At the recently passed Dutch PHP Conference 2008, the Bachelor-ict.nl website brought along their cameras and interviewed some of the attendees and speakers. Here's who they caught:

• Lorna Mitchell (advocating women to get into PHP and the PHP Women group)
• Ivo Jansch's talk
• An interview with Zeev Suraski
• A talk with Marco Tabini of php|architect
• Their own general overview of the conference itself.

Check out all of the videos from Bachelor-ict.nl's list on the Vimeo website.

I recently caught up with Michael Kimsal, author of the newly-released PHP Job Hunter's Handbook from php|architect that can be ordered now in both PDF and print versions. I wanted to get inside his head and find out all about the reasons behind the book, his experience in writing it and any tips he had to share, so I had him answer a few questions. Read on for the interview...

Frustrated by the trouble he's having finding a really good PHP developer to fill a few positions, has posted about this process he's been going through - the good, the bad and the downright ugly - of trying to find those right, qualified folks.

During the last six month or so, I've been looking to hire a PHP programmer for at least three companies. I have spoken to quite a few people on the phone, reviewed a bunch of resumes, and even interviewed a few. Out of all those candidates I recommended to hire exactly zero.

Some of the "roadbumps" he experienced along the way include the interviewees inability to write down code without a computer and them giving either the wrong or no answers to simple, common knowledge computing questions. So, he came up with a list of what he calls the "roots of the problem". Included in the list are things like:

• PHP is an ugly language
• PHP is rich with secondary reasons
• PHP is getting mature
• PHP avoidance

Also be sure to check out this response from Nick Jenkins to Leonid's post.

UPDATE: Leonid has also posted a follow-up post with a few corrections and clarifications of the original post.

php|architect has released the latest episode of their P3 podcast series - an interview with Elizabeth Smith (the "Queen of Windows").

Here's an interview that Paul recorded with Elizabeth M. Smith, a while back. There's some good info in here on PHP on Windows. Paul & Elizabeth discuss builds, 5.3, and other related topics.

You can grab this latest show in one of two ways - either grab it directly or subscribe to their feed.

In this new post to the PHPClasses.org blog, Manuel Lemos looks at the PHP Certification Exam - whether it's worth it, how can you take it and includes an interview with a ZCE, Mauricio Garcia about his experience with it.

Although I am certain that having a PHP certification is not the only way to demonstrate that a PHP developer is really qualified, I am sure that it helps hinting employers about his skills, and so become more open to negotiate better salaries. Having a PHP certification also helps a developer stand out from the crowd of developers that apply to a job but do not have any certification.

In the interview Manuel talks with Mauricio (a Brazilian PHP developer) about whether or not he feels the certification is worth it, how a developer can take it and what they need to do to prepare for it as well as a mention of a book that might help.

Michael Kimsal has also posted some of his own thoughts on the certification issue (and of the comments made during the interview).

This post from Hasin Hayder has been getting a lot of attention lately as well as both positive and negative feedback (check out the comments) on the "I don't give you a damn, if..." method of interviewing.

From Hasin Hayder's original post:

The reason behind writing this blog post is I've interviewed some candidates recently and They dont know the name of the developers of PHP, MySQL or almost any other libraries they make their living on. They dont even know the history of these tools.

Both Vidyut Luther and Chris Shiflett have posted their opinions on the approach, both supporting his ideas noting that good PHP developers are passionate about what they do. That passion usually shows itself in learning as much as they can about the language, both knee deep in code and in finding out about the community around it.

Christopher Kunz thinks a bit differently, however:

I have to ask myself: What are you guys taking? Are you seriously discussing any kind of name-dropping as an interview subject? It's not only irrelevant who created a programming language, it's even a hindrance for interviewers since all that small-talk bullshit takes precious time off the actual knowledge assessment.

The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode of their PHP Abstract podcast series - an interview with Derick Rethans:

Derick Rethans provides solutions for Internet related problems. He has contributed in a number of ways to PHP, including the mcrypt, Date and input-filter extensions, bug fixes, additions and leading the QA team. He now works as project leader for the eZ components project for eZ systems A.S. In his spare time he likes to work on Xdebug, watch movies, travel and practice photography.

The three usual ways to get this latest show are all still there - just the mp3, using the in-page player or by subscribing to the feed to get this and more great PHP content.

The latest episode of the Zend Developer Zone podcast, PHP Abstract, has been posted today - an interview with Zak Greant:

Today I'm going to talk to Zak Greant. Zak's web page tells us: Zak Greant's love of Free Software and Open Source is turning him into a penguin. When not practicing how to waddle or wear a tuxedo, he passes the time running the Foo Associates strategic consultancy and by working with various Free Software and Open Source projects and companies.

There's three ways to grab this episode - the mp3, the in-page player and, of course, the feed you can drop in your aggregator of choice to keep up to date.

Christopher Jones has pointed out a new customer interview that was done covering PHP and the connection pooling in Oracle 11g for Oracle Magazine.

Oracle Magazine's May/June 2008 issue contains a "Developer Nation" article. In it, David Kelly interviews Levi Dixon from Community Connect about using PHP and Oracle.

The article references the Oracle/PHP "strange combination" that used to exist and how it's evolved into a vital, living part of Oracle's stack (like with the OCI8 extension).

The Zend Developer Zone has posted the latest episode in their PHP Abstract podcast series - episode 36, an interview with Zend's CEO Harold Goldberg.

Today it is my privledge to present an interview with Harold Goldberg, the CEO of Zend Technologies. Harold brings more than 20 years experience in senior marketing, strategy and sales roles at top-tier organizations to Zend.

You can still catch the show in one of three ways - direct by mp3, use the in page player or, the popular choice, subscribe to the podcast feed to b notified when the latest episodes come out and have them hand-delivered for your listening pleasure.