[0:00] Vular, welcome. You're going to be
[0:02] talking about performance in PHP. What
[0:06] exactly will you be telling us all about
[0:08] at PHP UK conference?
[0:11] >> Hey, thank you. Nice to to be here. Um,
[0:14] so the main thing I want to I want to
[0:16] talk about to people is how does the PHP
[0:19] engine actually work and how do you make
[0:21] decisions based on that. So not just uh
[0:24] and we'll also be talking about that not
[0:26] but not how just how to measure the
[0:28] program externally but also to develop a
[0:30] better intuition and understanding of
[0:32] how these things work so that when you
[0:33] look at a piece of code you can also
[0:35] already make some guesses about the PHP
[0:37] side of the performance and then we're
[0:39] also going to talk about the usual
[0:41] performance aspects like how do I
[0:42] measure how long the database is taking
[0:44] and we'll we'll see some other
[0:46] approaches like most people probably
[0:48] have seen how to instrument this in in
[0:50] userland like you make a wrapper around
[0:52] your database calls and you and and and
[0:54] you do that. But I want to show some
[0:56] more um seale approaches, some more PHP
[0:59] extensions you can use in some more
[1:01] low-level tooling to really figure out
[1:02] what's going on without having to
[1:04] necessarily change the code. For
[1:05] example, if you have a problem that only
[1:07] happens in production,
[1:09] >> I see. So if people come along and if
[1:11] they have uh slow running code or code
[1:14] that you know doesn't seem to be
[1:16] performing as well as they would expect
[1:19] then the takeaway from your talk will be
[1:21] one of the takeaways from your talk will
[1:23] be here's how we can measure it and
[1:25] here's will will actually show how to
[1:27] make changes um based on that
[1:29] information.
[1:30] >> Um so what I will be showing is a bit
[1:32] how to work with a profiler. There's a
[1:34] couple great open source tools out there
[1:36] where you can like run a request or run
[1:39] a process and really see every single
[1:41] function call that happens or see like a
[1:43] couple thousand times a second what's
[1:44] what's going on in in in PHP and then
[1:47] how this looks after you make a change
[1:50] but also just how to like reason about
[1:52] performance and how PHP actually
[1:54] executes your code internally so you get
[1:55] a better understanding for what's going
[1:57] on there as well.
[1:58] >> Amazing. And in your work, have you
[2:01] applied these principles on projects
[2:03] that you've been working on? And what's
[2:05] been your biggest performance increase
[2:07] based on this the kind of work the kind
[2:10] of analysis you do?
[2:12] >> So like there's always a couple fun
[2:14] stories to tell, but so um I work for
[2:16] for a company um we'll maybe talk about
[2:19] that a bit later. I'm not going to go
[2:20] into much detail where we help other
[2:22] other people with performance problems
[2:24] both in a consulting fashion but mostly
[2:26] in providing a a software as a service
[2:29] platform to them where they can improve
[2:31] their code and like there is there is
[2:34] like the the hard winds of people like
[2:37] hey I have this service it has like a 7
[2:39] millisecond response time we want to get
[2:40] it down to five like what what can we do
[2:43] what can we measure and those are like
[2:44] very intricate and very specific but
[2:46] then there is also like here's an
[2:48] e-commerce shop and they had installed a
[2:50] plugin that uh every for every single
[2:52] page uh page load that they make like
[2:54] wants to get like a a token for like
[2:56] some tracking service and that just
[2:58] takes one and a half seconds. Uh and
[3:00] it's just like every single request and
[3:02] that token never changes and they could
[3:04] just have it in there but that plug-in
[3:06] just like fetches it for every single
[3:08] page request. And um because it's like a
[3:11] big e-commerce shop with a bunch of
[3:13] plugins that you haven't written,
[3:14] debugging that can actually be quite
[3:16] annoying. So like people can use our
[3:18] tool or other tools to like get that
[3:20] information very quickly and so that was
[3:22] a great great experience with the
[3:24] customer of like their onboarding to the
[3:26] product and the first thing was like oh
[3:28] that's the problem and within minutes
[3:29] you have a solution and it's it's really
[3:32] fun to see like
[3:33] >> how how fast you can make PHP and what
[3:36] you can get out of the language while
[3:37] still having like a nice highle language
[3:39] that allows you to work very quickly uh
[3:42] but then still get really good
[3:44] performance out of it as well.
