Hi everyone,
It's the first newsletter for the month and this week we have new releases from Symfony and Laravel. The PHP Foundation also published their Impact and Transparency report for 2024. In Tutorials we have a guide to Laravel Middleware, Customising Laravel optimisation, and and introduction to Laravel's MVC Architecture. In Podcasts we have new episodes from No Compromises on why pushing too many layers of abstraction can backfire in a Laravel app. Syntax discusses planning a build, while PHP Architect talk about Feature glags and much more. Finally in our Reading section we have PHP & URL encoding evasion, Rest APIs, and understanding linked list insertion in PHP.
We have all that and more, so we do hope you enjoy this week's newsletter. If you have an article, tutorial or podcast that you would like to be featured in our newsletter, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].
All the best,
Adrian
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Articles
PHP: Random Failures in Tests
Tests have been working fine so far, and, suddenly, it seems to fail. Why? While it's easy to write basic unit tests, it can be tricky when dealing with dates, complex calculations, or random values.
Introducing Hypervel: A Coroutine Framework for Laravel Artisans
Hypervel is a high-performance PHP framework inspired by Laravel, offering native coroutine support for developers building high-concurrency and I/O-intensive applications.
Protect Your Laravel API: How I Mastered Rate Limiting in a Real Project
Ever had that moment when you realize your API could get overwhelmed by too many requests? I faced that exact issue in a recent Laravel project and decided to tackle it with Rate Limiting.
Improving Eloquent: BuilderExtensions versus Scopes
The global scopes allow developers to add Builder options to the model, to make them execute on every model query.
Why you should use DTOs with Symfony’s form and not entities
Are you using entities with your Symfony forms? For many use cases you should avoid this… Let’s see why!
Laravel: Testing a Pipeline, one pipe at a time
Pipelines are a great way to run logic in a serialized way. It’s what powers the Routing Middleware and Job Middleware in Laravel, so it’s not just a tool that is there just to exist for pure convenience.
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Tutorials and Talks
Building Powerful Date Validation with Laravel's Date Rule
Laravel introduces a fluent Date rule that transforms how you validate dates in your applications. This chainable interface simplifies complex date validation requirements into readable, maintainable code.
Customizing Laravel Optimization with --except
Looking to fine-tune your Laravel optimization process? The new --except option provides surgical precision for skipping specific commands during optimization, giving you greater control over how your application is optimized for different environments and workflows.
Introduction to Laravel’s MVC architecture — A Complete Beginner’s Guide with Examples and Workflows
This article takes a closer look at the MVC architecture of Laravel and breaks this architecture down into concrete examples and workflows, and it will walk you through each component with practical code snippets and best practices.
Simulating Role Switching Without Losing Admin Privileges in Laravel & Vue
In this post, we'll explore a session-based approach that lets an admin act as an employee (or vice versa) without actually removing or altering roles in the database. This ensures that when the switch is undone, the admin’s full permissions remain intact.
A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Set Up and Deploy a LAMP Stack on a Linux Server
The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is a popular open-source web development platform used to host dynamic websites and applications. This guide will walk you through setting up a LAMP stack on a Linux server.
Conversational Analytics Tutorial: How to Implement SQL AI Agent that Speaks Database
In this blog, I’ll guide you through building an SQLite AI agent that allows you to interact with an SQLite database using simple, natural language queries instead of writing complex SQL statements.
Beginner's Guide to Laravel Middlewares: Everything You Need to Know
In this article, we'll break down the basics of Laravel middlewares, explain how they function, and provide a practical example of using a middleware with JWT (JSON Web Token) authentication during user login.
Implementing a Queue Using Two Stacks in PHP: A Comprehensive Guide
In this article, we explore how to simulate a queue using two stacks — a classic programming challenge — and how to implement an interactive system in PHP to manipulate such a queue. |
News and Announcements
Dutch Laravel Foundation Meetup at the JetBrains Office
Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of hosting a community meetup in our Amsterdam office in collaboration with our partner DLF (the Dutch Laravel Foundation). The event brought together Laravel and PHP developers for an evening of technical talks, networking, and knowledge sharing.
Support for Query Builder Pipelines in Laravel 12.4
The Laravel team released v12.4.0, which includes a query builder pipe() method, the ability to conditionally skip migrations, an Arr::sole() method, and more.
Eloquent Cast for HTML Strings in Laravel
As of v12.4, you can automatically cast Eloquent attributes to an HTML string using the AsHtmlString cast. The framework already has an HtmlString class available; this cast stitches it together with Eloquent attributes that you can use where appropriate.
Symfony 6.4.20 and 7.2.5 released
Symfony 6.4.20 and 7.2.5 has just been released. Here is the list of the most important changes.
March 24–30, 2025 - A Week of Symfony #952
This week, Symfony 6.4.20 and 7.2.5 maintenance versions were released. In addition, Symfony successfully celebrated the SymfonyLive Paris 2025 conference and continued preparations for next week's SymfonyLive Berlin 2025 conference. Finally, we announced a new Core Team member who will be in charge of the Symfony CLI.
