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Semantic versioning

Under this scheme, version numbers and the way they change convey meaning about the underlying code and what has been modified from one version to the next.

...

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

  1. MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
  2. MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
  3. PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.
http://semver.org/

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How to install MCrypt on Yosemite to enable Laravel Artisan

The accepted solution thus far has been to install newer versions of PHP alongside Apple’s version using Homebrew or MacPorts. This would likely require you to compile the MCrypt extension manually. I also found that Homebrew could leave your system in disarray if things went wrong (more than once I had to do a complete restore because of this).

However, there’s another method I came across while research some non-related issues: install the latest version of PHP from a binary that includes the MCrypt extension. It will not bork up your system if you want to remove it, either.

https://medium.com/@genealabs/run-allthecommands-outside-of-homestead-e2fc8d05251f

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Monitor all proposed changes to PHP

The next major release of PHP, version 7, is going to be an awesome release. Not only will performance be greatly improved, there probably will be lots of nice changes to the language.

The procedure on how PHP gets changed is easily readable and well documented. In short it comes down to this:

  • Proposed changes are submitted on the PHP Wiki.
  • There is a RFC (Request for comments) phase in which key members of the community and contributors can discuss the change.
  • After this round of discussion, which lasts a minimum of two weeks, they can vote if the proposed change gets implemented in a next version of the language.
If you want to closely monitor the future of PHP here's a tool to monitor all activity on the current RFC's.

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Higher order functions in JavaScript

Functions that operate on other functions, either by taking them as arguments or by returning them, are called higher-order functions. If you have already accepted the fact that functions are regular values, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the fact that such functions exist. The term comes from mathematics, where the distinction between functions and other values is taken more seriously.
http://eloquentjavascript.net/05_higher_order.html

Read the article for some clear examples to help you understand the concept.

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A package to backup your Laravel 5 app original

by Freek Van der Herten – 1 minute read

Last week I made a Laravel 5 package that could dump your db. Last saturday night I took the time to expand the functionality. laravel-backup can now backup your entire application. The backup is a zipfile that contains all files in the directories you specify along with a dump of your database. The…

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PHP at the speed of C

Michael Maclean demonstrates how a 2100% performance gain can be achieved when rendering a Mandelbrot fractal using Recki-CT, a PHP compiler written in PHP.

Recently, Anthony Ferrara (known throughout the Internet and beyond as @ircmaxell) and Joe Watkins (similarly well-known as @krakjoe) have been working on a new set of toys for solving this problem while staying on the “standard” PHP runtime. Recki-CT is a set of tools that implement a PHP compiler, in PHP. While this might you think of things like PyPy, which implements a Python virtual machine in Python, this is not Recki’s goal – it doesn’t provide a VM, so it can’t run PHP by itself. However, it can parse PHP code and generate other code from it.
http://mgdm.net/weblog/php-at-the-speed-of-c/

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Run tasks locally with Envoy

Envoy is an easy to use task runner created by master artisan Taylor Otwell. It offers a simple blade-like syntax to create tasks. If you're not familiar with it, you can watch this free Laracasts-video. Chris Fidao recently showed, in his excellent Servers For Hackers newsletter, how you can create a light version of Capistrano with Envoy.

Up until a few hours ago a task could only run via ssh. But now that this pull request has been merged, you can also use envoy to locally run commands.

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Using StackPHP middleware in Laravel 5

Middleware is a series of wrappers around your application that decorate the request and the response. By wrapping the app in decorators you can add new behavious from the outside. This image explains the idea more visually:

[caption id="attachment_475" align="alignnone" width="726"]onion source: StackPHP.com[/caption]

 

The concept isn't new, solutions already exists for many languages (eg. Ruby, Python, Node, ...)

The PHP equivalent is StackPHP. Here's an excellent post by Richard Bagshaw explaining it. There are a lot of StackPHP style middlewares available that you can use in your applications.

Laravel 5 uses middleware for putting an application in maintenance mode, CSRF protection, authentication and more. Unfortunately Laravel 5 middleware isn't compatible with StackPHP-style middleware. Barry vd. Heuvel created at package to convert StackPHP middleware to Laravel 5 middleware and explained the inner workings on his blog.

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Add a command to dump your database in Laravel 5 original

by Freek Van der Herten – 1 minute read

This Laravel 5 package provides an artisan command to dump your database to a file. When installed you can dump your database with this command [code]php artisan db:backup``` A file containing the dump of your database will be created in the directory you specified in the config-file. I plan on…

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Building Gistlog

Matt Stauffer shows how he built Gistlog in under two hours.

Gistlog is a blogging "platform" for people who want to quickly write and publish content, in Markdown, and don't want to bother with yet another platform and yet another login and yet another group hoarding their content. With Gistlog, you use your pre-existing Github login, you store the data in your own Github account, and you can publish with a single click.
A must see if you want to know how to get things done quickly in Laravel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4BbeHYCR1E

Also make sure you check out his blogposts on the new features of Laravel 5.

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Some Laravel 5 compatible packages

Recently some of the Laravel-packages I built at Spatie were updated for Laravel 5.

spatie/laravel-glide This package enables you to generate image manipulations on the fly and generate URL's to those images. These URL's will be signed so only you will be able to specify which manipulations should be generated. Every manipulation will be cached. Under the hood, Glide is being used.

spatie/searchindex This is an opinionated package to store and retrieve objects from Elasticsearch. It was tailormade for a project I was working on and only provides the functionality that I needed. If you need full control over elasticsearch via PHP, take a look at the official low-level client.

spatie/googlesearch This package can fetch results from a Google Custom Search Engine. It returns an array with searchresults.

eloquent-sortable This package provides a trait that adds sortable behaviour to an Eloquent model. The value of the ordercolumn of a new record of a model is determined by the maximum value of the ordercolumn of all records of that model + 1.

 

A big thank you goes out to Matthias De Winter, who is helping me update these packages.

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