Beyond WP #0 - THIS WEEK: Laravel 8, WP Café and Larabelles

Hi folks,

Thank you so much for signing up and being part of the hugely positive reception that Beyond WP got last week.

Launch and feedback

I was really happy with how many people signed up (around 250!) and how encouraging everyone was about the idea. I hope I can live up to the expectations!

I think I got a broader audience than I expected, so if you're already into Laravel, please bear with me as I go back to basics in the first few emails. And to everyone, PLEASE send me feedback by replying to this email or on Twitter. I need to know what's useful to you and what isn't.

The first proper newsletter is coming soon. I'm really excited and there is a TON of stuff on my list to share.

But while you wait for that... there's some things happening this week that I wanted to let you know about and an important initiative that I wanted to promote.

This week: Laravel 8 and WP Café

This week is really exciting as Laravel version 8 gets released on Tuesday. I won't go into details here because if you don't know Laravel then it won't make much sense, and plenty of other people are writing about it should you want to know.

But it IS exciting for developers and hopefully I'll be able to communicate some of that buzz here. There's some amazing new technologies being included in "Laravel Core", and the Laravel ecosystem has gone crazy with new stuff these last couple of weeks.

Coincidentally, also on Tuesday, my good friends at Highrise Digital have invited me to appear on their "WP Café" show to discuss with them and with Steve Jones of Code with Feeling what WordPress developers can learn from the Laravel Framework and ecosystem. Details are on the Highrise website.

It's at 11am BST (see that in your time zone) I hope you'll tune in and join the conversation in the chat!

Larabelles

I've always found The WordPress community to be relatively gender-diverse. But the Laravel community, while enormously helpful and very welcoming, currently seems to have less of a gender balance. And this may be intimidating for some people that are new to it.

So if you identify as a woman I'd love to introduce you to Larabelles: a community that focuses on reducing barriers for people like you to enter the world of technology.

It's relatively new and has been set up by a good friend of mine, Zuzana Kunckova. Do sign up for the mailing list and give @LarabellesPHP a follow so you can stay up to date on what's going on.

Hopefully knowing that Larabelles exists will give some folks some added confidence as they take steps Beyond WP!

That's all for now. The first proper newsletter will be with you soon. And in the meantime I hope to see some of you at the WP Café on Tuesday.

Stay safe!

Ross