Every PHP Developer is at core a PHP evangelist, someone who is ready to raise the PHP flag and defend it. This does not mean your answer to everything is PHP, as a true evangelist you know the strengths and shortcomings of your own language, and when to just say "don't use it", but you are also ready to defend it and prove its worthiness when its misjudged or just plainly misunderstood.

He includes an example from the Brazilian PHP community, an incident where a local TV newscast got their facts wrong and noted that "most things ending in .php were a virus" and should be avoided. The PHP community, of course, got up in arms about it and, thankfully, the news station realized their mistake and made a retraction about their comments.

So why the tale? Well this is what being a PHP Developer is to me, its more then just being a member, its like a family. And like any family you need to be there for the bad and the good, and watch out for each other. That means you must really embrace the language, learn about it.

In this edition I talked with Rafael Dohms ( @rdohms ), The Brazilian PHP Evangelist. He is to the PHP Community and specially to The Brazilian PHP Community, what Brazilian Ronaldo is to the Football World! He has founded two PHP user-groups and is seen as an AWESOME active member of the PHP Community; he is also an active contributor to some conspicuous open-source PHP projects as you will found out for yourself in this interview. Rafael is very passionate about helping out fellow developers generously; you can read more about him on his personal website/blog.

In his answers, Rafael talks about things like:

• Some of his first experiences with PHP (including a CounterStrike clan website)
• His recommendation of the book "The Art of Readable Code"
• His favorite conference (hint: It's in Chicago each year)
• His recommendation for less arguments in the community
• Thoughts on PHP 5.4 and its features
• Some of his experiences with both starting and being a member of various PHP user groups

You can read the full interview here.

I work closely with the product groups developing SQL Server, SQL Azure and IIS understanding what features and changes are coming the next versions and what impact this may have on developers. Then I get share what I've learned by blogging, presenting at conferences, building demos and labs, and by working directly with developers.

Zach talks about how he got started working with PHP on a project for a local business - a database for a non-profit organization and what he learned from the experience.