[3:46] So the PHP haters who say it's too slow,
[3:52] that's not really true, is it? I mean,
[3:54] it I it always depends on like for what
[3:56] use case and what you want to do with
[3:58] it. um like uh if if if you need a
[4:02] real-time application or like if you
[4:04] want to do high frequency trading
[4:06] wherever you would want to do that like
[4:08] I probably wouldn't do that in PHP and
[4:10] um but uh for a website and like if we
[4:13] if we compare PHP to other web languages
[4:17] like JavaScript, Python, Ruby um I'll go
[4:22] a bit in the talk about like some
[4:24] comparisons there as well but I think
[4:25] PHP holds up really really well And um
[4:29] given the given how core works and the
[4:32] and the improvements there and how the
[4:34] engine works, there are some things that
[4:36] PHP is really good at. Like it also
[4:38] checks your types at runtime. So you
[4:40] don't like if you get a JSON response
[4:42] from an endpoint that you didn't expect,
[4:43] it won't magically do the wrong thing
[4:45] because the types didn't match because
[4:47] it actually checks the types. And that's
[4:48] cool. And it still manages to outperform
[4:51] some of the languages that don't do
[4:52] that. So I think there is there's a lot
[4:54] to be said for running PHP.
[4:57] I see. So if people are watching this
[4:59] and maybe they've got a slow web
[5:01] application or e-commerce thing and
[5:03] they're thinking, do we need to change
[5:05] from PHP to another language? The answer
[5:08] would probably be well actually let's
[5:10] look at the performance of our PHP
[5:11] application first. And
[5:13] >> yes,
[5:14] >> I I I think it's not like usually like
[5:17] uh if you rewrite something in a new
[5:19] language, it's not faster because you've
[5:21] used another language, but it's faster
[5:22] because you rewritten the whole thing.
[5:24] Um, and the the process of like
[5:27] re-evaluating all your decisions and
[5:28] reing your approaches and like redoing
[5:30] that usually helps more. And so chances
[5:33] are if you're good at one language and
[5:35] you do it again in that language, you
[5:38] actually end up with a way better result
[5:40] than if you move to a new language where
[5:42] you don't know all the pitfalls and all
[5:43] the potential issues that are coming
[5:45] with that.
[5:46] >> [gasps]
[5:47] >> But yes, but I suppose that a far a far
[5:50] lower effort or engineering effort is to
[5:53] use some of the things you're going to
[5:54] talk about and maybe some of the tools
[5:56] that you're going to talk about in this
[5:58] talk and that will probably illuminate
[6:01] some of the uh some of the issues you
[6:02] might be having uh with with with
[6:04] performance.
[6:05] >> Yes indeed.
[6:08] And have you have you on on well you
[6:10] might not want to answer this but on
[6:11] projects you've worked on have you had a
[6:13] really embarrassing uh find where you
[6:16] suddenly gone oh my goodness this is the
[6:17] reason it's it's it's so slow.
[6:21] >> Um like yes like so due to due to the
[6:25] nature of our product like we we get
[6:27] thousands of requests per second with
[6:29] with customer data um that that we use.
[6:31] So like we have some some endpoints that
[6:33] are rather performance critical and um I
[6:37] mean I wouldn't necessarily like say
[6:39] embarrassing. That's just uh the nature
[6:41] of working in a in a small self-owned
[6:44] company without like billions of startup
[6:47] money where you do stuff and then you
[6:49] see in production if it works and
[6:51] especially if you work on a tool that
[6:53] helps people run their software in
[6:54] production, measure it in production, it
[6:56] also makes sense that we use our own
[6:57] tool to look at our own software. So one
[6:59] of the things um that we did was the the
[7:02] doctrine 3 upgrade and um my boss
[7:05] Benjamin is also one of the core people
[7:07] of the doctrine project and we upgraded
[7:10] that and then during that process we
[7:12] learned that a couple of the custom
[7:13] things that we've done around doctrine
[7:15] to make it faster didn't fully apply to
[7:17] the new version. So like after the
[7:19] upgrade things were quite a bit slower.
