2007 was a great year for me and PHP. After seven years of learning and mastering (?) the language, this year I began speaking with my first outing at the Zend PHP Conference in October. I was also accepted to speak at php|tek 2008 in May, 2008.
First, I’d like to give a special thank you to my employer, Schematic, for supporting me in my community involvement. Without your encouragement and backing, my 2007 in this community might not have been as bright. Thanks, Schematic!
Given all this, I consider 2007 my year of breaking into the PHP community. I’ve met many of my fellow community members, specifically those from #phpc on Freenode, and was able to begin putting faces with nicknames.
This has been quite a year for me in the PHP world, but I want to layout some of my resolutions for 2008. 2007 was all about starting my community involvement, but I’d like to make 2008 my year of contribution. Here’s are my PHP resolutions for 2008:
- Contribute to PECL in some way, shape, or form. Earlier this year, I sort of unofficially took over maintenance of the usblib extension, though I have yet to do much with it (work, home stuff and all). This year, I’d like to dive into this or other extensions by helping out with maintenance tasks, or even writing something from scratch to, say, leverage an existing C library.
- Contribute to Zend Framework. I started to dive into Zend Framework earlier in this year for work purposes. I’ve found it to be a great toolkit for my consumption. However, I’ve also submitted an issue or two to the Zend Framework Issue Tracker. This year, I’d like to start helping out with maintenance of Zend Framework, either by way of tackling tickets or proposing new modules.
- Contribute to PEAR or PEAR2. I’ve got a little bit of a start on a PEAR2::Batch package to make CLI-based scripting a little more easy, robust, and full-featured. I’d like to continue with this and/or other PEAR-related goals in order to contribute to this valuable code base.
- Write an article or get into podcasting. Resources such as php|architect and Zend DevZone’s “PHP Abstract” series are great for giving and receiving PHP knowledge. Whether it’s a few-thousand words on something that worked out really well for me at work, or a podcast on nifty PHP tricks, I’d love to make a foray into these mediums.
So, again, it’s been a great 2007 for me and PHP. Here’s hoping that 2008 is even better and more action-packed!
Also, to all of you that I’ve met this year, either digitally or in person, I wish you all a happy and healthy 2008! For those of you I haven’t met yet, I look forward to networking with you as we embark on 2008 together. Happy New Year, PHP community!
Leave a comment if you think this was the most lame post ever! It came to me while washing dishes this evening. :)