Brent — Curator of Stitcher’s Community Feed, a community-driven, hand-curated content aggregator highlighting thoughtful, high-quality writing from across the web. The feed focuses on software engineering, open source, web development, infrastructure, and the human side of building technology. Readers can browse recent picks, follow via RSS, or contribute their own suggestions.
250 articles from this blog
A programmer shares his method for providing realistic project estimates by multiplying optimistic timelines and using ranges to account for unforeseen changes.
A developer's overview of impactful new features in PHP 8.1, including enums, array unpacking, and readonly properties.
Explores the benefits of an event-driven architecture over linear code when building a gamification system for a tech platform.
Explains the limitation of cloning readonly properties in PHP 8.1 and introduces a package to work around it using a `with()` method.
A proposal for using typed request classes in Laravel to combine validation and data representation, eliminating the need for separate DTOs.
Analysis of PHP version usage statistics from July 2021, showing adoption trends and a discussion on upgrading to PHP 8.
Argues for opinionated software design over excessive configurability, based on experience with an in-house framework.
A developer explores creating config builders for PHP frameworks like Laravel, discussing configuration file annoyances and potential solutions.
Announcing Laravel Event Sourcing v5, a major release featuring consistent event handling, event queries, and aggregate partials.
Explores the proposed RFC for multi-line short closures in PHP 8.1, detailing their syntax, benefits, and addressing common counter-arguments.
Explores existing PHP parallel processing solutions (AmpPHP, ReactPHP, Guzzle) and introduces a simpler, custom approach for running functions concurrently.
A review of PHP's evolution in 2021, covering PHP 8 features, upcoming 8.1 additions like enums, and community trends.
Explains PHP 8.1 fibers for async programming, their conceptual use, and why they're a low-level tool not meant for direct application code.
Explores event sourcing as a pattern for software development, challenging the notion it's only for large-scale projects and discussing its core concepts.
A developer's perspective on Event Sourcing as a paradigm shift from traditional MVC/CRUD, based on a guest post for Event Store.
A developer recounts a critical security bug in a custom-built framework, arguing against writing your own framework for client projects.
An in-depth look at the new Enums feature in PHP 8.1, covering syntax, methods, interfaces, and backed enums.
Explores userland enum implementations in PHP before native support arrived in PHP 8.1, discussing the myclabs/php-enum package and its limitations.
A response to criticisms of PHP 8's breaking changes, arguing they are necessary for progress and offering advice for a smooth upgrade.
A developer's personal wishlist for improving PHP's design, focusing on stricter defaults like final classes and required type declarations.
