Phil Sturgeon has a new post to his site introducing a group that you may have heard about but aren't exactly familiar with who makes it up - the members of the League of Extraordinary PHP Packages (or just "The League").

A few months ago I wrote What is The League of Extraordinary Packages?, and it was clearly written in a defensive tone. I wanted to explain a few things about the League because people were attacking it in weird ways. We sat down as a group and discussed a plan for 2015 to solve this. A lot of cool ideas came up, the first of which was to make a Leadership Group. These people have been doing amazing things in the PHP community at large, and have been doing awesome things in the League too. This is an introduction to them, and a thank you for everything they do.

He introduces five members of The League and talks about which project they're associated with:

• Alex Bible
• Ben Corlett
• Kayla Daniels
• Frank De Jonge
• Jonathan Reinink

There's several other packages besides those mentioned here that make up the League's offerings, so be sure to take a look at the list and see if there's anything that might benefit you or your application.

Cal Evans has posted a great tongue-in-cheek post to his blog today giving reasons why you shouldn't hire PHP community members to work at your company.

It is no secret that I spend a lot of time promoting the PHP Community. It is a vibrant, helpful and friendly community and I’ve said before that I believe it to be one of the most important asserts of the PHP language. I’m also a realist though; I’ve built teams and I’ve hired developers. [...] I have experience in this area and I have strong opinions. I am going to share one of those opinions with you right now: Don’t hire developers who are active members of the PHP Community.

His list of "don't hire" reasons are:

• PHP community members solve problems
• If they can’t solve a problem, they usually know who can
• They love to show off
• They make their employers look good at conferences.
• They work for free

For each topic, he gives a brief summary explaining its relation to the "don't hire" mentality. Reading between the lines, you'll see his true message, though - PHP community members have a lot to offer you and your business. Their visibility and experience (and connections) can only benefit the work they do.

The PHP Community group has created a new page for the group over on Ning - as pointed out by Aaron Wormus:

It's been a while since I've bothered to look at ning, but this time around I was VERY impressed. The interface is slick! Kudos to Elizabeth and Ben for setting this up, and of course all the people at ning for the cool platform.

The site already has a good start with a few members on it and discussions already starting for getting to know fellow members and opinions on moving to make this official PHP Community page.

If you'd like to check it out or get involved in the effort, head over and sign up.

UPDATE: it's been six hours since this initial posting and the site already has 24 members registered and growing more all the time. Head over and sign up now! And check out this new post over on the Zend Developer Zone for even more info.

The PHP Community group has created a new page for the group over on Ning - as pointed out by Aaron Wormus:

It's been a while since I've bothered to look at ning, but this time around I was VERY impressed. The interface is slick! Kudos to Elizabeth and Ben for setting this up, and of course all the people at ning for the cool platform.

The site already has a good start with a few members on it and discussions already starting for getting to know fellow members and opinions on moving to make this official PHP Community page.

If you'd like to check it out or get involved in the effort, head over and sign up.

UPDATE: it's been six hours since this initial posting and the site already has 24 members registered and growing more all the time. Head over and sign up now! And check out this new post over on the Zend Developer Zone for even more info.