Improving the output of PHPUnit
Let's have a little fun! Yitzchok Willroth, better know as Coderabbi, created a new package that can improve the output of PHPUnit.
Here's what the output of a testrun looks like with his package installed.
Typehint all the things
David Négrier, CTO of the CodingMachine, wrote a nice article on why he likes and how his team uses typehints.
As a developer consuming thisfunction, I know how to use it. And if I’m using it wrong, I’ll know right away because PHP will crash with a nice error message when the function is called rather than with a cryptic error some time later.
https://www.thecodingmachine.com/type-hint-all-the-things/
Personally I like typehints too, because the potential readability improvement the article touches upon.
Note: (I only include this paragraph because it's mentioned in the intro of the article, don't want to stir up a discussion) the fuzz about that "Visual Debt" video was overblown. Even though I didn't agree with all of it, it was nice to hear Jeffrey's way of thinking.
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Easily optimize images using PHP (and some binaries) original
Our recently released image-optimizer package can shave off some kilobyes of PNGs, JPGs, SVGs and GIFs by running them through a chain of various image optimization tools. In this blog post I'll tell you all about it. First, here's a quick example on how you can use it: use…
A list of podcasts original
On his blog Left On The Web, Stefan Koopmanschap lists the podcasts he's listening to. His selection contains both tech and non-tech podcasts.
Easily convert webpages to images using PHP original
Browsershot is a package that can easily convert any webpage into a image. Under the hood the conversion is made possible new headless options in Chrome 59. In this post I'd like to show you how you can use Browsershot v2. Here's a quick example of how it can be used:…
Eager load the related models of a collection
Like this simple new addition coming in Laravel 5.4.28, it's handy for when you need to eager-load related models of a collection on the go. pic.twitter.com/0W3hqG97BR
— Mohamed Said (@themsaid) June 21, 2017
Read more [twitter.com]
Insights into Laravel package design
On the Bugsnag blog, Graham Campbell, wrote a guest post on the basics of creating a Laravel package. If you've ever wanted to create a package, this is a good starting point.
Laravel is a massively influential PHP framework, and its simple but powerful design means that it’s easy to utilize packages in your application. In this blog post we will look at the basics of creating and installing Laravel packages.
Using non-breakable spaces in test method names
Mattieu Napoli shows how you can use non breaking spaces to make long test function names more readable.
Yes. This article is about using non-breakable spaces to name tests. And the fact that it’s awesome. And why you should use them too.public function test a user can add a product to a wishlist() { // ... }
The code above is valid PHP code and works. Non-breaking spaces (aka in HTML) look like spaces in editors but are actually interpreted like any other character by PHP.
http://mnapoli.fr/using-non-breakable-spaces-in-test-method-names/
It's cool that it works, but I'm not really a fan of this. I very much prefer how test runners like jest go about this by passing the name of the test to a function so you can use spaces.
Comparing model collections
Cool little Laravel 5.5 Eloquent Collection macro to assert two model collections are the same ?? pic.twitter.com/zzbkr1fL9T
— Adam Wathan (@adamwathan) June 14, 2017
Read more [twitter.com]
What is snapshot testing, and is it viable in PHP?
In a new blogpost at Sitepoint Christopher Pitt talks about snapshot testing. He first explains how snapshot testing can help test React components. Then he demonstrates how you can use our home grown package to use snapshot testing in PHP. Finally he shows pretty cool use cases for snapshot tests.
Ah-ha moments are beautiful and rare in programming. Every so often, we’re fortunate enough to discover some trick or facet of a system that forever changes how we think of it.For me, that’s what snapshot testing is.
You probably write a lot of PHP code, but today I want to talk about something I learned in JavaScript. We’ll learn about what snapshot testing is and then see how it can help us write better PHP applications.
https://www.sitepoint.com/snapshot-testing-viable-php/
If you want know more about snapshot testing, check out this blogpost by my colleague Sebastian, or watch this video where I refactor some tests to use snapshots.
Using request()->query()
On Twitter I see a bunch of people regularly tweeting very nice code snippets. Instead of only retweeting those, I'm going to add them to my blog. I'll tag them with tweet.
Here's the first one:
request()->query() is a life saver when dealing with tables that store "sorts" and "filters" in a query string. pic.twitter.com/84P6xvTvSz
— Caleb Porzio (@calebporzio) June 21, 2017
Read more [twitter.com]
How to build screens for users, permissions and roles in a Laravel app
One of our more popular packages is laravel-permission. It enables you to easily save roles and permissions in the database. It hooks into Laravel's native authorization capabilities. Allthough it's quite powerful, the package doesn't come with any UI out of the box.
If you do need a UI for this in your projects you're in luck. On Scotch.io Caleb Oki wrote down an extensive tutorial on how you can build screens to manage users, permissions and roles that use our package.
