[Blog] Longhorn PHP 2025

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+title: Longhorn PHP 2025
+---
+
+# Longhorn PHP 2025
+
+Last week, I attended the Longhorn PHP conference in Austin, Texas. I had the
+opportunity to meet with a slew of open source contributors, listen to some
+amazing talks, and even present my own.
+
+The main conference was on Friday and Saturday, with an optional tutorial day
+on Thursday. I opted to attend the tutorial day, and so spent a full three days
+learning from industry experts about PHP and related concepts.
+
+## Thursday
+
+Thursday was a workshop day, and there were plenty of great options to choose
+from. For the first session, I chose to attend
+[Observing PHP for Fun and Profit][tutorial-rust] talking about building
+a PHP extension in Rust to add profiling, and then using the data from the
+profiling to analyze the compilation time for included files.
+
+While the profiling part was interesting, the reason I attended was the focus
+on building the extension in Rust. Most PHP extensions are written in C,
+though I know of at least one (intl) that is written in C++. Having recently
+started to teach myself Rust, I figured that this talk would be a nice
+intersection of coding in Rust and interacting with the C-ABI for PHP, and it
+was.
+
+During the lunch break, in addition to eating I spent some time announcing PHP
+8.5.0RC3, the latest release candidate (as of writing). The next version of
+PHP that I tag and release is expected to be the official general availability
+release of PHP 8.5.0.
+
+After lunch, for the second round of workshops I attended
+[How to Run an Accessibility WCAG Audit: Step-by-Step for Beginners][tutorial-wcag].
+It was fascinating to see how the guidelines for accessibility are actually
+presented, and to learn about common pitfalls for inaccessible websites. One of
+the tools (contrast) for checking accessibility was a Chrome plugin, and I
+decided to install the plugin and check the pages on my site. I found two pages
+with accessibility issues:
+
+* the JavaScript demo from my undergrad thesis ([see here][thesis-interface])
+* my blog post about the syntax highlighting plugin for CommonMark
+([see here][blog-syntax-highlight])
+
+Given that the thesis interface page is meant to represent the version of the
+interface that I submitted as part of my thesis, I am not planning to change
+the styles for that page at the moment. If I ever build on my thesis and reuse
+the code that I wrote, I will be sure to adjust the styles.
+
+On the other hand, for the blog page the solution was easy - just adjust some
+sitewide styles. Which I did,
+[choosing a slightly darker shade of red][commit-contrast].
+
+I plan to investigate adding accessibility checks to my GitHub Actions CI to
+ensure that I don't accidentally slip up.
+
+Also during the tutorial day, I had a chance to meet Scott Keck-Warren, who
+interviewed me a few weeks back for the PHP Architect's Community Corner
+podcast; see that podcast episode [here][podcast-episode].
+
+## Friday
+
+Friday was the first day of the main conference, and it kicked off with a
+keynote, [The Immutable Laws of Software and Life: Code Accordingly][talk-laws].
+The various laws were fascinating, but I was slightly pulled out of the
+experience by the discussion of [Cunningham's Law][wp-cunningham-law], which
+suggests that posting something wrong is the easiest way to get the right answer
+on the internet, because people love to correct others. Last year I had the
+chance to hear Cunningham speak at [a MediaWiki conference][mwcon-spring-2024],
+and heard first-hand from Cunningham that he disputes the attribution of the
+law.
+
+Just as the keynote was starting, I got an email that two of my talks had been
+accepted for [ConFoo Montreal 2026][confoo]; more on that later.
+
+After the keynote, I stuck around in the main ballroom to attend
+[Defining an API Specification: A Step-by-Step Guide][talk-api-spec]. My primary
+experience with API specifications has been interacting with MediaWiki's API
+endpoints, and MediaWiki [exposes a REST API][mw-rest-api] as an alternative to
+its [action API][mw-action-api]. I haven't written any REST endpoints, but now
+I think I understand them a bit better. Who knows, I might add an API endpoint
+for my website, and if I do I'll definitely keep this guide in mind.
