume, in the years to come.

I thought my podcasting app was finished in June. Then I actually used it to produce an episode.

What followed was a shocking tour through broken wizards, incomplete workflows, AI frustrations, hand-coding, and hard lessons about being both the software developer and the user. Along the way, I learned to let AI do what it does best.

My new custom podcasting application is feature complete. This podcast episode is the first episode I am planning, producing, and publishing, in my application. Doing this episode has turned into live testing, which has turned into a major "smoothing the rough edges" exercise. My new app is shaping up, and as it does my excitement of it increases.

With my app transitioning from a pure development mode, to using it day-to-day in production, my attention returns to sponsorship. I have concluded that the best way to present it is by telling my story.