Weekly help thread

Hey there!

This subreddit isn't meant for help threads, though there's one exception to the rule: in this thread you can ask anything you want PHP related, someone will probably be able to help you out!

https://redd.it/1pn12c6
@r_php

Static And Not Static Method At The Same Time
https://php-tips.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tips/static_and_not_static.html

https://redd.it/1pn46db
@r_php

Curious: How does your team test feature branches before merging to dev/staging?

I'm working on a Laravel project with a separate React frontend and we've been struggling with how to let the team (and clients) test features before they hit staging.

Right now we either deploy to a shared staging server (messy, conflicts) or run everything locally to demo (painful for non-technical stakeholders).

Curious how other teams handle this:

* Do you spin up environments per branch/PR?
* If yes, what's your setup? (Docker, k8s, some service?)
* If no, what do you do instead?

Especially interested if you're dealing with microservices or separate frontend/backend repos.

https://redd.it/1pn5bjj
@r_php

I built a Laravel installer because shared hosting setup is still painfu

Laravel is great, but the first 30 minutes still suck — especially on shared hosting.



.env issues, DB config errors, missing extensions, wrong permissions…

I kept seeing the same problems again and again.



So I built an open-source Laravel installer that:

\- checks server requirements

\- validates DB credentials

\- guides setup through a simple installer UI

\- works without assuming full CLI access



It’s still early and I’m looking for real feedback more than stars.



Repo: https://github.com/ajithjojo/getecz-laravel-installer



What would you change or add?

https://redd.it/1pnf6hx
@r_php

Socialite - Effortless Social Authentication
https://youtu.be/JKOJpUi1gD0

https://redd.it/1pnj4ij
@r_php

Career Changer Strategy: Focusing on Backend/Logic & using AI for UI/Design. Is this a future-proof path for freelancing?

Hi everyone,

I am currently a career changer ("Umschüler" in Germany) doing my internship at an E-Commerce agency. I'm building my roadmap for a future mix of part-time employment and freelancing.

I realized I love the logical side of things (Databases, Backend, Docker, JS-Functionality) but I hate "pixel-pushing" and trying to pick the perfect colors
.
My Plan:
The Stack: HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, MySQL, Docker. (I plan to learn React/Frameworks later, but want to master the basics first).

The Workflow: I use AI to handle the "Design" part (CSS, Layouts, UI components). I understand the generated code (Grid, Flexbox, Responsive), so I can debug it, but I don't want to study design theory.

The Product: I want to move away from "Brochure Websites" (high competition, low pay) and focus on building Web Apps, PWAs, and B2B Tools for small/mid-sized businesses. I feel like solving actual business problems (saving time/money) pays better than just "looking good".

My Questions for you:
Is this a solid Freelance strategy? Can I market myself as a Fullstack Dev if I rely on AI for the visual heavy lifting, while I ensure the Logic/Security/Backend is rock solid?
PHP vs Node: In the German market, I see a lot of demand for PHP (Shopware, custom tools) in the SMB sector. Is sticking with PHP + Docker a safe bet for stable income, or is the pressure to switch to Node.js unavoidable?

Future Proofing: Do you agree that "Logic/Problem Solving" is harder to replace by AI than "CSS/Design", making this path safer long-term?

Thanks for your honest feedback!

https://redd.it/1pnuudg
@r_php

Honest opinion about devpdf
http://devpdf.in

https://redd.it/1pnusqe
@r_php

New PostgreSQL Client/Parser/QueryBuilder library

Hey everyone!
I would like to share our recent addition to Flow PHP framework, a brand new PostgreSQL library based on ext-pgsql and pganalyze/libpg_query

Doctrine DBAL is awesome! But since it's database engine agnostic, it's missing some nice features like for example, query builder is not covering all db specific features like CTE.

This makes us to either keep SQL queries as plain strings, or make some tradeoffs while using Query Builder, flow-php/postgresql covers this gap providing probably the most advanced query builder in PHP.
Our fluent interfaces are going to guide you (with support from your IDE) through building queries.

But it's not all, thanks to libpg_query we were able to create a postgresql parser that covers 100% of syntax since it's literally extracted from the server code 🤯 (full support up to PostgreSQL 17)

Why do we need a parser?