+
+For the last talk before lunch, I moved down the hall to attend
+[Better Database Testing with PHPUnit][talk-db-testing]. The library that was
+presented, [`cspray/database-testing`][lib-db-testing], looks fascinating.
+Unfortunately, the database testing that I do is generally in the context of
+MediaWiki, which has its own database testing infrastructure, but if I ever
+write a non-MediaWiki tool that interacts with the database, I'll try to
+remember to use this helpful library for testing.
+
+After lunch, I attended [Love Your Monolith][talk-monolith]. Even before this
+talk, I was a fan of monoliths, but now I better understand the potential risks
+when using microservices - network calls can fail, increased indirection can
+make things confusing, etc.
+
+I then walked next door for [Local development made easy with DDEV][talk-ddev].
+The talk was fascinating, but I am already very used to using Docker for my
+local development, and it is also what I use at work (and for my website) for
+deployments. While it is probably possible to use DDEV for deployments, I am
+comfortable with Docker for the moment.
+
+Before the next round of talks, there was a short "open spaces" period, where
+various groups discussed topics that had been voted on earlier. When topics
+were solicited during lunch, I had put forward an offer: as a PHP core
+developer very familiar with attributes, and as the maintainer of the PHP
+reflection extension, I was open to hearing about feature requests for things
+to work on. That topic received enough interest that it was selected, and I
+got to hear from some other developers (both in person and remotely via Discord)
+regarding features they would like implemented in the reflection extension.
+The list of requests is [on GitHub][issue-reflection-reqs], and should give me
+some projects to work on when I get the itch to write code but don't have any
+specific topics in mind. During the open spaces, I already started diving in to
+work on one of the requests, adding a way for an attribute to get information
+about the target it had been applied to.
+
+Once the open spaces were over, I made my way over to
+[Git as Game Logic: What Video Games Can Teach Us About Version Control][talk-git],
+where I learned a few new tricks about using the git command line. The metaphor
+of git as a video game was amusing, but as someone already familiar with using
+git it wasn't necessary for me to understand the content. The most surprising
+feature that I learned about was [git rerere][git-rerere], where git will
+remember how you resolved a merge conflict and then automatically reapply the
+resolution if the same conflict is encountered again. I'm sure this will come
+in handy.
+
+I then stuck around for [PHP Attributes: Let's get Meta][talk-attributes]. While
+I am familiar with the current ways to use attributes and their implementation,
+I did not know much about the history of how they were added to the language.
+I also enjoyed the discussion of the
+[Crell/AttributeUtils package][lib-attribs], and expect to look through that
+userland library for ideas of things to have built-in to PHP.
+
+## Saturday
+
+Saturday kicked off with another keynote,
+[Turtles all the way down][talk-turtles]. When I first saw the name of the talk,
+I was reminded of [a Reddit post][reddit-turtles] about having excessive levels
+of inheritance. But, it didn't seem like that was going to be the focus of the
+talk until the third part, when the origin of the "Turtles all the way down"
+saying was discussed. While the history was fascinating, and the talk was great
+overall, I found the creation of an HTTP request handler directly in C to be
+the most interesting part, and plan to try and experiment with something like
+that myself.
+
+Next up was a [discussion of decoupled tests][talk-decoupled], where I learned
+a way to quantify the value of tests: the cost of the bugs found by the tests,
+minus the cost of developing the tests, plus the benefits of a more adaptable
+codebase. Tests that are too tightly coupled with the system under test are
+less valuable, because the codebase is then not as adaptable, but of course
+there needs to be some coupling, or otherwise the tests would be entirely
+unrelated to the code!
+
+Before lunch, I attended [a talk about PIE][talk-pie], the new installer for
+PHP extensions. I haven't actually tested it out much, but I have read the
+documentation (and even contributed a few typo fixes) and have been meaning to
+add support for PIE to my [CustomCast extension][ext-customcast]. Perhaps
+once PHP 8.5 is fully released I'll have a chance to resume work on CustomCast.