[7:21] Uh and it was really fun to see like
[7:23] like we we made the deployment and then
[7:25] our software told us like hey the thing
[7:27] is five times slower now and it's like
[7:29] ah cool um like that is like one of the
[7:31] normal stories where you know you're
[7:33] doing something but also over the years
[7:35] there is a bunch of stuff where we where
[7:37] we looked at something I was like
[7:40] not sure why we're looping over this
[7:42] thing every time to find an element here
[7:44] like this is a very long list uh like
[7:48] this is really like some PHP level thing
[7:50] where like it's a million elements in an
[7:52] array and like we're looping through it
[7:53] to find something and uh we have so many
[7:57] hashmaps in PHP. This might actually be
[7:59] one of the good use cases for that.
[8:01] Let's let's do that. and then like yeah
[8:03] seconds of that stuff goes away or like
[8:05] you're not clearing some some um or m
[8:08] cache or something and that means the
[8:11] thing has to loop through a lot of stuff
[8:12] and it's quite fun to see when when
[8:14] using a tool that shows you like all the
[8:16] function calls that a process makes and
[8:19] then it's like
[8:20] >> string leng 50 million it's like ah that
[8:23] seems a bit off
[8:25] [laughter and gasps]
[8:26] maybe we shouldn't be doing that.
[8:28] >> Wow. So when you look at these things, a
[8:30] lot of the some of the things just jump
[8:32] out almost immediately, do they? Oh,
[8:34] well, that's something to investigate.
[8:36] There's some inner loop we're going
[8:37] around millions of times. And
[8:39] >> yeah, I mean, that's the that's the fun
[8:41] moments when you when you open it up and
[8:42] you immediately find something. But the
[8:44] other the other fun part I think of
[8:46] performance work is also like buckling
[8:48] down with a problem for an hour or two
[8:50] or uh longer and using a tool and like
[8:54] really looking at like the individual
[8:56] steps and where the time is spent and
[8:58] trying to make something like trying to
[8:59] make something 10% faster usually that
[9:02] is already fast is a lot harder than
[9:04] trying to make something a lot faster
[9:06] that when when when there is like these
[9:08] obvious errors. So it's both of these
[9:10] things can be fun. Yeah, I've certainly
[9:13] had some embarrassing uh performance
[9:15] related uh problems on on projects. Uh
[9:18] one of them we were running is ages ago
[9:21] we had a like a Jenkins box for for CI
[9:25] >> and the test suite took 45 minutes to
[9:28] run and back then we were using Garrett
[9:31] so every single commit had to had to go
[9:34] through validation and there were bits
[9:36] where we would leave it on in the
[9:37] evening and come in the next day and it
[9:39] was still running. And we're like, "Oh,
[9:40] we've got to get these tests down." And
[9:42] then somebody looked at the
[9:43] configuration. They said, "Why have you
[9:44] got XD debug running on the Jenkins
[9:48] thing and they like flicked the flag and
[9:50] suddenly the test went from like 45
[9:51] minutes down to 15." I [laughter] mean,
[9:55] it was it was like I spent three days
[9:57] trying to speed it up prior to that. So,
[9:59] that was super embarrassing that it was
[10:00] just something as simple as a as a flag.
[10:03] But uh [laughter]
[10:03] >> it's a good one.
[10:05] >> Yeah. Yeah. These these things happen.
