This post has been a week or so in the making, I just wanted to find the right words to tell the story. I saw a post on the PHP DevZone saying that Ligaya Turmelle wants to hear from women in PHP.

Well I hopped right across to the her blog post and raised my hand, thinking there wouldn’t be too many other people there. How wrong was I? To date there’s 44 responses to that one post.

The dawn of a new group

The new community is now online at www.phpwomen.org and its thriving. The forums are very active and full of people introducing themselves and discovering there are fellow phpwomen nearer to them than they thought. So far I think my nearest is either Belgium or Amsterdam – but there’s a lot more in Europe than I thought and I’m sure there are others in the UK just waiting to emerge. I’m a moderator on those forums as well, which is my first online position of that kind although I did briefly help out with experts-exchange before it went commercial.

The threads on the forums vary widely from “this is me”, through comparing notes on sanitising input variables, and along to who has which dog and a riveting post entitled Work and Babies.

The main site has interviews with both Ligaya and Elizabeth Narramore who had the original idea, announcements of conferences and will include other PHP news updates too, among other additions to numerous to list here.

Looking to the future

Well the community has certainly started with a bang and I hope that everyone continues to contribute as actively as time goes on. For me I hope that I continue to build relationships with the lovely women I’ve met so far, and that we will also be able to contribute to the PHP community as a whole. Here’s to a bright future!