PHP & Web Development Blogs

In modern software architecture, developers are constantly exploring new paradigms to enhance the performance, scalability, and maintainability of their applications. One such architectural pattern gaining popularity is Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS). CQRS separates the responsibility of handling read and write operations, offering numerous benefits in complex systems. In this article, we'll delve into CQRS and explore its implementation in PHP.

What is CQRS?

CQRS, coined by Greg Young, is an architectural pattern that segregates the responsibility for handling read and write operations in a system. In traditional CRUD-based architectures, the same model is often used for both reading and writing data. However, CQRS advocates for a clear distinction between commands (write operations that modify state) and queries (read operations that retrieve data).

Key Concepts of CQRS:
   

. Command: Commands represent actions that modify the state of the system. They encapsulate the intent to perform an operation, such as creating, updating, or deleting data.
   
. Query: Queries retrieve data from the system without modifying its state. They are read-only operations used to fetch information for presentation or analysis.
   
. Command Handler: Responsible for processing commands by executing the necessary business logic and updating the system's state accordingly.
   
. Query Handler: Handles queries by retrieving data from the appropriate data source and returning the results to the caller.
   
. Separate Models: CQRS often involves maintaining separate models for commands and queries. This allows each model to be optimized for its specific use case, leading to improved performance and scalability.

Implementing CQRS in PHP:

Implementing CQRS in PHP involves structuring your application to separate command and query responsibilities effectively. Here's a high-level overview of how to implement CQRS in PHP:

1. Define Commands and Queries:

Start by defining the commands and queries your application will support. Commands should encapsulate actions that modify state, while queries should retrieve data.

class CreateProductCommand {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

class GetProductQuery {
 public $productId;
}

2. Create Command and Query Handlers:

Next, implement handlers for processing commands and queries. Command handlers execute the necessary business logic to fulfill the command, while query handlers retrieve data based on the query criteria.

class CreateProductCommandHandler {
 public function handle(CreateProductCommand $command) {
 }
}

class GetProductQueryHandler {
 public function handle(GetProductQuery $query) {
 }
}

3. Use Separate Models:

Maintain separate models for commands and queries to optimize each for its specific purpose. This separation allows you to design models tailored to the needs of write and read operations.

class Product {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

class ProductView {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

4. Wiring Everything Together:

Finally, wire up your command and query handlers to the appropriate endpoints or controllers in your application. Dispatch commands to their respective handlers and invoke query handlers to retrieve data.

$command = new CreateProductCommand();
$command->name = "Example Product";
$command->price = 99.99;

$handler = new CreateProductCommandHandler();
$handler->handle($command);

$query = new GetProductQuery();
$query->productId = 123;

$handler = new GetProductQueryHandler();
$product = $handler->handle($query);

Benefits of CQRS in PHP:

-Improved Scalability: Separating read and write operations allows you to scale each independently based on demand.

-Enhanced Performance: Optimizing models and handlers for specific tasks can lead to improved performance and responsiveness.

-Simplified Maintenance: Clear separation of concerns makes the codebase easier to understand, maintain, and extend over time.

-Flexibility: CQRS enables flexibility in choosing the most suitable data storage and retrieval mechanisms for different use cases.

Conclusion:

CQRS is a powerful architectural pattern that offers numerous advantages for building complex and scalable PHP applications. By segregating command and query responsibilities, developers can achieve better performance, scalability, and maintainability in their systems. While implementing CQRS in PHP requires careful planning and design, the benefits it provides make it a compelling choice for projects requiring high performance and flexibility.

Your biggest asset is also your biggest risk... your developers

Your business thrives because of the incredible work and innovation of your developers. With simple keystrokes your developers can completely transform your business, add new features, and drive new sales.

But those same keystrokes can take down production, create security back doors, and put your business at risk. That's why it's more important than ever for your team members to be up to speed with the latest technology, especially around performance and security.

Of course, some things are easier said than done - after all everyone is super busy these days. So how can you help keep your team members learning, and putting your business first in the process?

Conference Parties

There's nothing better than attending a PHP or programming conference in person - the chance to meet speakers face to face, to network, the knowledge, and the hallway track. However, many companies aren't able to afford multiple (or even one) conference for their developers - especially ones that require airfare and hotel.

However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't still participate in these conferences. The good news is that roughly once a quarter Nomad PHP streams talks from a conference right to your computer. This means that your team members can all participate in a multi-day conference from the comfort of your office (or their home) - and you can provide this for your team for less than the cost of a single conference ticket!

Make the conference party even more special by providing lunch during the lunch break, bringing in party gifts, having give-aways during the conference, and planning activities during longer breaks for your team.