[10:08] Um yeah and and you actually so tell me
[10:12] a bit more about Tideways because you're
[10:15] one of the sponsors for the conference
[10:17] and it's quite related to what you're
[10:20] talking about. So what does Tideways do
[10:22] if people have never heard of them and
[10:24] >> Yes. So
[10:25] >> engage
[10:26] >> yeah we're super happy to sponsor the
[10:28] conference like after you've accepted my
[10:30] talk we we talked internally and like if
[10:32] I'm if I'm going there and if you're so
[10:33] nice to invite me actually we might as
[10:35] well sponsor. Um, so we're a a small
[10:39] company from Germany um with um that
[10:43] focuses exclusively on on PHP and we're
[10:46] an APM like you might know data do or
[10:49] Sentry or other products. Um, and what
[10:53] we're doing and what what our core focus
[10:55] is is that we exclusively focus on PHP
[10:58] on on making you not write all your
[11:00] instrumentation code yourself or
[11:01] installing a bunch of libraries or like
[11:04] doing a lot of the upfront work to get
[11:06] performance insights. But what we want
[11:08] to achieve with with what Tideway is
[11:09] doing is that you can on board with us
[11:12] and you immediately get meaningful
[11:14] insights because the PHP extension that
[11:17] we have auto automatically instruments
[11:19] your code for you and you don't have to
[11:22] do anything except install that
[11:23] extension and then you already get
[11:25] insights um that um and the product is
[11:28] like split in in in three main things.
[11:30] So we have a monitoring product where
[11:32] you can see your performance over time
[11:34] and you see if something gets slower. Um
[11:36] we have error like all the error
[11:38] tracking things um that uh we instrument
[11:42] like all the error handlers of major
[11:44] frameworks and grab the errors from
[11:46] there and um everything that you would
[11:49] expect to to see if your application is
[11:51] healthy. And then we also have like a
[11:52] tracing and profiling thing where you
[11:54] can like with um
[11:57] xh or xdebug or php spx would be some
[12:01] open source tools to mention. Um and
[12:03] with tideways like you can go to your
[12:05] own website click a button and then you
[12:07] see every function call that happens on
[12:08] that page and like how long it took and
[12:10] how everything is structured. But we
[12:12] also have like a low low overhead mode
[12:15] where we grab the most important bits of
[12:17] your application and so you have
[12:19] continuously like oh someone said the
[12:21] website was slow and you don't have to
[12:22] then start looking at it but you can
[12:24] look back at the data that's already
[12:26] collected and see if it's slow. Yeah.
[12:29] And yeah
[12:31] >> I see. So so what we would do if you
[12:34] were using your product is you would
[12:36] just install something on your
[12:37] production server and it would collect
[12:40] all this data in
[12:42] not a very intrusive way.
[12:44] >> And then and then how do you view it
[12:46] all? Is that do you go to the tidalist
[12:48] website to view it all or does all that
[12:50] data?
[12:51] >> Okay. So all the data gets all the
[12:52] relevant data gets transferred and you
[12:54] can you can view it.
[12:55] >> Exactly. So the way this works is you
[12:56] install our PHP extension and after the
[12:58] PHP request is done um that data then
[13:02] gets sent to a local thing running on
[13:04] your server um that's written in in Go
[13:07] where we do a lot of sanitization stuff
[13:10] because we don't want to have your
[13:11] customers email addresses. We don't want
[13:12] to have any private information. We
[13:14] don't want to see the strings in your
[13:15] SQL queries like this is all stuff that
[13:17] you don't want us to see and that we
[13:18] don't want to have. Um so that gets all
[13:21] stripped out on your system and then
[13:22] sent to us where we aggregate it, show
[13:24] you charts, generate alerts um for like
[13:28] we have like a big database of known
[13:30] problems of things that are slow or like
[13:32] of configuration issues and stuff like
[13:33] that. So it al also checks your systems
[13:36] configuration. Um or it says like hey
[13:39] you're running like a magenta juice shop
[13:41] and you you're running into this known
[13:44] problem. Um here is like how to fix
[13:46] that. And so you don't have to you don't
[13:48] even have to spend the time of figuring
[13:50] out what the problem is. You can just
[13:51] use like our observations and our
[13:53] learning to do that. And then on top of
[13:56] that you get like the continuous
[13:57] monitoring to see if something um yeah
[14:01] uh gets gets worse in the in the future.
[14:05] I see. So you can set up what alerts as
[14:08] well. So if things start to slow down
[14:11] then you get alerts say well look this
[14:12] used to be really quick and now it's now
[14:14] it's not so quick. Yes, like we can have
[14:17] you can set you can send us when you
[14:18] make a release and then you get a
[14:20] release comparison for like did it get
[14:22] better or slower? Are there more errors?
