Following the conclusion of the 24 Days in December series on PHP, I originally posted my own 24 “Heroes of PHP”™ on Twitter.

I’m reproducing that list here, together with some additional explanation of why these individuals mean so much to me.

• Ian Barber (@ianbarber)
  For his inspirational PHP/IR. Even though it’s rarely updated any more these days, there’s so much here already that has inspired me, and I still revisit every so often to find new ideas.
• Sebastian Bergmann (@s_bergmann)
  The creator of phpunit, and other static analysis tools that have helped me improve the quality and design of my code.
• Jordi Boggiano (@seldaek)
  For the improvements and professional-approach to development that composer and packagist have helped bring about, and for having incredible patience when supporting those utilities.
• Jeremy Coates (@phpcodemonkey)
  10 years and more of supporting and promoting the PHP Community in the UK, and inspiring user groups and conferences alike, Jeremy is still a driving force for community within the UK and Europe.
• Peter Cowburn (@cowburn)
  For his tireless (and almost unnoticed) work with the PHP Documentation team, that means PHP is probably the best documented language in current use today, Pete deserves recognition.
• Michelangelo van Dam (@DragonBe)
  A strong advocate of the PHP Community across Europe, Michelangelo’s reputation precedes him wherever he goes.
• Rafael Dohms (@rdohms)
  Energetic community leader, and a strong advocacy for clean code, Rafael’s enthusiasm overflows to everyone around him.
• Volker Dusch (@__edorian)
  Though he hasn’t been as active for some time, Volker introduced me to tools like Mockery, and made me think more about reducing the complexity of code that I was writing.
• Cal Evans (@CalEvans)
  An inspirational advocate for community; and the loudest, most positive wake-up call on twitter each day.
• Andrea Faulds (@AndreaFaulds)
  Did some great work with PHP7 (unicode codepoints and scalar type hints to name just two of her new features), and shook up the complacency of PHP internals in a very positive way.
• Anthony Ferrara (@ircmaxell)
  Developed the password_* functions for PHP (among other work), and constantly challenges thinking on design and development practises.
• Chris Hartjes (@grmpyprogrammer)
  For his advocacy of testing, testing, testing; with some excellent books detailing why and how.
• Stefan Koopmanschap (@skoop)
  For providing help and advice for new speakers at conferences, and generally for being a strong, positive role model within the PHP community.
• Konstantin Kudryashov (@everzet)
  For Behat, and for his constant and powerful advocacy of BDD.
• Lorna Mitchell (@lornajane)
  An inspirational and enthusiastic conference and user group speaker.
• Nikita Popov (@nikita_ppv)
  For all the incredible work he’s done on PHP core (such as Generators and Variadics), and libraries like PHP-Parser, FastRoute and php-ast; and for his detailed blog posts on how PHP works internally.
• Juliette Reinders Folmer (@jrf_nl)
  A strong advocate of good programming practises, and maintainer of PHP Cheat Sheets, and just generally a bright personality
• Derick Rethans (@derickr)
  xdebug, the Vulcan Logic Dumper, DateTime objects, and a myriad of other useful tools and features of PHP.
• Mike van Riel (@mvriel)
  For PHPDocumentor, and for being an all-round nice guy whose unassuming modesty deserves recognition.
• Davey Shafik (@dshafik)
  An active promoter of diversity within the PHP Community and proponent of raising awareness about mental health in technology, Davey also blogs about a wide range of technological concepts.
• Khayrattee Wasseem (@7php)
  A bright and cheerful promoter of the all that is best in the PHP Community, and the administrator of 7PHP.
• Igor Wiedler (@igorwhilefalse)
  Igor has given me pause to rethink how I approach code problems, sometimes to take a step back and apply a bit of “blue sky thinking” before looking at solutions.
• Yitzchok Willroth (@coderabbi)
  With a much more philosophical approach to development and projects in general, coderabbi has made me think much more about the broader, non-technical aspects of what I do.
• Jenny Wong (@miss_jwo)
  For promoting Community, PHPWomen, and active unity between the PHP and WordPress communities, etc.

These are just some of my personal heroes, inspirations and role models, I’m sure that you have your own “Heroes of PHP”™; but they all deserve thanks for the time and effort that they devote to improving our lives as PHP developers.

There are many names missing from this 24 “Heroes of PHP”™ list, all deserving of credit: everybody who blogs on the topic, or contributes to open source libraries or frameworks in any way, or helps other developers without asking anything in return is a “Hero of PHP”™. My apologies to all others who contribute to the PHP Community in any way that I haven’t been able to include in this short list.