Enumerations, or Enums allow a developer to define a custom type that is limited to one of a discrete number of possible values. That can be especially helpful when defining a domain model, as it enables making invalid states unrepresentable. In other words, enums are a restricting layer on top of classes and class constants, intended to provide a way to define a closed set of possible values for a type.
PHP 8.3 was released as scheduled on November 23, introducing numerous new features and improvements since the PHP 8.2 release. We'll go through most important features, performance improvements, changes and deprecations one by one.
PHP 8.3 and subsequent versions now enable the declaration of types for PHP class constants. This guarantees type compatibility for constants when overridden by child classes and interface implementations. Before PHP 8.3, there was no way to enforce type compatibility programmatically.
Laravel 11 has been officially launched, bringing along several exciting enhancements. Among the notable updates is the requirement for a minimum PHP version of 8.2, ensuring compatibility with the latest features and optimizations. Additionally, a new Laravel Reverb package has been introduced to Laravel's suite of first-party tools. Moreover, users can expect a streamlined directory structure, contributing to a more organized and efficient development process. These advancements collectively contribute to making Laravel 11 a compelling choice for web development projects, offering improved performance, functionality, and developer experience.
CQRS, short for Command Query Responsibility Segregation, is a simple yet powerful way to split the responsibility for writing and reading data in an application. Instead of having a single service or model method that both changes and retrieves data, you give commands the job of making changes and queries the job of fetching information. This split can make large projects much easier to follow, especially as business rules grow and read and write requirements start to differ.
Enhancing the performance of Symfony applications brings a smoother and faster user experience. One powerful tool for achieving this is OPCache. OPCache is a PHP extension that stores precompiled script bytecode in memory, which reduces the overhead of parsing and compiling scripts with each request. This results in faster execution and improved overall efficiency.
Docker provides the ability to package and run an application in a loosely isolated environment called a container. The isolation and security allow you to run many containers simultaneously on a given host. Containers are lightweight and contain everything needed to run the application, so you do not need to rely on what is currently installed on the host. You can easily share containers while you work, and be sure that everyone you share with gets the same container that works in the same way.
PHP 8.2 has been released on December 8, 2022. We'll go through most important features, performance improvements, changes and deprecations one by one.
Read only properties were introduced in PHP 8.1. Now, PHP 8.2 is adding support to declare the entire class as read only.
If you declare a class as read only, all its properties will automatically inherit the read only feature. Thus, declaring a class read only is the same as declaring every class property as read only.
Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application’s services. Then, with a single command, you create and start all the services from your configuration.
The features of Docker Compose that make it effective are:
Memcache is a caching system that stores data in memory to make applications faster and more efficient. It works across multiple languages, including PHP, Python, Ruby, and others. In the context of PHP, it can reduce database load and speed up page rendering by keeping frequently accessed data available in memory. This article focuses on how to use Memcache specifically with PHP.
Symfony is a PHP web application framework and a set of reusable PHP components/libraries. Symfony aims to speed up the creation and maintenance of web applications and to replace repetitive coding tasks. It's also aimed at building robust applications in an enterprise context, and aims to give developers full control over the configuration: from the directory structure to the foreign libraries, almost everything can be customized.