Since many conferences take place on Friday, not only are you providing invaluable training and an incredible work benefit, but ending the week on a super positive note that your team members will appreciate (and your risk assessment teams will greatly appreciate as new security practices and compliance practices are put into place).

Monthly Lunch and Learns

Every month Nomad PHP offers live virtual talks by the industry's top experts. With talks at 11am Pacific, and 6pm Pacific it's a perfect time to grab a conference room and order a couple pizzas for lunch (or if Eastern, grab some snacks and maybe a beer) and play the monthly meeting on the large screen.

Your team members will have the opportunity to take notes, discuss with each other, and perhaps most importantly ask the speaker real-world questions that directly impact your business, providing tangible solutions to the problems they are facing.

And since every Nomad PHP Pro meeting is recorded, your team members can refer back to the video at any time, watching sections relevant to them or digging in for more information.

Developer Book Club

Encourage your team members to share what they're learning with others, and help build each other up. Not only are you helping grow skills and ensure your team is following the latest best practices, but you're also fostering a mentor-mentality within your team - where each team member feels invested in the growth of other members.

With Nomad PHP you receive a new issue of [php[architect]](/books) each month and have several additional books available to read on demand - providing the latest updates and an invaluable resource to help your book club get started.

Developer Movie Nights

Sometimes we all just want to get away, grab some popcorn, and watch a movie. Similar to lunch and learns, give your developers a night or two where they can get together and watch one of the 250+ training videos available on Nomad PHP. You can even make it a movie marathon!

Whether it's pizza, popcorn, sodas, beers - your team members will have the chance to kick back, relax a bit, build team camaraderie, and learn valuable skills to help your business succeed. Essentially, turning a training day into a fun team-bonding activity.

Learning Path Challenges

Every company has challenges, and areas they need their team members to master. Whether it's DevOps and containerization, security, performance, management, modernization, or soft skills - work with your team to determine what skills will help them succeed and work with your team members to put together video learning paths.

Your team members can watch through these videos on-demand, go back and replay to refresh their knowledge, and work their way towards mastery in the subjects that will help your company succeed.

Certification

Show that you are invested in your developers by helping them earn Professional Certification. These certifications demonstrate that your team members have a fundamental grasp of the technology they are working with and understand when and how to use this technology.

With free certification exams included with Nomad PHP - you no longer have to worry about failed exams or expensive test credits. Your team members can take the exams at their own pace, discover the areas they need to improve, and take the exam again when they are ready. After all, shouldn't the goal of certification be to help your developers learn these skills and prove their expertise?

You can go even further with certifications by having a special company award, framing their certificate, or calling out newly certified developers at team meetings or all-hands.

Learning Incentives/ Rewards

Of course there are even more ways you can help your developers learn new skills, grow their careers, and build loyalty within your company. With Nomad PHP there are numerous ways for your team members to grow their skills, and numerous ways you can reward/ incentivize them - from rewards for the most active learner, to setting goals for learning new skills, to obtaining certifications, to attending streams, to watching videos on-demand. All of these are included with our Professional Nomad PHP Team subscriptions.

Want to learn more about getting a Nomad Team Subscription for your developers? Give us a call (844) CODE-PHP

Have more ideas on how to help your developers grow their skills or help employers make education more accessible? Please leave your ideas in the comments below!

Hello folks! This post is for those of you using Laravel. This beautiful framework makes web development super-easy compared to most of competitors. In the heart of Laravel is the Application class, which is responsible for bootstrapping, registering services and also serves as a dependency injection container. What I do with my Laravel apps, is that I take a slight detour from the common path by adding a custom Application class. While this is not really necessary, I find this approach nice, and will try to share my thought below.

It's normal practice in Laravel world to build all kinds of objects like this:

$cache = app("cache");

I find it a bit confusing to call app("cache"") and expect a Cache\Repository instance as result. If I pass the result of this call to a function that requires a Cache\Repository as parameter, I will probably have a code inspection warning from IDE. Moreover, if I want proper autocompletion, I will have to add additional comment:

$cache = app("cache");

This is where a custom application class might be handy:

namespace App;
class MyApp extends Application
{
 public function cacheRepository(): Repository
 {
 return $this->make(Repository::class);
 }
}

This way I get a TypeError in case of a misconfiguration, and I have a type-hint which allows the IDE to recognize the return value. Bye-bye nasty comment lines and IDE warnings! I make a method per service, with type-hints, like dbConnection() or viewFactory() - works really well for me!