[14:25] Like you can get you get all the error
[14:26] monitoring and things you would expect
[14:28] from like a a monitoring solution. But
[14:30] we tried to be like a an affordable like
[14:33] a really affordable one piece package
[14:35] where you maybe you don't get like the
[14:38] full insight that you would get with
[14:39] data dog but that you also don't need a
[14:41] full operations team to look at it and
[14:43] really try to be a solution for people
[14:45] that don't have massive engineering
[14:47] teams. Um, while also allowing people
[14:51] that do performance the whole day to
[14:53] give them the tools with the tracing and
[14:55] the deep insights that they don't have
[14:56] to like set this up on every developer
[14:59] machine and they can use our tools and
[15:01] do that do local testing and do testing
[15:04] in production for performance. Yes. And
[15:06] we do this with with a with a small team
[15:09] um with Benjamin, me and a couple
[15:11] colleagues of mine, one of whom is a PHP
[15:13] core contributor that I'm very happy
[15:15] that Tide is sponsoring some time to
[15:17] work on PHP. Um I do some work on PH for
[15:21] PHP as well and like it's it's very nice
[15:23] that we're also able to give back given
[15:25] like our exclusive focus on PHP. Of
[15:27] course, we also have a vested interest
[15:29] in the language. Um but with with the
[15:31] Sentry open source pledge like we also
[15:33] support that fully and give to the PHP
[15:35] Foundation. I think we're like one of
[15:37] the bigger contributors there and the
[15:39] funding member. Uh so yeah that that
[15:42] make that that makes it really nice to
[15:44] to work as part of the ecosystem there
[15:46] while still like providing a product
[15:48] that uh allows us to to pay people.
[15:51] [snorts]
[15:52] >> Yeah. Nice. And I suppose actually
[15:54] you've you've um referred to the fact
[15:56] you do things for the PHP language, but
[16:00] you've actually been you actually the
[16:01] release manager, aren't you, for
[16:03] >> Yes. So for PHP 8.5, I'm one of the two
[16:06] release managers together with uh Daniel
[16:09] Shhatzer from from the from the States.
[16:12] Um we we put out the 85 release that has
[16:16] uh released with the do.0 in November
[16:19] and now we we get to do all the dot
[16:21] versions. Yeah, that was a lot of fun as
[16:23] well and learning and getting to know
[16:25] more of the core people and getting to
[16:27] know more about how PHP works internally
[16:30] after being on the mailing list for many
[16:32] years and doing small things like my my
[16:35] colleague um Tim also has helped me to
[16:39] write a couple PHP RFC. So there's like
[16:41] four or five small language features
[16:43] that I had a hand in. Like I do write
[16:47] some C but I'm not extremely fluent in
[16:49] PHP core. Like I did m maintain our
[16:52] extension before we found him who does a
[16:55] way smoother job at it. And I'm very
[16:57] happy that that we have him as well uh
[16:59] with with deep PHP engine knowledge like
[17:02] we also managed to make our own
[17:03] instrumentation a bit faster and have
[17:05] some fun there. Yeah.
[17:07] And so I suppose yeah that does work
[17:09] quite well you know getting involved
[17:11] with the core of it and doing what you
[17:12] do for your for your day job. But how on
[17:15] earth did you or what made you think oh
[17:19] I want to be a PHP 8.5 release manager?
[17:23] Um, so when it like when the
[17:26] announcement was made that that they're
[17:28] looking for new people, I think only two
[17:30] or three people put their name up for
[17:32] for a vote. And I thought um
[17:36] like it it would be nice if there would
[17:38] be just a couple more uh people
[17:40] volunteering for these types of things
[17:42] because it's not like it's not that much
[17:44] uh uh work but it's also something that
[17:47] that needs to be done and people should
[17:49] have a choice there um in in how they
[17:52] want who they want to have doing that.
