This is the ninth ‘social’ interview in a series with the phpDay 2012 speakers:
it’s ‘social’ because the questions have been submitted and voted online on Facebook.

 We are happy to introduce you Giorgio Sironi, a freelance PHP developer and PHPUnit_Selenium mantainer.

He will give a session at phpDay called “What they didn’t tell you about object programming in PHP”  Friday 18th May at 11:00 am on track 1.

The Interview:

Things that you consider before choosing a framework for a project?
Community, documentation, training of my colleagues, and whether I should not use a framework for this project.

What should I learn next?
Some economics and theory of constraints.

What are your thoughts about functional programming?
Keep an eye on it – functional languages like Erlang do not only “solve” the problem of concurrency but also that of distribution.

Sheldon or Leonard?
I think that the characters have undergone a progressive Flanderization towards the absurd, due to many filler episodes and an emphasis on product placement instead of geek culture and plot (Sheldon-style response).

Who’s your programming hero?
The one that doesn’t work overtime. Or Alan Kay.

What features would you like to see in the next PHP version?
Scala case classes, native PSR-0 autoloading and scalar type hints.

Who killed JFK?
I feel there is already too much an American domination in our culture to allocate time to this question.

What do you think about php 5.4 traits?
Like inheritance, sometimes useful and easily abused.

Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet?
I was born in ’88. Who are these people? :)

What do you like and what not about php?
I like the ease of deployment, hosting support and dynamic typing. I do not like the kitchen-sink let’s-add-goto and makeCoffee() development model and the focus on procedural programming of the native extensions.

Which opensource projects are you following the most?
PHPUnit and related projects due to my focus on testing as executable specification.

Did your love for programming cause you some troubles with your partner?
It did, but I think I have a balance now.

Suggest a book to read.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

You can find Giorgio on twitter (@giorgiosironi) or on his blog.