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Dear Joomla,

We’re all so proud of you and how far you’ve come these five years. Your 20 parents conceived of you because they wanted to have fun. Ever since, people have come to you looking for a good time, to make friends all over the world, to contribute to the greater good.

In dog years, or technology years, you’re actually 35. This is actually a better age to describe you. You’re old enough to have been around the block, and old enough to know better. But you’re still plenty young enough to have passion, vision, ambition, and live on the cutting edge. And, of course, you still know how to party.

At the same time, you’ve changed the people who love you.

You’ve compelled designers get technical when nothing else could force them there. They thought they’d be in Photoshop forever, designing big graphics at 300 DPI in CMYK and working with fonts in various point sizes. Now they use only a handful of fonts without excessive whining, understand designing for content that could be most anything – and they’re OK with it! – and they know what a pixel is.

You’ve persuaded thousands to become programmers, these people who had never taken any formal computer training anywhere. Yet you inspired them to figure out your innards, to contribute in some way, to move you forward.

You’ve convinced thousands more to drop their Dreamweaver Design View and move to writing code by hand. They can write HTML and CSS, perhaps even without a reference book, and this code works just fine, possibly better than before. They finally understand the importance of standards-compliant code, and they even got around to complaining about your table-based layouts. Some are even working towards accessibility and usability.

You’ve inspired millions to come together and reach out to each other. You’ve grown up in the age of social networking, and your channels have grown with you. People reach out to each other on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, IRC, in discussion forums, Google Groups, and in dozens of other ways. They meet online, they share their mutual love for Joomla, and then they meet each other in person. Joomla user groups are established around the world. Joomla Days are held. Strangers greet each other as friends, because for years they have been friends, even if they’ve only met in person just now.

Thank you, Joomla, for pushing me to learn new things, to teach new things, and for my friends around the world.  You’ve compelled everyone who loves you to be more collaborative and think bigger. That, dear Joomla, is the greatest gift of all.

Happy 5^th birthday!