And the award winner is... - PHP Classes blog

By Manuel Lemos
manuellemos.net
<email contact>

Contents:

- And the winner is...
- An healthy competition for better PHP contributions
- The prizes
- Interview with the winner
- Ask the winner


- And the winner is...

Since the beginning of February, the ranking of PHP Programming Award winners of 2007 is available.

http://www.phpclasses.org/winners/year/2007/

As you may see Cesar Rodas is top ranked of all authors that were nominated to the award during 2007.

http://files.phpclasses.org/graphics/cesar_rodas_2007_innova ...

As it was mentioned in the post that announced the year innovation award ranking, each nominee earns points according to the ranking their nominated packages achieved on each month. The author with the greatest sum of points throughout the year becomes the winner.

http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/73-Top-10-PHP-Programmin ...


- An healthy competition for better PHP contributions

One thing that is important to mention is that this is supposed to be an healthy competition.

The fact that one author got better ranked during the year, does not mean that he is more or less capable than any other author that contributes to the site. It just means that the authors get better ranked according to the frequency of innovative packages that they submit to the site.

Therefore, I would to make evident two things. First, the contributions of all nominated authors equally deserve the attention of all site users. So, I would like to invite you all and go to the winners page and review all the nominated packages to appreciate their work.

http://www.phpclasses.org/winners/

Feel free to rate the packages that you try and do not forget to write comments to show that you appreciate the authors' work in order to encourage them to continue to contribute great packages.

The other thing I would like to make evident, is that authors get better ranked if they contribute with more innovative packages.

If you browse through the award winner pages, you can see that every year the ranked authors submitted more innovative packages than in the previous year.

This is great because it reflects the fact that every year more authors demonstrate interest in sharing even more impressive packages and gain deserved recognition for their work.


- The prizes

Well, the prize is the elePHPant. Created by Vincent Pointier and produced as a plush toy by Damien Seguy of Nexen, this is symbolic prize. It is not made of gold or any other precious metal, but it is certainly meant to show to the winning authors that we really care about their work.

The prize was sent early this month to Cesar Rodas. Unfortunately, this year there was only one elePHPant to give away to a winner. Hopefully next year there will be other prizes, not only to the top ranked winner, but also to other top ranked authors.

I would like to mention all the sponsors that since the beginning helped encouraging the nominated authors to submit so many great packages, by providing them valuable prizes.

Most of them sponsor the award since the beginning. Only a few could not continue for varied reasons. Here is the complete list: ActiveState, Codegear, Human Profile, IP2Location, JCX Software, Maguma, NuSphere, O'Reilly, Packt, PHP Architect, PHP Magazine, Roadsend, SAMS, Sitepoint, Waterproof Software and Zend.

I also would like to remind all authors that have been nominated to the award since it was started in 2004, that they are all entitled to a free lifetime PHP Classes premium subscription.

http://www.phpclasses.org/premium/

Among other things, premium subscriptions provide authors priority exposure as featured professional in the PHP professionals directory. This means that the exposure will improve their chances of getting more contacts from businesses willing to hire them for PHP jobs.

http://www.phpclasses.org/professionals/

If you are an author that was nominated to the award in the past and you did not get an invitation to benefit from your lifetime premium subscription, please use the contact link at the bottom of the site pages, so I can have your invitation resent.


- Interview with the winner

PC = PHPClasses
CR = Cesar Rodas


PC: First of all, congratulations for your work that made you the 2007 PHP Programming Innovation Award winner.

Can you please tell us more about you, how old are you, where do you live, and what do you do for a living?

CR: Well, I am 20 years old, I live in Luque which is a small town near of Asuncion (15 km away) in Paraguay. I work in the Network Department of the National Computer Center, and in my free time I code in PHP.


PC: Do you also work with PHP for a living? Is PHP popular where you work?

CR: In the past, I used to work with PHP for living. Right now, I only work with PHP in freelance jobs and when I publish classes in the PHPClasses site. My main professional activity at my work is network administration. Where I work PHP is not so popular, unfortunately.


PC: You have been one of the top contributors of the PHPClasses site. Just in 2007 you submitted many packages, 12 of which were nominated to the award, and some of them even ranked in number one on their submission months. What motivates you to make so many great contributions?

CR: It gets me many things, one of them is a great number of people that can see my classes at the PHPClasses site, so they download, test, report bugs, suggest new things, and so forth.

Also it is the best way, I think, to show the world what you can do programming in PHP, because people can see your "style of coding" and how good you are. Also it opens me new job opportunities, and improves my resume.

Also helps a lot the prizes from the awards, I have dozens of books. ;-)


PC: Did the exposure that your award nominations provided helped you somehow in your work and in your life in general?

CR: Yes, and it helped a lot. After nominations I had dozens of work offers as a freelancer, and also I think it helped to get my actual job. Also I've meet (by chat) many others developers.


PC: The PHP market lacks of qualified PHP developers. Do you think this award will provide you better opportunities in the future working with PHP? And if you get proposals to work in other countries would you be interested to move?

CR: I think this award will get me new job proposals, and I said this because every month I was nominated to PHP Innovation award I received more and more proposals to work as freelancer. Unfortunately, until now all proposals were to work as freelancer, but if I get a proposal to move to another country, I will take it, of course if numbers are interesting. ;-)


PC: What do you recommend to other authors that would like to obtain the same recognition that you are getting for your contributions to the PHPClasses site?

CR: The main recommendation is that their share their code. If they cannot get direct benefits, such as money, from their codes, they will have more indirect benefits, such as new job opportunities, award nominations, prizes, international recognition, etc..


PC: Is there anything else you would like to say regarding this award?

CR: I would like to thank to the PHPClasses site and its author Manuel Lemos, for making the site open for any contributor, also to all sponsors that made the PHP Innovation award possible.

For every user that have voted or download any of my packages, thanks to all of them.


PC: Thank you for this interview.


- Ask the winner

Well, if there are any questions you would like to ask Cesar or comments you would like to make regarding this award, please feel free to post a comment to this post.