\- query analysis (security but also static analysis)
\- we can programmatically access/modify queries - like for example add advanced pagination

And if non of this sounds appealing, thanks to parser and deparser flow-php/postgresql comes also with query formatter - just like php-cs-fixer or mago formatter but for sql queries!

On top of that we also created Client interface with a default implementation based on ext-pgsql that comes with a support for Row Mappers (an interface). Our plan is to provide bridges for libraries like cuyz/valinor or crell/serde that will let us make queries results strictly typed through:

$client->fetchInto(User::class, "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $2, [10001\]);

You can find library documentation here: https://flow-php.com/documentation/components/libs/postgresql/

It's still early development, not battle tested yet, feedback/bug reports/ideas are greatly appreciated and welcome 😊

https://redd.it/1po87go
@r_php

Scout - Full-text search for Laravel
https://youtu.be/2s5E7tj1YVc

https://redd.it/1podgcf
@r_php

Built a small Laravel health check package🚀 – feedback welcome
https://redd.it/1poesst
@r_php

WSL2 development environment for PHP projects with little to no fuss

PHP is great, but setting up a truly functional development environment is a pain. There are so many moving parts I sometimes feel I'm wasting more time on the environment than on coding.

I remember using XAMPP back in the day - when it was still the go-to solution. Somebody should tell them that PHP 8.3 was released. And PHP 8.4. Even 8.5. Get with the program...

So I started reading about a WSL development environment which seems to hit the right marks:

An environment that matches the production one closely. This prevents surprises when I release my code.
Full freedom to set up what I need, when I need it. Sometimes too much freedom.
A virtual machine sandbox that is separate from my main system. I don't have to worry about stuff escaping the virtual machine and deleting my games... I mean my totally-legit, work-related stuff.
I can pick my preferred Linux distribution, which makes it a breeze to change versions for each component. No more uninstalls and reinstalls every time I'm switching projects.

But that freedom thing I mentioned above is the one that worries me. A WSL recipe with Ansible provides the fix. It sets everything up: PHP, Apache, MariaDB, Git, Composer, PhpMyAdmin. Then I can start coding, maybe add some vhosts along the way.

The big part of the setup is covered in this article.

What do you guys use for your development envoronments?

https://redd.it/1povij7
@r_php

How we lit up 1200 screens in real time at SymfonyCon
https://symfony.com/blog/how-we-lit-up-1200-screens-in-real-time-at-symfonycon?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1pox1th
@r_php

Free Source Code: part 1
https://youtu.be/4EuaQrDcSFk?si=CffI-ztoW9OfKSgv

https://redd.it/1pp1nu0
@r_php

My Message to Laravel TEAM

Concern About Laravel’s Direction & Request for Stable, Bootstrap-Friendly Alternatives

My Message to Laravel TEAM

I’ve been a passionate Laravel developer for nearly a decade. Laravel’s early alignment with Bootstrap via laravel/ui played a huge role in my adoption—and advocacy—of the framework. Over the years, I’ve shipped numerous projects and actively recommended Laravel to peers and teams.

However, with recent shifts—especially the strong push toward Tailwind CSS, Inertia, Livewire, and ecosystem monetization (e.g., Forge, Vapor, paid packages)—I’m finding it increasingly difficult to stay aligned with Laravel’s direction.

As someone who values simplicity, stability, and proven stacks (PHP + Blade + Bootstrap), I feel the framework is drifting away from developers like me—the ones who helped grow Laravel organically in its early years—toward a more opinionated, JavaScript-heavy, and commercialized approach.

The deprecation of laravel/ui and the focus on Breeze/Breeze + Inertia have made starting new projects with my preferred stack unnecessarily complex. Laravel 12, in particular, feels like a departure from the philosophy and ergonomics I fell in love with in Laravel 5–11.

I’m now seriously considering alternatives:

CodeIgniter 4 is tempting (I loved v3), but I’m unsure if its ecosystem is mature enough for larger applications today.
Are there other stable, well-documented PHP frameworks that prioritize convention over configuration, support clean MVC, and make it easy to use Blade (or plain PHP) with Bootstrap—without forcing frontend tooling or paid add-ons?

