An Open Source Story: Bringing Sculpin to Life (True North PHP 2015)

Are you curious about the process of creating an open-source application from scratch? Are you asking questions like, "should I contribute to an existing project instead?" or "does the world really need yet another [insert your idea here]?" Maybe you are wrestling with, "am I good enough?" or "what if nobody wants to use it?" Once you decide to go for it, a whole new round of decisions need to be made like "which framework should I use?" , "should I roll everything from scratch?" or "should I use some standalone libraries to help me?"

Come see how this scenario played out for Sculpin (sculpin.io). Learn about the motivations for creating yet another static site generator for PHP. Find out about the questions and barriers that almost kept Sculpin from ever being created. Discover the technology decisions that needed to be made and how those have changed over time. Walk away knowing more about what it was like for one open-source application to grow from idea to a full-fledged application with actual users.

Transcript

3. [backstory]
4. lone wolf
5. NIH
6. once upon a time...
7. [inception]
8. Beer && Code Seattle seattle.beerandcode.org
9. jekyll
10. This looks like a really cool project. Does anyone know of a similar project for PHP? — Me, April 16th, 2011
11. meanwhile...
12. php
13. substrate / halo / repose (plus a bunch of other little things)
14. reality
15. find something else?
16. symfony!
17. components!
18. php?
19. namespaces!
20. \
21. java? scala? ruby? node? python?
22. that was a dark six months
23. back to the other story...
24. jekyll dx
25. monkey patching
26. :(
27. #BeerAndCodeSeattle
28. octopress
29. Octopress vs. Jekyll: Fight! — Me, November 16th, 2011 srcmvn
30. jekyll & octopress contributions...
31. meanwhile, in php...
32. silex
33. phar
34. symfony
35. vendor.sh
36. composer?
37. #composer-dev
38. !!!!!!!!!
39. <3 php again
40. <3 composer internals
41. an idea begins to form...
42. what could i build... 1. that could be a console application similar to composer 2. that could use composer for extensibility 3. that could allow me to use more symfony components 4. that could be distributed as a phar
43. and this is where our stories converge...
44. octopress/jekyll=meh
45. so... a php static site generator, maybe?
46. go ahead and build it, but don't promote it because phrozn — #composer-dev, late 2011
47. phrozn?
48. waffled for awhile
49. looked for justification
50. jekyll & octopress
51. liquid
52. tried phrozn
53. twig
54. extensibility
55. embedded composer
56. go for it!
57. first, a name...
58. sculpin
59. because you gotta name your repository something
60. Initial commit. — simensen authored on Dec 21, 2011
61. [getting started]
62. core arch thanks, composer!
63. extensibility? homegrown "bundles"
64. rabbit holes
65. composer core
66. dflydev/ant-path-matcher dflydev/markdown dflydev/dot-access-data dflydev/dot-access-configuration
67. getsculpin.com self hosted
68. migrated octopress blog to sculpin
69. imathis closes my octopress pull requests
70. I made the right choice. — Me, May 22nd, 2012
71. Symfony's HttpKernel and using Symfony Bundles for Extensions
72. embedded composer (in the sculpin namespace)
73. react
74. twig inheritance
75. [community]
76. symfony live! san francisco 2012
77. met @seldaek in person
78. met @thejmather in person
79. first hack day
80. <3 community
81. dflydev/embedded-composer (extracted from sculpin namespace)
82. submitted my first round of talk proposals
83. I blame Jacob Mather. — Me, pretty regularly on Twitter
84. "Embedded Composer"
85. What was I thinking? Meh. — Me, after 5 rejection emails but right before Symfony Live! Portland 2013 acceptance email arrived
86. still not really talking about sculpin (much)
87. why not?
88. go ahead and build it, but don't promote it because phrozn — #composer-dev, late 2011
89. time to change that
90. "Embedded Composer" included Sculpin's Origin Story
91. branded slides!
92. stickers!
93. shirts!
94. yay!
95. sculpin was a thing
96. sculpin was a thing ... that people were using!
97. when i knew it was real
98. @bbene
99. [the beginning]
100. [this page left intentionally blank]
102. reinventing the wheel is not always bad
103. fear of community rejection because of nih held me back. a lot
104. try existing solutions
105. find justification for reinventing the wheel
106. build what excites you
107. build what you can use
108. community
109. remember that php is flexible
110. what can YOU do with php?
112. joind.in/15826 questions? @beausimensen • @getsculpin • @moniidev • @thatpodcast cover image courtesy of @beryllium9
113. Bringing Sculpin to Life True North PHP 2015 Beau Simensen joind.in/15826