Commented 09.09.2026 13:48
PHP to get the job done in 2026
PHP has always been about getting the job done - and in the web 1.0 and 2.0 era, nothing did it better. But in 2026, with AI coding spreading like wildfire, the things PHP was great at (fast feedback, no compile step, the simplicity of LAMP) no longer set it worlds apart. As a PHP superfan I am constantly thinking about: how does PHP stay the tool of choice? Here's my take.
Commented 07.08.2026 22:24
sbx: Sandboxed Claude, complete with PHP and tools
In this post, I explain how to use sbx to get a sandboxed version of Claude Code running, including your choice of PHP version and additional tools that you need for your development work. I find sandboxing AI coding agents to be the only sensible thing to avoid these security risks.
Commented 29.03.2024 20:45
tempest/highlight with Twig and Symfony
Brendt just released tempest/highlight for server-side code highlighting and this post covers my journey integrating it into a Symfony + Twig stack
through the "markdown_to_html" filter with League/Commonmark integration.
Commented 16.03.2024 22:29
A Stimulus Controller for the Bulma Navbar Component
Recently I migrated this blog away from Tailwind to Bulma CSS framework, which uses a more semantical approach to CSS classes. In this post I show my implementation of a Stimulus controller for the Bulma Navbar component, to integrate with this blog use of Symfony UX and Stimulus Bridge.
Commented 10.03.2024 15:21
Another article on the downsides of Tailwind CSS
Tailwind vs. Semantic CSS
This study compares two websites with similar design: the commercial Spotlight template from developers of Tailwind vs the same site with semantic CSS. [nuejs.org]
Commented 10.03.2024 15:19
This article puts in words some of my feelings towards Tailwind CSS. So far its learning curve did not really work for me in the 3-4 small projects I used it for, and coming back to them with the complex HTML classes demotivated me regularly.
Commented 10.03.2024 15:03
Fix for mixed PHP+Node app build failures on DigitalOcean App Platform
I am using DigitalOcean App platform for a few of my side- and demo-projects and as side projects do, they don't get deployed often. When I wanted to deploy a new version of this blog, the build failed on DigitalOcean App platform during the deploy step with this error: vendor/bin/heroku-php-nginx: No such file or directory
Commented 24.01.2023 10:05
This is a great Composer plugin, providing an API to find all targets of an attribute by hooking into composer autoload generator for zero runtime overhead. This is not something we could add to PHP itself, but in Composer its perfect
github.com/olvlvl/composer-attribute-collector
composer-attribute-collector is a plugin for Composer. Its ambition is to provide a convenient and near zero-cost way to retrieve targets of PHP 8 attributes. In order to do that, after the autoloader has been dumped, the plugin collects attribute targets and generates a static file. Later, these targets can be retrieved through a convenient interface. [github.com]
Commented 18.12.2022 15:32
You can now find me on any mastodon instance by searching for @beberlei@beberlei.de and get redirected to my @beberlei@phpc.social profile.
Mastodon on your own domain without hosting a server
There is one thing I would like my own server for: discoverability. Much like with e-mail, I want folks to have an easy address to find me, and one that I can keep giving out to everyone even if later I switch to a different Mastodon server. A bit like e-mail forwarding to your ISP’s e-mail service.
The good news is: you can use your own domain and share it with other folks. It will link to your actual account. [blog.maartenballiauw.be]
Commented 11.12.2022 10:43
Interesting article from Paul on a more pragmatic approach towards web application structure and architecture. I was deeply into commands for a while (this blog offers enough evidence), but a more pragmatic approach can bring huge simplifications.
Contra Noback on Application services
Matthias Noback's Advanced Web Application Architecture (AWAA from here on) is excellent throughout. ...
Having read through the book, I paid special attention to the sections on Application Services. The pattern is a good one, and you should use it, but I find I must offer an alternative approach to the AWAA treatment of the pattern. [paul-m-jones.com]
Commented 03.12.2022 18:34
This is often a problem when we want to help customers @Tideways that are using slim docker images. They have a problem with the installation or configuration, but exactly 0 way of debugging it.
Docker: How To Debug Distroless And Slim Containers
Slim containers are faster (less stuff to move around) and more secure (fewer places for vulnerabilities to sneak in). However, these benefits of slim containers come at a price - such containers lack (the much-needed at times) exploration and debugging tools. [iximiuz.com]
Commented 25.11.2022 20:36
Happy birthday PHP Foundation! @pronskiy summarizes the last year in our first transparency and impact report
The PHP Foundation: Impact and Transparency Report 2022
At the end of 2022, The PHP Foundation is a collective of 10 volunteer administrators and 6 part-time paid developers who make nearly half of the commits to PHP language core and extensions. [thephp.foundation]
Commented 18.11.2022 09:36
@greg0ire posted this article on migrating from Annotations to Attributes over at the Doctrine blog
From annotations to attributes
Last month, we migrated the tests of the ORM from annotations to attributes. Let us look back on what lead to this moment. [www.doctrine-project.org]
Commented 11.03.2021 21:53
Running Shopware Platform tests on a Linux Dev-Machine
Participating in the Shopware Boost Day #4 today I tried the most simple approach
to get it running on a Linux developer machine, avoiding the Docker setup.
Commented 26.02.2021 21:53
Free Software, Not Free Support: My Reply Template
Over the last weeks I have seen a few people tweet or write about the burden of
open-source maintainership or being a public person in a programming community.
Commented 19.02.2021 21:53
When to use empty in PHP? I'd say never
This article contains a list of alternatives to use instead of empty expression.
Commented 05.07.2020 21:53
What to look out for testing PHP8 JIT
PHP 8 is coming with a Just In Time Compiler (JIT) and people are starting to
test it in more detail.
Commented 25.02.2020 21:53
Commented 09.02.2020 21:53
Firegento Hackathon Mainz 2020
This weekend I attended the the Firegento Hackathon at Netz98 offices in Mainz. This post is a short summary of the work I did this weekend.
Commented 20.08.2019 21:53