top 5 php coders

Who would you say are the top 5 php coders you know?

Must good PHP programmers that I've seen are on the SitePoint forums. One of the best I've seen post was a guy under the username Dan Grossman. However, there are several good ones, especially the moderators of the PHP form.

I've only had experience with one, and will be the only one I will hire in the future.

Blue Ire

Oh yeah, Blue Ire and Wildhoney are rather good programmers here. I've seen/used a few of their programs and they work fantastically well. Village Idiot also codes PHP. I do also, but I'm still learning OOP.

Around the TFL ropes? For PHP, I'd go with Ryan Amos.

I can code fluently in PHP5. True OOP with Interface and Abstract classes. Basically the lot. A little sample here -> http://www.adam.tiaghosting.com/sample/

Originally Posted by Wildhoney I can code fluently in PHP5. True OOP with Interface and Abstract classes. Basically the lot. A little sample here -> http://www.adam.tiaghosting.com/sample/

Very clean and organized code. Based on this, I suggest hiring Wildhoney..

Sending you a PM by the way.

Originally Posted by Wildhoney I can code fluently in PHP5. True OOP with Interface and Abstract classes. Basically the lot. A little sample here -> http://www.adam.tiaghosting.com/sample/

I'm liking the code, very clean. I'm a decent PHP programmer but may hire you in the near future.

Originally Posted by Wildhoney I can code fluently in PHP5. True OOP with Interface and Abstract classes. Basically the lot. A little sample here -> http://www.adam.tiaghosting.com/sample/

It's a shame that your showcase piece of work will raise errors. You don't implement the display abstract method and importantly, the closing brace for the class is missing. Finally, probably not of importance to you but it is to me, where is your documentation? Even for a simple interface and class, a couple of PHPDoc comment blocks would be lovely (and almost a requirement if anyone is to look back at the code in a few months/years time). That said, nice and tidy.

As for the topic, I haven't really seen much in the way of code from members here -- and I've had no need to hire someone for PHP -- so it would be difficult to list 'the best' here.

On that note, I'd like to see more chat from the freelance coders around here (not just the template slicers). There are often questions about PHP floating around but little (if any?) chat between developers on interesting topics.

Originally Posted by Wildhoney I can code fluently in PHP5. True OOP with Interface and Abstract classes. Basically the lot. A little sample here -> http://www.adam.tiaghosting.com/sample/

well, good sample but i have some comments for your code:
1. it's too many type castings for private properties. if you know how ZE handles object properties, you'll find the reason why. don't add the overhead if it's not necessary.
2. considering logic separation, it's not good practice to put DB properties in class constant. when the class is put together with another package, configuration should be done directly to the class file and not config file, which will make the application less versatile and user (read: developer) friendly.

so far, my most favorite php programmer is rasmus (lerdorf). if you don't know him (which i am sure most of you do), please take a look how rasmus uses php as a toy here: http://talks.php.net/show/oscon06