Brilliance on display (no, really)

Poor Steph -- the author of the Zend Weekly Summaries of the action on the php-internals mailing lists hardly ever hears praise for her efforts, but suffers a barrage of weeklies! cries on IRC if she happens to be a few weeks behind. Suffice to say that her weeklies don' t just gather together the threads, but weave together a fabric that binds the PHP development community together around a common narrative. Unfortunately not everyone is aware of the weeklies... Steph must have mixed feelings of wrath and impishness when she wrote:

Roman Ivanov suggested that there should be some kind of design digest to explain why things are as they are and how or why they will change; 'right now the only way to get such information is to read everything on the internals list'. He felt that having the information presented in this kind of way would prevent repeat questions and discussions. (Note: it doesn't.)

Now, for a superb example of her writing skill and wit, check out her deft treatment of the PHP 5.1.0 Date controversy as Greek tragedy in weekly# 264. Bravo! Nothing like a little catharsis (and humour) to salve the wounds of what was a fairly dramatic altercation for PHP. Writing the ongoing history of PHP development with unflinching honesty is hard enough when you are a part of that community on a day-to-day basis and work directly with the subjects of your stories; making that history entertaining at the same time elevates you to a very special tier. We're lucky to have Steph.