I also thought that, if I have a custom class, then all the custom setup that normally you have in bootstrap/app.php, should reside in that custom class:

namespace App;
class MyApp extends Application
{
 public function __construct()
 {
 define('LARAVEL_START', microtime(true));
 define("APP_ROOT", realpath(__DIR__ . "/../"));
 parent::__construct(APP_ROOT);
 $this->setUp();
 }
 private function setUp()
 {
 $this->singleton(
 Contracts\Http\Kernel::class,
 \App\Http\Kernel::class
 );
 }
}

Then your bootstrap/app.php becomes just this:

return new \App\MyApp;

The Laravel app() function will also return an instance of MyApp from now on. However, it's @phpdoc says it returns \Illuminate\Foundation\Application, so for better clarity, I also added my own accessor method:

namespace App;
class MyApp extends Application
{
 public static function app(): self
 {
 
 $ret = parent::getInstance();
 return $ret;
 }
}

I tend to limit the use of global/static functions and methods, but sometimes it can be handy, and whenever I need an instance of MyApp, I just call MyApp::app(). The IDE wil be aware of the return type due to the type-hint, so I get everything I want for clean and clear development.

With your projects in Laravel, you may or may not want to follow this particular advice, but just be aware that extending a framework built-in classes for your team's comfort, is definitely something that can make your life easier. See you around, don't forget to leave comments!

You've built an amazing website, but how do you make sure people can find your site via search engines? In this article we cover 10 best practices to make sure your article not only stands out, but ranks well with search engines.

1. Take time to research keywords

To determine the best keywords for your site, you'll need to do some keyword research. This usually consists of combing through your competitors' sites for the keywords that are driving them the most traffic. There are several ways you can get started with keyword research. One recommended way is to create a spreadsheet with your competitors' sites listed and add keywords that you can copy and paste your competitors' keywords into Google's Keyword Tool and Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Analyzer tool. Analyze your competition's site's website titles to find out what keywords they are using tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, SpyFu, or SEMrush to find out what keywords others are using on your competitor's site.

2. Focus on your Title tag

This is the headline for every article. It needs to be bold and attention grabbing so it can catch the eye of potential users. Pick it somewhere around 60-90 characters to make sure it is displayed properly in search engines as well as readable in the browser tab. As you write your title, focus on the unique keywords your readers are likely to search for. Also make sure that the keywords you select are relevant to your page. Another good practice is to make the title tag and your header (h1) the same.

3. Carefully craft your H1, H2, H3 tags

Careful usage of header tags helps search engines identify keywords within your page. To get the best results from your header tags, use H1, H2, and H3 in order with keywords in your H2 and H3 headers that support your H1 tag. Remember, your H1 tag should mimic your title tag, whereas the H2 and H3 can expand and add additional context. You can also utilize multiple H2 and H3 tags, however be sure that these headers are supporting the H1 tag and relevant to the content on your page. Using irrelevant header keywords can actually work to your disadvantage.

4. Avoid loading content with JavaScript

Despite it's popularity, JavaScript is not yet well supported by search engines and can mask important content. Progressive Web Apps in particular can suffer as key content is loaded after the page is spidered, or in the case of many search engines that do not yet index JavaScript not loaded at all. This is also the case for many social media sites, meaning that content loaded dynamically is not evaluated or pulled in, resulting in the default skeleton of your site being what shows up in search engines and in link previews.

5. Carefully name images

In the past search engines would evaluate your images based on their alt tag, however as more and more developers loaded irrelevant keywords into this hidden image text search engines instead added more emphasis to the actual name of the image itself. This means using generic image names such as 1.jpg can actually hurt your site ranking as search engines might be looking for seokeywords.jpg. Now, just because you're carefully naming your images with relevant keywords describing the image doesn't mean you should ignore the alt tag. Be sure to continue to include alt tags for older search engines, in the case the image doesn't load, and for accessibility (ie screen readers).

6. Work to improve your page load time

It’s not a secret that faster sites rank higher in search engines. Most search engines use the PageSpeed Index from Google to determine the speed of websites. One thing Google looks at is how fast images are loading. For this reason, we recommend taking a look at how long it takes for the first image to load on your site or even take advantage of lazy loading for non-critical images. You want images to be loading within 30 seconds at the absolute latest, before the user can actually click on the page. You also need to make sure that if you're using multiple images that they load as one group. Next, take a look at how long it takes to load a webpage. Are pages taking longer than three seconds to load on your site? You want to have pages that load fast for users, but your code and templates can easily be causing this to happen.

7. Optimize text throughout your page

Beyond your title tag, headers, and images it's important to work keywords into your standard content, while also working to avoid overloading keywords. To help prevent overloading and increase search engine rankings across multiple keywords you can use alternative phrases. In the case of "PHP training" an alternative phrase might be "PHP tutorials" or "PHP course." This both helps support the primary keyword, while also allowing the page to rank for these keywords as well. Remember to use the tools referenced above to find the keywords that are right for your site, and then work them in to natural sentences without forcing keywords or becoming overly repetitive. Also keep in mind, just as important as the content and keywords on the page are to search engines, how users engage with that content is also critical. If your page experience's high bounce rates or low engagement with the content, it is likely to be deprioritized by search engines, meaning a page highly optimized for search engines but not humans may enjoy a higher ranking, but only for a short time before it is heavily penalized.

