Brother Niao Hui Xinchen: From Web Beginner to PHP Core Developer-2021 Global Open Source Technology Summit

As one of the most basic development tools, programming language’s status in the field of software development goes without saying. Every move in any mainstream programming language community and new versions of standards will have a profound impact on countless developer groups.

Since all major mainstream programming languages are dominated by foreign developers or organizations, there are very few Chinese developers who can participate in the formulation of programming language standards, and there are even fewer big-name figures who can participate in their personal capacity. . When it comes to influential figures in the domestic programming language industry, Brother Niao is definitely the first person in the minds of many developers.

Hui Xinchen, known as "Brother Bird" in the world, is the most influential PHP technical expert in China, a core member of the PHP official development team, and the core of PHP 7 and PHP 8 JIT author. He has worked for Yahoo, Baidu, Sina, and Lianjia. He is currently the vice president and chief architect of Shell Technology. As a PECL (PHP extension library) developer, Brother Niao has contributed many outstanding open source works such as Yaf, Yar, Yac, and Taint. He is also the maintainer of projects such as APC, Opcache, and Msgpack.

Speaking of the origin of the name "Brother Bird", because some people often confuse him with "Brother Bird" Cai Deming, who wrote "Linux Private Kitchen", he himself has such an explanation in his personal public account :

"When I was young and sentimental, my QQ IM nickname was 'Snow Migratory Bird', which was the title of a song by Xiong Tianping. Later, when I went to Baidu, maybe it was because I was older? Slowly? I don’t know how to call it if it’s so slow. In fact, I resisted it at first. ‘Birdman’ is not a good word after all, but then more and more people started calling it, so it didn’t matter anymore.”

## The first time #niaoge did "programming" was on a Xiaobawang learning machine. Later, I majored in computer science in college. When I was a graduate student, I was responsible for the campus construction of the school. I actively or passively did a lot of web development work, including the website of many secondary departments of the school at that time, the maintenance of the campus BBS, etc., and my relationship with PHP was also positive. It was during this period.

According to Brother Niao’s recollection, when I was a graduate student, I wanted to make a website. When I didn’t know how to do it, I searched online and happened to find a PHP tutorial that taught me how to make a simple website, so I tried it. I followed it and found that it was very convenient to install, deploy (there was no such centralized deployment tool at that time, but there were many tutorials on how to deploy LAMP), write code, and test, and the syntax was very similar to the C language. Even the names of many APIs are the same as those of libc API. So began my indissoluble bond with PHP.

Niao Ge worked for Baidu after graduation. During this period, he has been studying the source code of PHP and submitted many bugs and fixes to the PHP community. For example, one day at noon, Rasmus, the father of PHP, said on IRC that he had found a bug, and Brother Bird provided the fix in almost 5 minutes.

In 2011, Brother Niao developed Ap (the predecessor project of Yaf) for Baidu. At that time, it was used well within Baidu, so he thought about contributing to PECL. After making some modifications, he changed its name to Yaf (Yet another framework, the name is also a bit self-deprecating, because PHP has many frameworks), so I sent an email to the PHP mail group. Because his English was not very good, the process was quite tortuous. Fortunately, he received a lot of help from Pierre Joye, the administrator of PECL, and Yaf successfully entered PECL.

As he contributed more and more to the PHP community, Brother Niao gradually became familiar with some of the official PHP people. After gaining everyone's trust, he initiated an application and later obtained the PHP core code. Submit permissions to participate in the direct development and bug fixing of PHP and become a member of the development team.

In the subsequent work, Brother Niao's cooperation with the members of the development team became more and more in-depth, and many of his works were recognized by everyone. "If everyone recognizes your work, then they will respect your opinions. I gradually became familiar with Dmitry Stogov, obtained the submission permission for the core part of Zend, and submitted many core bug fixes and new features. Later, he became an external consultant for Zend and gradually became a Core Developer." Play the game "The feeling of defeating monsters and upgrading".

As one of the few Chinese developers who participate in the formulation of mainstream programming language standards, Brother Niao has his own unique insights into the development trends of major programming languages. At the same time, years of participation in the PHP community through open source collaboration have also given Brother Niao a deeper understanding of the world of open source software.

In July this year, Brother Niao will serve as the sub-forum producer of the Global Open Source Technology Summit GOTC and bring you a series of speeches with the theme of "Programming Language Art". There will be front-line experts in the industry of mainstream programming languages such as Java, PHP, Rust, C, etc., who will share the latest trends in related programming languages for developers in different technical fields, and provide an in-depth analysis of the development trends of major programming languages in China.

Niao Ge said that the current scale of domestic developers is already very large, but there are still very few people who pay attention to the development of underlying technologies such as programming languages and operating systems. "I hope that in the future more outstanding developers will engage in low-level research and join the open source community to contribute code, so that more Chinese developers can participate in the formulation of mainstream technology standards."

The global open source technology conference (GOTC) is initiated by the open source Chinese community and the Linux Foundation. It is a grand open source technology feast for global developers. The summit will bring together leading open source companies and top open source projects, covering multiple technical fields such as cloud native, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, big front-end, audio and video, security, operating systems, databases, open source governance, etc. During the two-day period, it will bring the world's latest and purest open source technology to developers, while spreading open source culture and concepts and promoting the development and construction of the open source ecosystem.

GOTC focuses on "open source" throughout the entire process. The organizer, together with the internationally renowned open source software foundation, is committed to building it into an annual world-class open source technology event.

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