Cal Evans, PHP community member extraordinaire, has a new post sharing his suggestions of the top five influencers in the PHP community that "make it awesome" and help make it one of the best he's been involved in.

It is no surprise to anyone who has talked to me for more than five minutes that I think the PHP community is the most vibrant and engaging developer community out there. So as we approach the end of the year, I am going to list out the influencers that help keep this community at the top. These are the people that you need to seek out and thank because without them, the PHP community would not be what it is today.

He goes with categories rather than mentioning names (because, really, there's way too many too name them all):

• 5: Core Developers
• 4: User Group Leaders
• 3: Conference Organizers
• 2: Conference Speakers, Bloggers, and Teachers
• 1: Any developer using PHP

That last one, while it might seem like an "everyone else" kind of category, is one of the most important in my opinion. After all, what is a language without its users. Core developers and community group/event leaders wouldn't have anything to talk about if no one was there to talk. There would be no one to teach or be taught to and the core developers wouldn't have any reason to drive the language forward. Even if you're not well-known in the PHP community, you and your code are making a contribution to the community, even if only in a small way.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted about some of the opinions of Vanessa concerning some of the "hottest manbloggers" on the web. Included in her list are to PHPers - Chris Shiflett and Luke Welling.

Vanessa has realized what women like Laura and Christina already knew. PHP guys are smokin' hotties. To prove this she listed both Chris Shiflett and Luke Welling as two of the top 8 Manbloggers on the web.

For those that are wondering, here's some shots: Chris Shiflett, Luke Welling.

Here's a link to Vanessa's post too.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted about some of the opinions of Vanessa concerning some of the "hottest manbloggers" on the web. Included in her list are to PHPers - Chris Shiflett and Luke Welling.

Vanessa has realized what women like Laura and Christina already knew. PHP guys are smokin' hotties. To prove this she listed both Chris Shiflett and Luke Welling as two of the top 8 Manbloggers on the web.

For those that are wondering, here's some shots: Chris Shiflett, Luke Welling.

Here's a link to Vanessa's post too.

DevShed caps off another series with this new tutorial today, ending their look at creating a blogging engine in PHP.

Welcome to the concluding installment of the series "Building a blogger with PHP." Made up of three friendly articles, this series provides you with all the information you need to start building a blog system with PHP in a few easy steps.

They look at their blogProcessor class first, including adding the needed database functionality to it. Then it's back out to the client side for the input forms and some validation before adding some style and formatting to the layout of the pages to make it a bit easier to use.

DevShed caps off another series with this new tutorial today, ending their look at creating a blogging engine in PHP.

Welcome to the concluding installment of the series "Building a blogger with PHP." Made up of three friendly articles, this series provides you with all the information you need to start building a blog system with PHP in a few easy steps.

They look at their blogProcessor class first, including adding the needed database functionality to it. Then it's back out to the client side for the input forms and some validation before adding some style and formatting to the layout of the pages to make it a bit easier to use.

Yet another new series is starting over at DevShed today with part one of a look at the creation of a blogging application in PHP 5.

Assuming that building a blogger with PHP is really an interesting topic for you, let's learn together how this useful application can be developed in a few easy steps.

These easy steps include:

• defining the structure of the application
• creating the insertBlog method
• creating the updateBlog method
• creating the deleteBlog method

Each of the above functions provides just the basics of the functionality needed to make a more fully-developed blogging system, but there's more to come in future parts of the series. You can download a zip file of the current code here.

Yet another new series is starting over at DevShed today with part one of a look at the creation of a blogging application in PHP 5.

Assuming that building a blogger with PHP is really an interesting topic for you, let's learn together how this useful application can be developed in a few easy steps.

These easy steps include:

• defining the structure of the application
• creating the insertBlog method
• creating the updateBlog method
• creating the deleteBlog method

Each of the above functions provides just the basics of the functionality needed to make a more fully-developed blogging system, but there's more to come in future parts of the series. You can download a zip file of the current code here.