WTFM : Write that funky manual with Ryan Weaver

Our first-ever episode of the Change Mode podcast is kicking things off nicely with a wonderful guest from the Symfony core team, Ryan Weaver. The Symfony docs lead and SymfonyCasts writer keeping us all in check when it comes to Symfony development. Join us for this episode as Ryan shares how to get started in open source, his methods for creating and managing great documentation and screencasts (including those dreaded translations), and how to balance open source and family life.

Donate to Ryan’s GoFoundMe page to support him in his battle with cancer.

• 0:22 — Intro: The Change Mode podcast powered by Upsun
• 4:29 — Meet Ryan Weaver: Symfony docs lead and SymfonyCasts extraordinaire
• 6:18 — The world of PHP and Symfony docs from a core team member
• 7:57 — It all started with Symfony 2: how to get into open source
• 9:41 — When does open source become open source?
• 12:19 — From young, bad developer to Symfony docs lead: getting into Symfony
• 16:08 — The quest to solve developers' problems and bad UX with docs
• 20:09 — Can’t we just open a ticket? The smallest entry point to open source
• 21:16 — Monetizing open source
• 25:17 — How to get paid to do open source
• 25:38 — Balancing open source, coding, and family life
• 32:24 — The Symfony ecosystem: Drupalisms, Ruby on Rails, and new JavaScript
• 36:32 — Can you contribute to SymfonyCasts?
• 37:54 — How to decide what goes in docs and what goes in screencasts
• 40:04 — How to maintain doc translations? Are we bound to English forever?
• 43:51 — The most important lesson in knowledge sharing
• 45:47 — What’s your dream day?
• 47:18 — Traveling at the speed of light with a dream invention
• 48:31 — What’s your greatest power?

A huge thank you to Ryan for joining us for the first episode of the Change Mode Podcast. It was a pleasure to chat with him about his open-source experience and what led him from a self-described bad developer to teaching thousands of developers the ins and outs of Symfony on SymfonyCasts.

Follow Ryan on his social channels linked below and if you can, please donate to Ryan’s GoFundMe page in support of his ongoing battle with Glioblastoma.

• GitHub
• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)
• YouTube (SymfonyCasts)

Shoutout to our incredible podcast host this episode, Marine Gandy, our resident Drupal expert and DevRel Engineer at Platform.sh. There’ll be plenty more from Marine coming soon, stay tuned!

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