Within the past year and a half, New Orleans has seen a boom of technology groups converge upon the city. These groups are usually grassroots organizations with a very decentralized structure centered around a particular type of technology.  There is a group for programmers, a group for podcasters, and even a MAC user group.  Now we can add NOLA PHP, a group focused on the popular open source language Hypertext Preprocessor or PHP.

PHP Is A Fav Amongst The Dev Community (Image Courtesy of Scottish Web Folk)

PHP is a favorite amongst the web development and web programming community because it's an open source language that can be coupled with MySQL databases to create powerful applications.  Many enterprise level business applications utilize PHP to run their web apps.  NOLA PHP, created by organizer Ralph Schindler wants other organizations to see the benefits of using PHP and engage local developers who currently use or want to learn more about the language.

Ralph was apart of the local PHP group in Austin, TX before moving back home to New Orleans and it influenced him in many ways.  "Being around other developers that work in the same space as you, whether it's PHP or some other language/development platform, is what keeps you from making yourself obsolete.  Technology evolves fairly quickly, and while you can stay current with online news groups and blogs, real world developer-to-developer face time is much more important." says Ralph.  He believes that the city has enough developers who are interested in the language to get them to meet face to face for monthly meetups.  The goal of the group is simple: to create an environment that fosters the exchange of ideas, knowledge, best practices, job opportunities and overall growth of PHP developers in the New Orleans and Gulf South region.

So far, the group has 26 people who are interested and plan on having their first meetup on May 6th.  Ideally this group is targeting New Orleans for the general once a month meetings, but also plans on hosting some quarterly Saturday meetings for those people that want to come in from places like Lafayette, Baton Rouge, the North Shore, or even the Mississippi/Alabama area.

To find out more about the group or attend their meetup, check out: http://www.meetup.com/nolaphp/