This is the first ‘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 Lorna Jane, an experienced PHP consultant, developer,  trainer and leading the joind.in open source project.

She will give a session at phpDay called “Best Practice In API Design” Fri 18th May at 11 am on track 2.

Here’s her interview:

 Things that you consider before choosing a framework for a project?
Whether I’ve used it before, how good their documentation is, how good
their community is, and whether anyone would recommend this tool to
me.  Bonus points if I know the main developer(s) and am confident I
can get help if I need it!

What should I learn next?
Ask yourself this question after a conference; we come together and
get exposed to so many new ideas.  Pick the one that you’re still
thinking about two days later, not the one that you “ought” to be
doing next.  Our passion is what makes us who we are – so follow
yours.

What are your thoughts about functional programming?
Love it and will still write code this way if I’m doing something that
does have a beginning, a middle, and an end!

Who’s your programming hero?
How could I choose just one??  The people I look up to the most are
the people who have taken the time to look down to me, and help me
take one more step towards where I am today and where I will be in the
future.  Not just those that have interacted with me directly, but
also people whose blogs I’ve read, whose books I have, and whose talks
I’ve seen.

What features would you like to see in the next PHP version?
I’m pretty happy with PHP right now, but I’m excited about the
improvements on pecl_http and the suggestion that it might be in core
one day.

What’s the average beer per hour factor during conferences and a normal hangout?
I’m pretty consistent about my beer intake, regardless of what kind of
event I’m at.

What do you think about php 5.4 traits?
I think they’re a great feature but lots of the explanations of traits
that I’ve seen make them seem complicated.  I’m sure as more people
start to use them, we’ll understand them better as a whole community.

What do you like and what not about php?
I love how anyone can get started, but some days I hate that anyone
can get started!

Which opensource projects are you following the most?
Actually I’m leading one, joind.in!  I have been watching the Symfony
2 and ZF2 framework projects too, and I love the new PHPDocumentor2
project.

Did your love for programming cause you some troubles with your partner?
Actually my husband Kevin introduced me to programming and taught me a
lot, you can meet him at phpDay :)

Suggest a book to read.
I’m totally biased of course but you could always read my new book
“PHP Master”, co-authored with Davey Shafik and Matt Turland.

You can find Lorna on twitter (@lornajane) or on her blog.