For some developers, Trongate appeared on the scene around July of last year. This was around the time when I published a video on YouTube, speculating about the reasons why I happen to think Laravel is a dying framework. That video gained quite a lot of attention (not all positive, of course!) and - for some developers - it was their first introduction to the Trongate framework. For about ten days thereafter, the Trongate framework shifted into a phase that some of us like to call, 'The Gold Run'. This was when Trongate suddenly went from zero to acquiring around 20 stars per day on GitHub. At that time, no other PHP framework came close. Indeed, for a short while we were getting more GitHub stars than Laravel and Symfony combined! Given the fact that GitHub stars are the metric by which the popularity of frameworks gets measured, you can be sure that this caused a lot of excitement. It never lasted. Sure enough, the novelty factor of that YouTube video died out and within a couple of weeks, Trongate was sent back to the realms of obscurity. Although I didn't know it at the time, the sudden ending of the Gold Run was a good thing. Indeed, I think it was necessary. That's because the Gold Run was kicked-started by something that was, basically, negative. Yes, we picked up some GitHub stars and a few users. However, we also made a lot of enemies. The anger and the wrath of some members of the Laravel community should not be underestimated. What I've now come to realise is that Trongate doesn't have to become successful because somebody has been bad-mouthing Laravel or any other framework. As a matter of fact, it's entirely possible for Laravel and Trongate to thrive at the same time. For those of us who have been with Trongate, since day one, I can confidently declare that our goal has never been to demolish any other framework. Instead, we simply want PHP influencers to come to terms with the fact that there's now an alternative way to use PHP. We call it 'pure PHP'. Right now, there are - unfortunately - a large number of influencers who are in denial about that. Instead of talking about Trongate's unique architecture, our ecosystem, our benchmarks or our revolutionary 'v1 forever' concept, they'd rather talk about how the guy who made the framework must be a bungling idiot or even mentally ill. The anger and the wrath of some members of the Laravel community should not be underestimated.

Analytics To The Rescue!

Thank heavens for YouTube analytics. As of late, YouTube has been practically screaming at me - telling me what people want. It turns out nobody really cares about what I have to say about any particular topic. Whilst I'm sure the shock value of another 'Laravel is dead' video might get some hits, the whole thing would be vacuous and short-lived. It would also have bad energy. Therefore, my personal focus - for now - is tutorials. Not documentation. Not something boring. I mean tutorials. Good ones. Exciting ones! Turns out, I'm quite good at them. Turns out, people like them. Last week I posted a tutorial covering how to use OpenAI with Trongate. In five days it had over a thousand views! That's pretty good for little old me. Most importantly, the star count for Trongate has started to move again. It's nice to see that happening but what makes this particularly sweet is the thought that this time we're getting stars based off of merit. That's a million times better and more sustainable than having Trongate become popular because of some developers' soap opera. So, I'm going to keep on pushing out great tutorials. I want to do the best web development tutorials on YouTube and I'm willing to do them for as long as it takes. I have another YouTube tutorial that's due to go out on Thursday. It's covering Matrix Auth (the brave new OAuth2 alternative). Next week I'm going to be covering machine learning with PHP, assuming nothing catastrophic happens. We already have parts of the framework being written by AI. Together, we are pushing PHP harder and with a greater spirit of innovation than anyone. Let them know that Trongate means innovation. Let them know that Trongate is at the bleeding edge. May words like 'machine learning' and 'Trongate framework' go together like strawberries and ice cream. I'm watching the GitHub stars every day and I believe that a second gold run is coming. All the signs are there. Trongate will be a top ten PHP framework. Mark my words. For those of you who got here early, congratulations. DC Photo by Michael Steinberg: https://www.pexels.com/photo/three-gold-bars-against-dark-background-321452/