MySQL’s JSON column type has been around since version 5.7, but it’s one of those features where the gap between “I know it exists” and “I know when and how to use it well” is surprisingly wide. Used correctly, JSON columns give you schema flexibility exactly where you need it. Used poorly, they become a […]

If you’ve been hearing about Claude Code but assumed it’s mostly for the JavaScript and Python crowd, it’s time to take another look. Claude Code is a command-line AI coding tool that works directly in your terminal, and it’s remarkably effective for PHP development. Whether you’re building with Laravel, Symfony, or vanilla PHP, there are […]

I have been using Asterisk for many, many years. Today I release some new code, and upon code release we automatically update Asterisk to the latest version. All of a sudden, I started getting reports from customer service letting me know that recording voice mails was no longer working. I started looking into it and […]

If you’ve ever watched a colleague fly through code in NeoVim and thought “that looks fast but I’d never figure out the config,” the barrier to entry has dropped significantly. LazyVim — a NeoVim distribution that ships with sensible defaults and a plugin manager — gives you a fully functional IDE experience within minutes, with […]

PHP 8.5 shipped with a feature that functional programming enthusiasts have been requesting for years: the pipe operator (|>). If you’ve used pipes in Unix shells, Elixir, F#, or even JavaScript proposals, the concept will feel immediately familiar. If you haven’t, you’re about to discover one of the cleanest ways to express data transformations in […]

Video version at: https://youtu.be/gAVfQhPw8Do A few weeks ago, I posted something on LinkedIn that ruffled some feathers. Here’s what I said: “Defaulting to the ORM for everything isn’t a best practice. It’s just the path of least resistance.” The replies came in fast, and a good chunk of them said the same thing: “That’s unsafe! […]

Video version: https://youtu.be/5n2VZS_YPv0 Let’s say you’re working on a feature branch called add-discount-codes. You’ve been at it for a couple of days, and you’ve got five commits with all of your work done. A team member mentions that git rebase can make sure you have the most recent changes from the “main” branch. So you […]

Video version at: https://youtu.be/R_-NG_frTiw Last month, two developers on a team I was working with both merged their branches to main within minutes of each other. The first merge was fine but the the second introduced a conflict in a shared service class that nobody caught until the CI pipeline deployed a broken build to […]