8. Build your Domain and Page Authority

Domain and Page Authority are determined not just by the number of back-links (or sites linking to your domain or page), but also the quality of the sites and pages linking to you. One practice that has made obtaining a better DA or PA harder has been purchasing or acquiring bulk back-links. Note this practice is actually against Google's TOS and may result in your entire site being banned from their search results! Because of this practice, it's important to focus on high quality sites and work to get back-links naturally either through partnerships or syndicated content (such as blog posts). You can also check your DA here or using one of the many tools referenced above.

9. Take advantage of social media

Speaking of back-links, social media can be a powerful tool for increasing page visibility while also improving your search engine rankings! Remember, most social sites do not support or read JavaScript, so ensure your content is available on the page. If you do have a progressive web app with JavaScript loading your content, look into using Headless Chrome to render a JavaScript free version of your site for specific bots (note - the content MUST be the same content a user would see or your site may be blocked). There are also numerous tools to allow you to build the content via JavaScript on the server backend before passing it to your readers. To help get even more exposure, consider adding social share links or tools like AddThis.

10. Good SEO takes time

The truth is that there really aren't any special secrets or ingredients to ranking well in search engines (well not that Google has publicly shared). Instead it's about properly formatting your page, making sure it's readable to search engines, and providing content that your readers will engage with. As you provide more valuable content, and more people like and link to your content - your site's Domain Authority will gradually increase, giving your site and pages more powerful - resulting in a higher ranking.

To say that we have been hard at work here at Nomad PHP, or that I'm excited about these three announcements would be a tremendous understatement. Over the past several months, behind the scenes, we've been working to bring even more features and benefits to Nomad PHP - these have already included unlimited streaming of all past meetings and access to PHP Architect.

Available today, however, you'll also have access to online, live workshops - as well as soon have the ability to stream select PHP conferences live, and finally to prove the knowledge you have gained through our online certification.

Online, Live Workshops

Like our online meetings, we are excited to announce that available today you can participate in online, live, and interactive workshops. Our first workshop will feature Michael Stowe, author of Undisturbed REST: a guide to Designing the Perfect API as he demonstrates how to build the perfect API using modern technologies and techniques.

Additional workshops will be announced as we continue, with a minimum of one workshop per quarter. These workshops will be part of your Nomad PHP subscription, and will be recorded for later viewing.

Nomad PHP Certification

With the many changes impacting the PHP ecosystem, we're proud to announce the ability to prove your knowledge with our online certification. Each certification is made up numerous, randomly selected questions to be completed within a specific time frame. Depending on the exam it may or may not be proctored, but all exams monitor user activity to ensure compliance.

To pass the exam, a passing grade (specified on each exam) must be completed for each section within the allotted time frame. Failure to complete or pass any section will result in a failing grade for the entire exam.

Upon completion, you will receive a digital certification with verification to post on LinkedIn or your website, as well as having your Nomad PHP updated to show the passed certification.

Initial certification exams will include PHP Developer Level I, PHP Engineer Level II, and API Specialist Level I. The PHP Developer exam will cover core components of PHP, the Engineer will cover a broad spectrum of topics including modern technologies, and the API Specialist will cover REST design and architecture practices.

All three exams will be available by January 31, 2019, and will be included with a Nomad PHP subscription.

Stream Select PHP Conferences Live

One of the primary goals of Nomad PHP is to bring the community together, and allow users all over the country to participate in conference level talks. What better way to do this than to bring community conferences online?

Like our traditional talks, these conferences and select conference sessions will be live-streamed as part of your Nomad PHP subscription, allowing you to participate in real-time with in-person conference attendees.

The first conference to be streamed will be DayCamp4Developers: Beyond Performance on January 18, 2018. Additional conferences to be streamed will be announced shortly.

Community and Corporate Sponsorships

With these new additions to Nomad PHP, now is the perfect time to take advantage of our new Community and Corporate sponsorships.

Your support of Nomad PHP not only makes all the above possible, but allows Nomad PHP to continue to serve and give back the community. We're proud, that despite operating at a loss, to have already contributed over$4,000 to the PHP community in the last 5 months.

To learn more about the sponsorship and community opportunities we have available, please visit our Advertising section.

Other Ways to Support Nomad PHP

Of course, while financial support helps us keep afloat and do more for the community, there are even more, and just as important ways to support Nomad PHP. Please consider linking to Nomad PHP, or sharing the service with your friends.