This is the #1st set of 'Know Thy PHP Usergroup' in an attempt to create more awareness of: what is $this PHP UG about + get to know the leaders/Founders/Community behind it, what is a PHP User Group in general and to personally know all the PHP user goups Around The World - that excites me and I hope you too! This concept is also a good opportunity for new #elePHPants to know about PHP UGs.

They talk some about the group itself as well as some of Craig's thoughts about about leading the group. They talk some about the goals of the group, the usual activities of it and how the meetups are planned. There's also a bit about finding sponsors for the group and how it compares to other groups of the same type.

With gathering of more then 250 developers this proved to be a much needed event there and congratulations to organizers for doing it. As a organizer of similar (but much smaller) PHP community in Zagreb I was in constant contact with organizers and was very happy when we were invited to join them on this occasion, especially when they approved my proposal to talk about Laravel4 there.

Even the local media picked up on the meeting and a larger venue had to be found at the last minute due to the overwhelming response. There were a few different topics mentioned (including BDD, a questionnaire, best practices in component libraries and web security) before getting to the main talk.

I would take this opportunity to thank whole PHP Srbija organization committee for inviting us & once again congratulate them on bringing such a large community together.

NomadPHP is like a virtual PHP User Group mainly for people who do not have the chance to avail of a local PHP user group. But it is open to ANYONE around the world. NomadPHP is an initiative brought forward by the icon of The PHP Community, namely 'His Awesomeness' Mr Cal Evans. It will kick-start its first group talk session on the Wednesday 22nd May 2013 (i.e in some 16 days as from the date of this post). The speaker is the PRO PHP Guy / PRO Zend Framework Evangelist and author of the book Zend Framework in action, Rob Allen. Rob will be introducing and talking about Zend Framework 2 - it is a must for anyone willing to learn ZF 2.

The Nomad PHP user group is designed to be a "user group for those that don't have one". It's a virtual group meeting once a month that you can attend anywhere in the world. You do have to purchase tickets, however. This post shows you how you can enter to win one of the two free tickets, though - either via email or by writing a PHP article for 7PHP.com.

For those that have used both frameworks, what one do you feel is a better overall framework? I tried ZF2 in beta and it seemed overly complicated to symfony but I don't know if its gotten better since then.

Opinions shared in the comments of the post include things like:

• "So if you are learning for job prospects, go Zend. I love Symfony 2 though, its a joy to work with."
• "It doesn't matter. Each has a strength and a weakness, and neither will go away. Pick one and use it, you'll be fine."
• "I don't think there is such thing as a best framework as you should use the best tool for the job. I don't think MVC is the solution to all problems."
• "Both are quite bloated but they have to be considering their target markets."

On the whole, the views are of the "best tool for the job" mentality - a good sign for the community and these two frameworks.

In this edition I talked with Jakub Vrana who is a co-author of The Official PHP Manual. Adminer and NotORM. I invite you to know him better and to learn from his 7php PHP interview.

The interview shares Jakub's answers about things like:

• His history as a PHP developer
• What he sees as good and bad parts of it
• His preferred tools
• His choices on frameworks and ORMs
• How to get started contributing to the documentation/manual
• Some about his book "1001 tips and tricks for PHP"

In this episode we talk to Adam Culp on his very first day as a Zend employee. We talk about PHP community and Adam's decision to move from the realm of independent consultant to Zender! Adam is the organizer of SunshinePHP, PHP Guru and joining the Zend Professional Services Team.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. You can also subscribe to their feed of you want this and future episodes pulled automatically.

In this edition I talked with Manuel Lemos who is the founder of the famous and huge PHPClasses.org. @ManuelLemos has been rambling a lot about PHP, doing all sorts of stuffs on phpclasses back since 1999 - podcasts, interviews, sharing scripts, writing scripts, blogging, shouting and I even doubt he drinks-eats-sleeps there too (just to say how much he is hooked in there).

In the interview he answers questions about:

• His background and how he got started with PHP
• What he sees as the good and bad parts of the language
• Some suggestions for developers wanting to learn
• What frameworks/unit testing tool and CMS he recommends

There's also a section more specifically focused on the Brazilian PHP community, PHP conferences and some of the things he's learned in his time in the wider PHP community.

To evangelize is to effectively transfer information regarding one set of beliefs to another, with the final goal of converting each individual to the original belief. Isn't that what we do when we spread the word of PHP?! The idea behind being a PHP Evangelist is for an individual to speak passionately about PHP and be able to have strong and durable arguments for PHP, if questioned about his "faith" in the technology.

He talks some about the skills and things you'd need to become an evangelist - an advanced knowledge of the language, thinking "out of the box" about problems and how you can stand out from the other people in the community as a leader. He also recommends being technically adept as well and contributing to projects, either through support or actual development.

PHP evangelists are born to lead, to form opinions, influence the opinions of others and to have followers - and haters as well. Even if you think you were not born to be a leader or just don't want to be one, you will have to get used to public speaking if you wish to become a PHP evangelist.

Cal Evans has been referred to as "The Ubiquitous Face of the PHP Community". That's made Cal an obvious choice for the first guest on the PHPPodcast. In this episode we chat about the evolving face of the PHP community.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player, by downloading the mp3 or by subscribing to their feed.

In this edition I talked with Lineke Kerckhoffs-Willems who is the Co-Founder Of ProTalk. @the_linie is the third #phpwomen I'm hosting on 7php.com after Lorna and Ligaya. Lineke is a very active member of and promoting the purpose of PHPwomen.org. She is indulged in a lot of stuffs; she attends a lot of conferences, speaks at conferences and is also an organizer of a conference as you will read along this interview. She focuses a lot on Quality Assurance and I have taken this opportunity to ask her a few questions about it.

They talk about a wide range of topics in the interview including:

• Het background as a developer, open source project lead, author and conference organizer
• Her opinions (good and bad) about the PHP language
• Her development tools of choice
• Some of her thoughts on quality assurance
• Details about ProTalk's goals and the technology that powers it

You can read the answers to these and the rest of the questions in the full interview.