Yelling at Clouds

Dockerized Client with PSR-6 HTTP Caching

By Oscar Merida

Setting up a reliable local development environment is crucial in getting your team up and running without the headaches of setting up bespoke ones. For PHP developers, Docker makes it easy to standardize environments across operating systems. In this article, we’ll see how to create a “Dockerized” PHP environment for our Spacetraders client. We’ll also augment it with HTTP caching using Redict (a Redis fork) and PSR-6 HTTP caching. Whether you’re new to containerized development or looking to understand how it works, we’ll walk through the process step by step. by Oscar Merida

Story Maps

By Edward Barnard

Last month’s scaffolding project turned into a mess. Rather than the Extreme Programming ideal of “Card, Conversation, Confirmation”, I had “Code, Chaos, Confusion”. Story Mapping is a useful pattern for bringing clarity and, in this case, simplicity. by Edward Barnard

Jumping into LLMs With Prism

By Scott Keck-Warren

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly being added to every nook and cranny of the applications our clients and companies maintain. As developers, we need to be able to provide integrations with AI, or we’ll find ourselves looking for a new job. I recently talked to TJ Miller about Large Language Models (LLMs) and his project [Prism](https://prism.echolabs.dev/), and it’s been a real eye-opener for me. by Scott Keck-Warren

Anatomy of a Modern PHP Class

By Chris Tankersley

PHP has been around for almost 30 years as a language, and it shows. I do not mean that in a bad way, but PHP’s insistence on keeping as much backward compatibility has given it the impression that it never really evolves. There is a decent chance your old code will work in PHP 8.4, the newest release as of the time of this article. by Chris Tankersley

The Developer Experience

By Chris Hartjes

Hello friends! Back in October 2024 at CascadiaPHP, I pitched John and Eric on writing a column for the magazine “about whatever I felt like talking about”. They agreed, as long as it was somehow related to PHP and programming. So, no rants about my other hobbies and interests. For now, anyway. My goal with this column is to educate and entertain. Life is too short to be miserable when being a programmer. by Chris Hartjes

The Zend Engine: Powering PHP’s Growth

By Christopher Miller

The Zend Engine stands as a cornerstone in the evolution of PHP, serving as the powerful core scripting engine that transforms human-readable PHP code into executable instructions. Think of it as PHP’s beating heart—it’s the essential component that compiles and executes the code that powers millions of websites across the internet. But how did this revolutionary engine come to be, and why does it matter so much in the world of web development? by Christopher Miller

Too Much Focus can be Detrimental

By Eric Mann

It was the weirdest way my physics professor had ever started a lecture. He had the projector covered by a sheet and asked his research assistants to stand outside and not let anyone else enter once he started. I was expecting a lecture on the conservation of momentum. by Eric Mann

Adding Individuals With A Disability to Your Team

By Maxwell Ivey

Let’s discuss the makeup of your current teams. Visualize everyone you work with on a daily basis. How diverse is your team? How many women vs. men? Is your team multicultural? How about varying ability levels, such as requiring accessibility aids? by Maxwell Ivey

The CMS Plateau

By Andrew Woods

A CMS is critical for running a user-friendly website today. So why have we stopped innovating in the CMS space? Here’s a breakdown of how, in the year of our nerd 2025, our modern content management systems let us down. by Andrew Woods

Distributed Tracing in PHP using OpenTelemetry

By Nelson Isioma

The development of your PHP application doesn’t end once it has been shipped. by Nelson Isioma

February 2025