2021 Meetups

JWTs What PHP Devs Need To Know

January 14th, 2021

What is a JSON Web Token (JWT) and why do you care? JWTs are a stateless, standardized way to represent user data. This talk will discuss why JWTs matter and the nuts and bolts of JWTs. We'll also discuss how you might use a JWT in your web application and how to avoid certain common mistakes.

Never* Use Arrays

February 11th, 2021

PHP loves its arrays. Arrays are the uber-data structure. They’re a list, a map, a stack, a queue, everything in one! Which is the problem. Modern PHP grossly over-uses arrays. In most cases there are better options today, and when you find yourself reaching for “oh I’ll just make this an associative array”, stop. An extra 60 seconds of thought and code will often give you a more readable, faster, more memory-efficient, more flexible alternative. Classes, iterables, and collections can and shou …

Unicode and how to avoid trouble

March 11th, 2021

In this talk, I'll be documenting the trials and tribulations I've experienced when working with Unicode; from encoding, to normalization, and the not-so-obvious differences between alphabets. I'll take you on the usual Product/Engineering journey where requirements can change, bugs are discovered where you least expect them, and your knowledge of Unicode needs to be as flexible as your Product Manager's priorities. You think 'Gemüse' === 'Gemüse'? You might be wrong! Attendees will walk away w …

Bye Bye FPM 😓 Hello Unit!

April 8th, 2021

NGINX Unit replaced PHP-FPM! Nginx Unit replaced the php fpm and brings an dynamically restful configurable implementation of an process manager for the PHP SAPI. With NGINX Unit we will have Full control over the Network as well as the Application Stack. Join us to learn more about how I moved my workload to NGINX Unit and why I would do it anytime again!

Static Analysis with PHPStan

May 13th, 2021

PHPStan is an excellent open-source static analysis tool. It's easy to add to your build and catches lots of bugs without writing a line of test code. This makes it especially useful for maintaining stability in older codebases which don't always have extensive test suites. I'll show you how to configure and run it, as well as some examples of subtle mistakes it will catch.

Using the Agile Methodology to Run My Life

June 10th, 2021

Interested in learning more about Agile? Me too! I am here to tell you that Agile can be applied to your life outside of software. Don't worry, there is a method to these processes or routines we are doing on a regular basis. Let's learn about how we can get better at these systems and turn them into more productive practices. Irene is here to teach you all things Agile.

Code Interfaces, Patents, and Copyrights

July 8th, 2021

In a landmark decision that marked the end of a ten year saga, the Supreme Court ruled that APIs are not copyrightable. In this talk, we'll take a look at the claims from copyright to patent infringement, review the history of decisions, and look into the key statements behind the Supreme Court ruling. We'll discuss what this likely means for the future of code interfaces and what it means for interoperability. Note - this is not legal advice.

We brought OpenAPI Docs into our service catalog. Now what?

August 12th, 2021

With a large, globally distributed engineering department of over 2,000 engineers, service discoverability and access to API documentation are important problems at Wayfair. Integrations between systems require close coordination and overhead, making these kinds of projects expensive and brittle. To address this problem, we sought to surface OpenAPI documentation in our Backstage Service Catalog. We will discuss how over 175 API specifications are shared amongst teams at Wayfair. Our solution l …

Get Lando and Get Stuff Done

September 9th, 2021

How we develop software has come a long way since I started working with PHP 4.0. Today with tools like Docker, we can put each project in a container and isolate it from all other projects. The promise of Docker though has been difficult to deliver on. Crafting the proper config files and making sure all the pieces work together and talk together can be a daunting task, especially for a developer that just wants to get something done. Enter Lando. Lando is an abstraction layer on top of Docker …

Living With Open Source Responsibility

October 14th, 2021

It is straightforward to open source a piece of code and call it a library. It is effortless to maintain it when you are the only user, but what happens when you reach the first hundred or thousand downloads. Semantic versioning, changelog, stable release, backward compatibility, continuous integration, and code coverage would probably be some of the buzzwords that would pop up into your head. Let's go through the process of being a responsible open-source developer and maintainer.

The Future of Continuous Delivery

November 11th, 2021

It's the year 2021, an exciting time for the tech industry. Globally, software organisations and internet companies are delivering more and more software, at a rate and scale that we've never faced before. This unprecedented demand has created new challenges for us all, which have been hurting our organizations when creating continuous delivery solutions. The great thing about these new challenges is that they've sparked new and amazing innovations in the CI/CD industry. In Paul's talk he wil …

What's New in PHP 8.1

December 9th, 2021

This month, we'll look at what's new, changed, and deprecated in the brand-new PHP 8.1. From larger changes like enums, fibers, readonly properties, and first-class callables, to smaller quality of life improvements like string-unpacked array keys and the array_is_list function, Laravel Austin's (and co-organizer of Longhorn PHP) Hunter Skrasek will guide you through what makes PHP 8.1 worth the upgrade effort.

Participating Groups: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Utah, Vancouver