PHP Annotated Monthly – October 2016
October 2016
Autumn (or Fall for some) is apparently closing in, and as we get ready to carve pumpkins and hand out sweet treats to bands of marauding kids, Gary Hockin rounds up the exciting news and articles in the PHP community from the last month.
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PHP and Development
We still only have two versions of PHP that are supported; 5.6 and 7.0. Latest versions are:
In addition to these latest releases, there is also a release candidate for PHP 7.1, Release Candidate 3. You can learn more in Introduction to PHP 7.1 (Update) by Pascal Martin.
With a new release of OSX coming this month, a few people have had trouble getting PHP working with Sierra. Thankfully several articles have been published to help you get up and running again, with my favorite being Michelangelo van Dam: PHP 7 on macOS Sierra.
Here’s a roundup of other interesting articles in the PHP world:
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Phpseclib: Securely Communicating with Remote Servers via PHP
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Fighting Recruiter Spam with PHP – Proof of Concept
- Jason McCreary: Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL on Mac OS X Sierra
- Master Zend Framework: How to Build a Docker Test Environment
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Quick Intro: PhpCompatibility for PHPCS – Are You PHP7 Ready?
- Reddit.com: How is everyone doing development locally today?
- Remi Collet: Microsoft SQL Server from PHP
- Raphael Stolt: Anatomy of a dope PHP package repository
- Jason McCreary: Update PHP on Mac OS X
- Jani Hartikainen: How many tests is too many?
- Fabian Schmengler: Using class_alias to maintain BC while moving/renaming classes
- Toptal.com: The Six Commandments of Good Code: Write Code that Stands the Test of Time
- Master Zend Framework: Preparing Legacy Applications for PHP 7 with Phan
- Pascal MARTIN: Series – Introduction to PHP 7.1
- Medium.com: Generating Code Coverage with PHPUnit and phpdbg
- QaFoo Blog: Introduction To Page Objects
- Joe Ferguson: Solidify Fragile Tests
Frameworks and Libraries
Firstly, a HUGE congratulations to the Symfony project for passing 500,000,000 total downloads last month. That is a tremendous accomplishment, and everyone at JetBrains congratulates you on your ongoing efforts. The blog post The Road to 500 Million Symfony Downloads is a great read on the Symfony blog.
I really enjoyed Let CodeSniffer inspect your code in PhpStorm by Theo Tzaferis (and not just because it is referencing PhpStorm :D) this month, and it’s also worth mentioning that The 2016 Laravel Survey is currently running.
Other framework and library-related posts for the month are:
Zend Framework
- Master Zend Framework: How to Begin Migrating From Zend Framework 2 to Zend Expressive
- Master Zend Framework: Whoops, I Forgot The Error Handler
- Gary Hockin: ConfigAbstractFactory in ZendServiceManager
Laravel
- Freek Van der Herten: Sending a welcome mail with Laravel 5.3
- SitePoint PHP Blog: 9 Hot Tips to Enhance Your Spark Experience
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Mail Logging in Laravel 5.3: Extending the Mail Driver
- Laravel News: Troubleshooting Laravel Valet on macOS Sierra
- Freek Van der Herten: Simplifying presenters in Laravel
- Freek Van der Herten: Taking care of backups with Laravel
- Laravel News: The 2016 Laravel Survey
- DotDev.co: Understanding the Laravel Service Container
- Laravel News: Building a Search Engine Friendly Sitemap XML with Laravel
- Matt Stauffer: What’s up with Laravel: Up and Running?
- Laravel News: How to Create A Most Popular List with Laravel and Google Analytics
Symfony
- Eleven Labs: Use the Symfony Workflow Component
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Single-File Symfony Apps? Yes, with MicroKernelTrait!
- Symfony Blog: Symfony in the US: News from North America!
- Symfony Finland: Symfony & staying relevant: React.js rendering, GraphQL and Neo4j OGM
- CloudWays Blog: Getting Started With Silex Micro-Framework On Cloud Hosting
- Symfony Blog: The Road to 500 Million Symfony Downloads
Other
- TutsPlus.com: Building a Welcome Page for Your WordPress Product: Code Part 1
- SitePoint PHP Blog: RESTful Remote Object Proxies with ProxyManager
- SitePoint PHP Blog: Static analysis with PHPSA: PHP Smart Analyzer
- Sculpin Blog: Deprecating Phar Distribution and Embedded Composer
Community and Events
The hottest news in PHP right now is that the PHP-FIG’s new set of bylaws have passed, meaning the structure of the Framework Interop Group has changed dramatically. I’ve blogged and moaned about the group lately, but in all honesty, while I don’t think the new bylaws are perfect, I certainly believe that they are a huge step in the right direction.
If you haven’t followed the FIG recently, the new bylaws collectively referred to as “3.0” take some of the focus off voting members by introducing a new “Core Committee” to do most of the voting around the day-to-day running of the FIG (the Core Committee members and secretaries are still voted in by the member groups). It also introduces a more formal way of arranging teams to work on specifications by presenting the concept of Working Groups. It’s a huge change and a massive amount of work, and I commend Larry Garfield and Michael Cullum for putting in an inordinate amount of effort.
Digital Ocean’s “Hacktoberfest” is running again, which basically means if you commit three pull requests to an open source project in the month of October, the fine folks at Digital Ocean will send you a free t-shirt. You can find out more on their blog.
Other notable community-based posts for the month:
- SitePoint PHP Blog: PHP-FIG Alternatives: The Pros and Cons of Various Visions
- SitePoint PHP Blog: The past, Present and Future of the PHP-FIG
- Anna Filina: Re: When it comes to submitting talks, how many is too many?
- Joe Ferguson: PHP User Group Sticker Exchange 2016
Podcasts released this month include:
- Voices of the ElePHPant – Interview with David Laietta, Interview with Gary Hockin (hear me give my real reasons for being a good developer advocate…), Interview with Ian Littman, bearded weirdo James Titcumb, Interview with Jeff Geerling, everybody’s least favorite game show host Jeremy Mikola and Interview with Joe McGill. I’ve heard a horrible rumor that Cal is intending to stop recording these — we sincerely hope this isn’t real Cal!
- As I predicted recently, Ed and Chris can’t keep up their recent recording schedule, and only managed to release Episode 82: Open 24 Hours, Just Not All in One Day. To be fair, it’s still worth a listen.
- PHP Town Hall again fails to give us even a token episode. This is your final warning Ben and Phil; if you don’t record in October, I’m dropping you off this list.
- PHP Round Table released 052: Happy Birthday PHP Roundtable!, 053: Why I’m Afraid To Admit I Use PHP and Hourly vs Value-Based Pricing. Three great episodes with just a little too much Davey Shafik for my liking.
- I also stumbled upon a brand new podcast with two incredibly talented and entertaining hosts called Jerks Talk Games. While not really a development podcast it’s still worth a listen, you can catch the first two episodes The Jerks Hit the Road and Original Sinners.
I’ll be around a few events in October, most noticeably ZendCon in Las Vegas, so make sure you come up and say hello if you see me – I promise I’m not scary at all!
See you next month!
– Gary and the PhpStorm Team
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