[17:54] So, I put my name up for that and
[17:56] apparently um the the internalist
[17:59] community or the people that are allowed
[18:00] to vote on these things um for having
[18:03] contributed to PHP in the past decided
[18:05] that they would also like me to do that.
[18:07] Um yeah, and it was I I think it was a
[18:10] nice way to to give back um to PHP in a
[18:13] way that doesn't require like extensive
[18:15] C knowledge.
[18:17] >> Um I see like Oh, so you don't you don't
[18:19] need to be wellversed in C to be the
[18:22] release manager then.
[18:24] like it it it helps to be able to read
[18:26] it and um to to be able to judge like
[18:29] pull requests, but even that I would say
[18:31] is optional um like you learn some
[18:34] things along the way and of course like
[18:36] having a strong PHP background also
[18:38] helps but there is not a ton of
[18:39] decisions that you need to make and the
[18:41] great thing is that you have all the um
[18:44] all the great people from from the core
[18:46] team you have all the foundation people
[18:48] to talk to and they're very responsive
[18:50] and very nice and like everyone has a
[18:52] vested interest uh in the fact that the
[18:54] next PHP release is as great as the last
[18:56] one. So, um people are also very willing
[18:59] to help and like it's more of a like
[19:01] going around making sure everyone is
[19:04] happy, all the check boxes are checked
[19:06] and everything is going according to
[19:08] plan and smoothly than it is to like do
[19:10] very complicated engineering work. Uh so
[19:13] I think it's something more people could
[19:16] consider if they if they like want to
[19:17] give back to to to the PHP project in
[19:20] that way.
[19:21] >> Yeah. And and if anyone is uh coming to
[19:24] the PHP UK conference and they want to
[19:26] find out more presumably that you're
[19:27] happy to talk to them in the in the
[19:29] hallway track.
[19:30] >> Absolutely. Like um I'm I'm happy to to
[19:33] walk people through how the RFC process
[19:35] work like how you can contribute
[19:36] features to PHP, how you can propose
[19:38] feature ideas like in
[19:42] I think around the time of the
[19:43] conference at a bit later we will have
[19:45] the voting on um the next uh release
[19:48] manager for for 8.6. I think that
[19:51] process will start soon
[19:54] um as the release is coming out in
[19:56] November and there's like a 3 months I
[19:59] don't know uh I don't know from the top
[20:00] of my head period before that will start
[20:02] with the voting quite soon. So uh yeah
[20:04] if someone's interested in that and
[20:06] wants to hear like the the experience of
[20:08] that which is very positive but I'm
[20:10] happy to go into more detail there in
[20:12] person. Yeah come come find me talk to
[20:13] me.
[20:15] >> Brilliant. And and how much effort does
[20:16] it take? I assume a lot of it is within
[20:19] the final three months before the
[20:21] release or
[20:22] >> yes same throughout the year.
[20:24] >> The the great thing about having two
[20:26] people do that is that um basically
[20:29] every release is done by one person and
[20:31] then you're off for the next one. So um
[20:34] there is a there is a bit more of a time
[20:37] commitment in the um in the time leading
[20:39] up to that where we have around 10
[20:41] releases if everything goes well. So
[20:43] like four alpha releases, couple beta
[20:45] releases, a couple RC's, and then the
[20:48] release candidates are like the the more
[20:50] engaging phase where you make the most
[20:52] of the decisions as a release manager
[20:54] like which which feature still fits in
[20:56] the new next release, which feature
[20:58] needs to wait a bit because it's
[21:00] changing too many things or it's
[21:01] breaking stuff um and figuring figuring
[21:05] these things out. Um, but
[21:08] I say it's a rather manageable time
[21:11] commitment. Like now going forward for
[21:13] the next two years, I think like it's a
[21:16] Tuesday and a Thursday like a couple
[21:17] hours on on a Tuesday and uh an hour on
[21:20] a Thursday every month like once every
[21:23] month. So this is that's quite okay. And
[21:26] before that it's a bit more involved.
[21:28] Um, but it's definitely not uh something
[21:32] that you need to take time off from uh
[21:35] from your day job for to to do that.