The PHP Foundation: Impact and Transparency Report 2024
As of early 2025, The PHP Foundation comprises 8 volunteer board members, an Executive Director sponsored by JetBrains, and 10 developers paid part-time/full-time who contribute significantly to the PHP language and its extensions.
phpday 2025
Now in its 22nd year, phpday has been held continuously since 2003. The 2025 edition will be hosted in Verona on May 15-16.
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Podcasts and Vlogs
The Stack Overflow: Boots on the ground: Holistic AI and Audioshake at HumanX
Two interviews for the price of one, direct from HumanX 2025! Ryan sits down with Raj Patel, AI transformation lead at Holistic AI, and then chats with Audioshake cofounder and CEO Jessica Powell.
No Compromises Podcast: Stick with conventions and avoid overengineering your Laravel app
Joel and Aaron explore why pushing too many layers of abstraction can backfire in a Laravel application. They highlight the benefits of sticking to the framework’s conventions for long-term maintainability and simpler handoff to future developers.
Maintainable Podcast: Evan Phoenix: The Why of the One Line
Evan Phoenix (@evanphx), CEO of Miren, joins Robby to explore the subtle but powerful difference between writing code that works and writing code that explains itself.
Software Engineering Radio: SE Radio 661: Sunil Mallya on Small Language Models
Sunil Mallya, co-founder and CTO of Flip AI, discusses small language models with host Brijesh Ammanath. They begin by considering the technical distinctions between SLMs and large language models.
Shoptalk Show: Andy Bell on Working with Clients, Writing, and Building Courses for Web Builders
We're joined by Andy Bell, the founder of Set Studio. They discuss the evolution of web design, the importance of client relationships, and the innovative approaches taken at Set Studio and Piccalilli.
WP Builds: 415 – Feeling Insecure? with Tim Nash. Episode 3 – The state of WordPress security and the transition to bcrypt
In this episode of WP Builds entitled “Feeling Insecure? Episode #3,” Nathan Wrigley and Tim Nash explore various aspects of WordPress security.
PHP Architect: The PHP Podcast: 2025.03.27
This week on the PHP Podcast, Eric and John talk about Laravel Cloud, Feature Flags, PHP Tek 2025, PHPxSan, and more…
Mostly Technical: 76: Distribution & Taste w/ Adam Wathan
Aaron is joined this week by Adam Wathan to talk about everything from Disney Cruises to what he wants to do on YouTube and a whole lot more.
Over Engineered: Running Small Teams w/ Dan Matthews & John Rudolph Drexler
There's lots of advice out there for running software teams, but much of it comes from large organizations with dozens or hundreds of developers. Smaller teams have different needs.
Syntax: Planning A Build
Wes and Scott discuss planning decisions for the Syntax v3 site rebuild including project management, code structure, tooling strategies, UI patterns, and more.
The Changelog: The idealization of farming by tech
Theodore Morley wonders why tech workers so frequently point our wanderlust toward hands-on trades, Eduardo Bouças explains why he’s lost confidence in Vercel’s handling of Next.js, “xan” is a command line tool that can be used to process CSV files directly from the shell.
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TinyAuth and CakePHP authentication plugin
Over 13 years ago I wrote about my TinyAuth plugin as enhancement to the core Auth component, at the time the state of the art auth tool you needed for a quick auth setup in Cake apps. Lets revisit that now with the new auth plugins in town.
The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up Your Perfect Developer Environment
This article will be long, detailed, and packed with actionable insights. We’ll cover everything from choosing the right tools to mastering advanced configurations. By the time you finish reading, you'll have a setup that's fast, reliable, customizable, and perfectly suited to your unique workflow.
Laravel: Stopping bots with a Turnstile interstitial, for free
One thing I’ve seen on many sites is the usage of Cloudflare’s WAF service to protect their application. One of the main features is their Browser Integrity Check, and odds are you have found yourself in it a couple of times on your favorite web sites.
PHP & URL Encoding Evasion
As I looked through web logs, I found some strange URLs coming from several IP addresses. The first instance of this happening was on September 5th from 165[.]232[.]183[.]195. The other three IP addresses had near identical requests, but no clear important differences. These will be discussed later.
REST APIs: The foundation of modern web development
As a software engineer, I’ve always been passionate about sharing my knowledge and helping others understand complex technical concepts. That’s why I was excited to create this presentation on REST APIs.
Implementing and Understanding Linked List Insertion in PHP
In this article, we will discuss how to insert a node at a specified position in a singly linked list using PHP.
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Interesting Projects, Tools and Libraries
pmill/doctrine-array-hydrator
An array to entity hydrator for Doctrine 2 entities.
xsuchy09/utm-cookie
Utm-Cookie saves utm parameters from url into cookie with defined lifetime (default 7 days).
stmswitcher/yii2-flipclock
Yii2 FlipClock wrapper.
shapecode/hidden-entity-type-bundle
Hidden field for Symfony entities.
netsilik/struct
Getters and setters made easy by rule bound magic methods. Support for Read-only public properties.
lohandus/praptor
A tiny MVC framework for PHP inspired by VRaptor.
maurice2k/zenplate
Simple and fast PHP based template engine.
wubbajack/filecrypt
PHP package for encrypted and decrypting files.
domnokapp/filament-table-repeater-form
This is my package filament-table-repeater-form.
elseoclub/laravel-permission-cache
Cache Permission handling for Laravel 8.0 and up.
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