When building an application, we often need to set up an access control list (ACL). An ACL specifies the level of permission granted to a user of an application. For example a user John may have the permission to read and write to a resource while another user Smith may have the permission only to read the resource.In this tutorial, I will teach you how to add access control to a Laravel app using laravel-permission package. For this tutorial we will build a simple blog application where users can be assigned different levels of permission.
https://scotch.io/tutorials/user-authorization-in-laravel-54-with-spatie-laravel-permission
Make your app fly with PHP OPcache
Recently this button to optimize PHP's OPcache was added to Laravel Forge.
If you were wondering what PHP OPcache is all about and what pressing this button does with your application, read this article Olav van Schie wrote on the subject a while ago.
Every time you execute a PHP script, the script needs to be compiled to byte code. OPcache leverages a cache for this bytecode, so the next time the same script is requested, it doesn’t have to recompile it. This can save some precious execution time, and thus make your app faster (and maybe save some server costs).
https://medium.com/appstract/make-your-laravel-app-fly-with-php-opcache-9948db2a5f93
What the hell are generics and why would I want them in PHP?
Frederick Vanbrabant, developer at madewithlove and co-organiser of PHP Antwerp, explains on his blog what generics are.
So everyone is talking about this hip “new” kid on the block for PHP: Generics. The rfc is on the table and a lot of people are getting all excited about it, but you don’t fully see the excitement? Let’s explore what it’s all about!
http://frederickvanbrabant.com/2017/05/31/generics-in-php.html
Bootable Model Traits
On the Tighten co blog Caleb Porzio wrote a small post on how you can boot your model traits. It's a very handy feature that's being used a quite a few Spatie packages.
TL;DR Use bootNameOfTrait() instead of boot() in a model trait to avoid being overwritten by the base model’s boot() method.
Diving Laravel
Mohammed Said, Laravel employee number #1, recently announced that he published a new site where he shares stuff he learned while researching the Laravel code base. The site is called "Diving Laravel", which is kinda nice knowing that Mohammed is an incredible diver himself.
In this website I’m going to share notes on the internals of Laravel core, packages, as well as the technologies behind the different components. My goal is to help people understand how things work under the hood and also to be a reminder for me for when I need to look into something that I’ve already studied before.
How to Scan Fingerprints with Async PHP and React Native
In an amazing article on SitePoint, Christopher Pitt demonstrates how to create an async PHP server that can requests a fingerprint scan on the client side. He uses React Native, WebSocket, an async PHP server, PHP preprocessing, ... Really amazing stuff.
I’m going to describe the process of building custom multi-factor authentication for all transactions. I don’t want to do the usual (and boring on its own) SMS or push notification one-time-password stuff. I want to build a fingerprint scanner right into my phone.In this tutorial, we’re going to look at how to set up a simple iOS app using React Native. We will also set up an asynchronous HTTP server, with a web socket connection to the app.
We will follow this up by adding fingerprint scanning capabilities to the app, and asking for these fingerprint scans from the HTTP server. Then we will build an endpoint through which GET requests can request a fingerprint scan and wait for one to occur.
https://www.sitepoint.com/scan-fingerprints-async-php-react-native/
Taylor Otwell on Laravel and Symfony
In a recent interview published on the Cloudways blog Taylor Otwell shares his thoughts on the similarities differences between Laravel and Symfony.
Both Laravel and Symfony are more rapid than building an entire PHP application from scratch. So, in that sense, they both allow rapid application development. However, Laravel does make strong efforts to have a very clean and productive working environment for building applications of all sizes. I think Symfony has also made efforts in this direction over the last few years with their “DX” initiatives and some of the more opinionated things they are doing with Symfony Flex.
PHP Generics and why we need them
On the stitcher.io blog a new post appeared that explains the benefits of generics with a practical example. Generics aren't supported in PHP, but there is an RFC.
In today's blog post we'll explore some common problems with arrays in PHP. All the problems and issues listed could be solved with a pending RFC which adds generics to PHP. We won't explore in too much detail what generics are. But at the end of this read you should have a good idea as to why they are useful, and why we really want them in PHP. So without further ado, lets dive into the subject.
https://www.stitcher.io/blog/php-generics-and-why-we-need-them
Elegant form handling in Laravel
Michael Dyrynda, co-host of both the excellent North Meets South podcast and Laravel News podcast, wrote a short article on how he pragmatically manages forms in a Laravel app.
I personally feel that I'm not gaining anything by bringing in another package just to handle generating HTML on my behalf when it's just as fast to use the tools available to me in my editor. It also means there's no implied knowledge of a now non-standard external package, should a new developer be brought on to the projects that I've worked on. HTML is HTML, after all.
https://dyrynda.com.au/blog/elegant-form-handling-in-laravel
