NativePHP isn't a hobby project or a toy. It's serious.

Let me tell you why NativePHP exists and why it matters.

Get a warm cup of cocoa, kids, it's story time 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Ever since I learned to code dynamic, DB-driven apps (in MS Access 😅) I've wanted to build robust, stand-alone desktop apps.

You could do it with Access. You could package them up into kind of stand-alone apps. But there were many limitations.

I learned HTML & CSS, and PHP, at that time, when PHP was being used everywhere on the web.

The Internet was a whole new space where the possibilities were endless.

At 18, I felt the possibilities unfold: If you could package your app as HTML, it could work on every device, be delivered around the world in seconds, and all you needed to do was FTP your code up to a server to give everyone the latest release.

I was hooked!

And that was even before SPAs, JavaScript frameworks, git deployments and Laravel.

It was IE5 and 6 time, when the web was dominated by old Microsoft anti-web conspiracy.

Despite that (or maybe because of it), it grew and became this massive global phenomenon which spawned generations of talented developers and democratised opportunities globally, shifting lots of power from the very wealthy and established into the hands of anyone with a cool idea: from teenagers in their dorms to career-switchers in a garage.

As a result, millions of people learned how to use PHP to change the world.

Not always super well, to be sure, but they got things done.

As time went on, the language and the way they used it improved.

Wrote this over 4 years ago... Just going to leave this here: medium.com/@simonhamp/a-w… For context, the article was about trying to come up with an approach for single sign-on that doesn't carry the danger of making personal/private available to third parties - one of the key selling points for Facebook's 'Login with Facebook' service.