+
+After lunch was a second keynote of the day,
+[Work Smarter: Code Like a Musician][talk-musician]. It was fascinating to hear
+how Cori applied lessons from a music career to writing code. Unfortunately,
+I wasn't able to fully focus on this talk, because my own talk was going to be
+right after it. I definitely plan to rewatch this talk when I have a chance to
+look at the recordings.
+
+I then presented my own talk, about new features in PHP 8.5, which I discuss
+more later on.
+
+After my talk, I attended [A Field Guide to PHProperties][talk-phpproperties],
+which focused on making the most of the new PHP 8.4 features for properties,
+including property hooks, interface properties, and asymmetric visibility.
+The message makes sense, if you only code in PHP 8.4+. However, given how many
+languages I commonly write code in, and the fact that the code I write for work
+generally doesn't run on PHP 8.4, the majority of code that I write will not be
+able to make use of the PHP 8.4 features that the talk focused on. The new
+features are great, but using them would mean not supporting any previous
+version of PHP.
+
+Next up was another round of open spaces, and a final round of talks. I had
+planned to attend [Creating Developer Friendly Projects][talk-friendly], but
+unfortunately I was starting to feel burnt out. I opted to skip the last
+round of talks, and will make sure I watch the recordings that were made. I
+wanted to make sure I was able to pay attention at the final keynote, which I
+expected to be the most engaging.
+
+The final keynote, [Saving Open Source][talk-saving], was engaging throughout,
+at different points funny, somber, optimistic, and relatable. I found the
+discussion of lice fatigue especially entertaining - when it comes to posting
+code in GitHub without bothering to include a license, I have done that myself
+(e.g. for the repository with the code for my website). The discussion of the
+[DBAD license][license-dbad] and the [ABRMS license][license-abrms] was
+especially funny; the only other funny license I had previously come across was
+the [WTFPL license][license-wtfpl]. I was also particularly struck by the
+discussion of why people contribute to open source projects, and the idea of
+people asking others for ideas of open source packages to build - which is
+basically what I did yesterday when asking for feature requests for the
+reflection extension. I came away from this keynote with a list of a few books
+to read, and a number of ideas to ponder.
+
+## My talk
+
+My talk, presented on Saturday afternoon, covered what was new in PHP 8.5.
+My talk started off fairly well - I knew the material, and began with a
+discussion of the deprecations that are a part of PHP 8.5. However, I ended up
+spending too long going over the details of the various deprecations, their
+background, equivalent replacements or workarounds, and other migration
+strategies for upgrading codebases to avoid the deprecation warnings. As a
+result, I ended up running out of time - when I got to the actual discussion
+of the new features, I was already running through the slides much faster than
+I would have liked, and for the last few slides, when I was going to discuss the
+biggest new features (expanded constant syntax, the new uri extension, clone()
+with, and the pipe operator) I only had enough time for a few sentences on each
+of those topics. You can see a copy of the slides for my talk [here][slides],
+I had 52 slides to try and get through!
+
+As I noted earlier, two of my talks were accepted for the ConFoo conference in
+February; one of them was this talk about PHP 8.5. For ConFoo my understanding
+is that I will have 45 minutes to present rather than 50, so I need to get
+through the deprecations faster - really, 30 seconds per slide for the most
+part, given that the details are fairly straightforward and can be automated
+(migration or just analysis to find them) with the tools listed. I also might
+want to cut out a few of the slides/discussions so that I can have more time
+to spend on the features. I definitely need to change the order of the talk and
+start with the features rather than ending with them, both because the features
+are the bigger part of the new version (deprecations are not exceptions and can
+be suppressed). Maybe I'll just reverse the order of the slides (except the
+title slide and the thank you slide, those still need to go first/last
+respectively).
