Recently, I made two talks on Launchpad at WordCamp Rennes and the Forum PHP 2024, which allowed me to see more directly how people were reacting and thinking about the initiative and the framework.
As I had a similar topic in both conferences, it came to me the idea to use that opportunity to highlight that Launchpad is not just coming from the WordPress community but rather from the whole PHP ecosystem.
A warm welcome
The two events took place with two really different communities to not say opposite ones, so the output from both talks could have been really different.
However, to my surprise, both talks got the same response, a warm reception.
On both sides, the idea of building a bridge between the WordPress community and the other PHP communities was very well received and something that both communities are looking forward to.
On the side from the AFUP, it was even something they are actively working on as they feel today that their events should be open and beneficial for any PHP developer and not just Symfony developers.
What about Launchpad?
Both conferences came with its bunch of questions or feedbacks around Launchpad itself.
Lots of fans of the idea
The first points that marked me about both these events were the number of people who attended the talks and then came up afterwards asking more about the project.
I tried to make my best to answer everyone’s question, but I had to cut some conversations that became too lengthy to allow everyone to have their turn sorry for the ones I had to cut.
That also made me discover that a lot of people had their own code base to try to solve the problem Launchpad is trying to solve, showing that the pain point is present.
One of the most interesting projects similar to Launchpad I discovered during WordCamp Bretagne is Bazooka, which is based on Symfony.
A roadmap is necessary
The biggest feedback I got during these conferences is where I intent to go.
That made me realize one thing: I don’t have any roadmap, and I need to make one for Launchpad, so it will be easier to reassure potential users about it.
Documentation is unclear
Another feedback I got is that the documentation provided for Launchpad is unclear and challenging to understand as it goes too fast on the different notions.
Also, it doesn’t provide any example projects which can help developers by providing a full context about some explanations.
The need for a mono-repository
During the Forum PHP, I followed a conference from Antoine BLUCHET about a mono-repository tool he developed called PMU.
His talk made me realize a lot of problems we are facing while developing could be solved if we were using a single repository instead of multiple ones.
Share knowledge using PHPStan
During the same conference, another talk from Matthias NOBACK made me discover an interesting usage of PHPStan to share knowledge with others using custom rules.
This approach from PHPStan was totally new to me and totally matching the philosophy behind Launchpad.
What is next?
Even if it is pleasant to attempt conferences and share experiences with PHP developers from different backgrounds, it is important to convert them into actions to improve the project.
For Launchpad
For the framework itself, I first decided to move the project into a mono-repository, the repository launchpad-develop.
In the same fashion I started to play a bit with PHPStan to have a first idea of what is doable in terms of sharing knowledge.
Finally, I worked on creating a roadmap for Launchpad that would allow a refactorization and improvement from the documentation in a short term.
Roadmap:
- 3.1 – Documentation Refactor
- 3.2 – Increase PHPStan rules to help the developer
- 3.3 – Protect dependencies automatically when requiring a composer library.
- 4.0 – Launchpad CLI refactoring to simplify it for developers
For me
On my side, these conferences are a great opportunity to learn about various topics and get inspired by other people from different backgrounds.
It also made me improve my speaker skills as the Forum PHP mentoring program was great and helped me deeply into understanding my audience.
I will reuse these experiences in my next talks at WordCamp Sofia and the WordPress Day for Developers at Lisbon to continue to promote the necessity for all PHP communities to mix and collaborate with one another.
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