php base

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.

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 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.

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:

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.

CQRS stands for Command Query Responsibility Segregation. It's a pattern that separates how an application reads data from how it writes data. This approach can help structure code more clearly, especially in systems that deal with complex business logic or need to scale certain operations differently.

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.

Criteria is a framework-agnostic PHP package that simplifies the use of the criteria pattern for filtering, sorting, and paginating data. It helps separate query logic from repositories, making the codebase easier to maintain and extend over time. By using Criteria, developers can handle complex querying needs without spreading filter logic across different parts of the application.

Laravel ships with a solid authentication system out of the box, and most projects are well served by it. But there are situations where you need to authenticate users against something completely different: a legacy database, an external API, an LDAP server, or some other custom data source. Laravel's authentication system is built around a set of contracts and driver hooks that make this surprisingly straightforward to implement.

Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.

Composer requires PHP 5.3.2+ to run. A few sensitive PHP settings and compile flags are also required, but when using the installer you will be warned about any incompatibilities.