I’m not resistant to change—but I am resistant to churn without clear, inclusive justification. Laravel used to excel at balancing innovation with stability. I hope it finds that balance again.

Thank you for listening.

https://redd.it/1pp0y1n
@r_php

Inertia best practice

I’m mainly backend dev and worked for years with frontend/backend communicating through an API layer.

Now I have an Inertia project where I often feel like that I’m working against the framework. I have some concerns where I want to know what the best practice way of handling such scenarios is.

1. Dealing with large Datasets

I have multiple pages where I have a lot of data that gets transmitted to Frontend. The docs don’t give much info about this but what’s the best way of dealing with this. Especially on subsequent data reloads (ie after form submission or router.reload). I know I can provide the ‘only’ parameter but that still has to run the controller function and thus, all the other code not necessarily required for that few requested parameters. The only current solution I see would be a closure. But this doesn’t feel very “finished” as it forces a lot of duplicate code and overall makes the code look ugly.

2. Dynamic requests

Let’s say there is some button that the user can interact with that triggers something beyond CRUD. Currently in the codebase these are done with plain axios requests. But those completely ignore the Inertia ecosystem. I feel like that’s kind of the wrong approach of doing it. The controllers on the backend side are therefore mixed with inertia and json responses.

3. Error handling

This is currently all over the place. Inertia has a beautiful way of displaying errors. Because dynamic requests aren’t within the ecosystem, it doesn’t apply to those requests. I have my own complete approach of correcting this but I wanted to hear if there is maybe already a best-practice way of doing this. This is also a general Laravel concern. Coming from Spring, everything error related is done through exceptions. Does that fit for Laravel too?

https://redd.it/1pp412t
@r_php

New SymfonyCasts Course: Bundle Development
https://symfony.com/blog/new-symfonycasts-course-bundle-development?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1pp4oxb
@r_php

Simulating Сoncurrent Requests: How We Achieved High-Performance HTTP in PHP Without Threads
https://medium.com/manychat-engineering/simulating-%D1%81oncurrent-requests-how-we-achieved-high-performance-http-in-php-without-threads-c3a94bae6c3b

https://redd.it/1ppnwtf
@r_php

Claude Code plugin Symfony ! Superpowers

🚀 New Claude Code Plugin: superpowers-symfony 🚀

Hey everyone! I just published a new Claude Code plugin for Symfony developers: superpowers-symfony — a plugin that brings Symfony-specific guidance, skills, and workflows straight into Claude! GitHub

📦 Features include:
✔️ TDD workflows using Pest or PHPUnit
✔️ Doctrine ORM mastery (relations, migrations, fixtures)
✔️ API Platform patterns & DTO guidance
✔️ Symfony Messenger async support
✔️ Security best practices & voters
✔️ Architecture patterns (hexagonal, DI, CQRS)
✔️ Quality tooling (PHP-CS-Fixer, PHPStan, etc.)
✔️ Docker + Symfony support (FrankenPHP & standard compose) GitHub

💡 What it does:
This plugin adds a collection of expert-level skills that Claude can use to help with common Symfony tasks — from writing tests to building APIs and structuring apps.

Give it a try and let me know what you think! 🙌



https://redd.it/1pppbiz
@r_php

20 Years of Symfony in Code Stats
https://symfony.com/blog/20-years-of-symfony-in-code-stats?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1pprbsj
@r_php

How realistic is it to freelance part-time as an aspiring software developer?

Hi everyone,
I’m an aspiring software developer (currently training as a Fachinformatiker Application Development) and I’m thinking about doing small freelance jobs on the side (just a few hours per week). How realistic are my chances with my current skill level, and what would be good first steps to get real clients?

What I can currently do / offer (small, clearly scoped tasks):

Plain PHP + MySQL: bug fixes, small features, CRUD, forms, validation

SQL: fixing/optimizing queries, simple database structures

Basic JavaScript: small fixes (events, buttons, form logic)


I’ve already created profiles on a few platforms like Fiverr or Malt. I’m not sure whether linking profiles is allowed here, so I’ll only share them if explicitly requested.

https://redd.it/1ppq0xk
@r_php

Laravel Reverb - Real-time communication built-in
https://youtu.be/Sfy1cpaEPaw

https://redd.it/1ppxlb9
@r_php