+
+One thing that works in my favor is that at ConFoo, PHP 8.5 will already have
+been released to general availability. Thus, I won't need to spend time
+encouraging people to test release candidates and report bugs before the
+GA release, nor will I need to cover the details of changes made between the
+different release candidates. That should help me save a few minutes.
+
+After I got home from the conference, and while working on this blog post, I
+was reminded that at the speakers' dinner I had tentatively agreed to present
+this same PHP 8.5 talk for [MergePHP][mergephp], a monthly online PHP meetup.
+I confirmed that I was available to give the talk at the next meetup on
+November 13; I was told the talk should be between 45 and 60 minutes. Thus,
+MergePHP will give me a chance to present my talk again, applying some of the
+changes I need for ConFoo but hopefully without needing to cut down the material
+too much. I'll post a retrospective about that experience in a few weeks.
+
+## Final thoughts
+
+I am definitely glad that I attended this conference, and am thankful to the
+organizers for allowing me to speak. Austin was the site of my first
+professional conference, [EMWCon Spring 2023][emwcon-2023], which I attended on
+behalf of my employer. It seems oddly fitting that it was also the site of the
+first professional conference I attended and spoke at that was unrelated to my
+job. I look forward to hopefully returning for Longhorn 2026.
+
+[tutorial-rust]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#observing-php-for-fun-and-profit
+[tutorial-wcag]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#how-to-run-an-accessibility-wcag-audit-step-by-step-for-beginners
+[thesis-interface]: ./../files/Thesis/Simulator.html
+[blog-syntax-highlight]: ./20250718-pygments-highlighting
+[commit-contrast]: https://github.com/DanielEScherzer/website-content/commit/343e4872a19516d874255a4e249d7b3fb0bf4426
+[podcast-episode]: https://www.phparch.com/podcast/community-corner-php-8-5-release-manager-daniel-scherzer/
+[talk-laws]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#the-immutable-laws-of-software-and-life-code-accordingly
+[wp-cunningham-law]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham's%20Law
+[mwcon-spring-2024]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Users_and_Developers_Conference_Spring_2024
+[confoo]: https://confoo.ca/en/2026
+[talk-api-spec]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#defining-an-api-specification-a-step-by-step-guide
+[mw-rest-api]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API
+[mw-action-api]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Action_API
+[talk-db-testing]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#better-database-testing-with-phpunit
+[lib-db-testing]: https://github.com/cspray/database-testing
+[talk-monolith]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#love-your-monolith
+[talk-ddev]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#local-development-made-easy-with-ddev
+[issue-reflection-reqs]: https://github.com/DanielEScherzer/website-content/issues/49
+[talk-git]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#git-as-game-logic-what-video-games-can-teach-us-about-version-control
+[git-rerere]: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Rerere
+[talk-attributes]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#php-attributes-lets-get-meta
+[lib-attribs]: https://packagist.org/packages/Crell/AttributeUtils
+[talk-turtles]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#turtles-all-the-way-down
+[reddit-turtles]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/1bya392/whywouldtheyrewardthis/
+[talk-decoupled]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#asserttrueisdecoupledmy-tests
+[talk-pie]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#a-slice-of-pie-revolutionising-php-extension-installation
+[ext-customcast]: https://github.com/DanielEScherzer/CustomCast
+[talk-musician]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#work-smarter-code-like-a-musician
+[talk-phpproperties]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#a-field-guide-to-phproperties
+[talk-friendly]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#creating-developer-friendly-projects
+[talk-saving]: https://longhornphp.com/sessions#saving-open-source
+[license-dbad]: https://dbad-license.org/
+[license-abrms]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/8ebl4b/the_anyone_but_richard_m_stallman_license/
+[license-wtfpl]: https://www.wtfpl.net/
+[slides]: ./../files/20251025%20Longhorn%20PHP%20presentation.pdf
+[mergephp]: https://www.mergephp.com/
+[emwcon-2023]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/EMWCon_Spring_2023