Tag: PHP

Expert Opinion Sep 11, 2026

PHP is the language I reach for most, by choice. The PHP I write has almost nothing in common with the code that gave the language its reputation. Here is what modern PHP actually looks like, the three criticisms I think are fair, and the rule I use to decide when it is the wrong tool.

Expert Opinion Aug 18, 2026

Moving business logic out of database triggers and into application events does not simplify the system. It trades atomicity for visibility, and it buys a new class of bug. I retired eleven triggers on a live product, left ten running on purpose, and got the sequencing wrong.

Expert Opinion Aug 13, 2026

A database trigger runs on the database host, in database syntax, with no application log and no stack trace. When it breaks you do not hear it from your monitoring, you hear it from a customer. I moved a live SaaS off ten of them in about four weeks, one domain at a time, with no downtime. Here is how I chose the order, and why I left ten running on purpose.

Expert Opinion Aug 04, 2026

I ran one product's codebase for ten years and decided not to migrate it to a framework. That call saved roughly a year of frozen feature work and cost me things I did not see at the time. Here is the architecture I built instead, the score I invented to track it, and the three decisions I would make differently.

Software Development Jul 14, 2026

Modernizing a legacy PHP app costs less than a rewrite and carries far less risk, because you keep the product earning while you fix it. Here is what actually drives the cost.

Expert Opinion Jul 14, 2026

Two error signatures sat on the same line of code. They looked like one problem. They were two, with opposite fixes. One needed me to stop throwing, the other needed me to catch and retry, and the fix that would have made the log quiet fastest was the worst option available.

Architecture Jul 10, 2026

Reliable email is never about sending the message. It is about the queue around it. Here is how I build PHP email systems that stop being the thing that silently breaks.

Software Development Jun 30, 2026

A rewrite is the riskiest way to fix a legacy PHP app, and usually the slowest. Here is how I modernize a codebase that makes money, in place, without a rewrite and without taking it down.

Architecture Mar 12, 2026

Agentic AI systems in PHP are not a novelty. They are a structured architecture problem… and PHP solves it cleanly when you treat the AI layer as a domain concern, not a script. Neuron AI provides the primitives: agents, tools, memory, and providers. The missing piece most PHP teams skip is governance… clean interfaces, reusable tool registries, and stateless […]

Expert Opinion May 11, 2024

Related reading PHP 8 named arguments Related: These small PHP 8 features add up when you are modernizing an older codebase. See Modernizing legacy PHP without a rewrite.