[21:37] Especially if you work in a PHP company
[21:39] and this is like something you can talk
[21:41] to them about. It's like, hey, is it
[21:42] cool if I do this for a couple hours uh
[21:45] a month?
[21:47] >> Yeah. Well, thank you very much for all
[21:49] your efforts uh for because it's a great
[21:51] release 8.5.
[21:52] >> Thank you for putting up a conference.
[21:55] [laughter]
[21:55] >> That's right. Um I I because I actually
[21:59] that's that's another thing you talk
[22:00] about releases like people some people
[22:02] might just think oh it's just the big
[22:04] November release but actually there's
[22:05] lots of like patch releases throughout
[22:08] throughout the year. Is is there is it
[22:10] just when something needs doing or did
[22:12] you try and keep it at regular
[22:13] intervals? So this is kept on a regular
[22:16] interval and as a the release manager
[22:18] yourself you don't have to do a lot
[22:19] there because the people that work on
[22:22] core and work on um like assume like
[22:25] let's say there's a bug fix like some
[22:27] some some someone from from the PHP
[22:29] source team um will identify like in
[22:32] which version does that bug fix need to
[22:33] go into and they will make sure it lands
[22:35] in all the right branches. Um, and then
[22:38] you just come by and package all of that
[22:40] up and they probably have already taken
[22:43] care of the news uh as well. So like all
[22:45] you need to do is like look in the news
[22:46] file that's in the repository and then
[22:48] you already have your change log ready.
[22:50] Um so most of that work is done there
[22:53] and the um
[22:56] the more involved bits are more uh
[22:58] decision- making than like running
[23:00] running around and figuring that out
[23:02] just because the people who who work on
[23:04] PHP source are so diligent in in what
[23:06] they do and are so easy to work with.
[23:09] >> Sure. So I suppose in terms of uh
[23:12] deciding which features go in does that
[23:14] mean there might be an RFC which has
[23:15] been approved and all the work has been
[23:17] done but due to the nature of the
[23:20] changes you might say oh we're not going
[23:21] to put this in 8.5 we'll have to wait
[23:23] till 8.6. Is it those kind of decisions
[23:25] you need to make or does every RFC
[23:27] that's complete in time actually make it
[23:29] in?
[23:29] >> Everything that is completed in time
[23:31] makes it in. So it's not like um as a
[23:34] release manager you can say like oh that
[23:35] thing that's already in we're not going
[23:37] to release that uh because that's
[23:39] already in. But there is a there is a
[23:42] couple months time period where um you
[23:44] get to voice your opinions and um
[23:48] potentially reject changes that like oh
[23:50] we already released a couple alphas,
[23:52] people already started testing and now
[23:53] we want to make this like big
[23:54] fundamental change that is just a bit
[23:57] too much or a bit too dangerous or like
[24:00] someone has to make the call on like is
[24:02] this really a bug fix? Is this a
[24:03] feature? Is this a refactoring that is
[24:05] really necessary now? like what's the
[24:07] what's the benefit of doing this now
[24:09] versus doing that later. But yeah, all
[24:11] the work that has that has been done or
[24:13] that's going on during the year will um
[24:16] just be released. Let's go with that.
[24:19] And thankfully like everyone that's
[24:21] contributing to to core also seem like
[24:24] all the all the bugs I've seen all the
[24:27] problems I've seen are usually like just
[24:29] picked up by the people who um worked on
[24:32] that area because they all like want to
[24:34] have the stuff that they care about look
[24:36] good and work well. Um so it's it's it's
[24:38] not a lot of like you don't really have
[24:40] to run after people to get stuff figured
[24:42] out.
[24:44] >> Yeah.
[24:45] >> And I expect you get this question a
[24:46] lot. Who decides that the next release
[24:49] was 8.6 and not version 9? How's that
[24:53] decision made?
[24:55] >> I think there isn't like a single person
[24:57] that decides that. Um
[25:00] my understanding is that this like
[25:04] making the new version a major version
[25:05] just needs an RFC. So it basically needs
[25:08] like someone to say, "Hey, we should
[25:10] make the next version the the 90
[25:13] version." Um I think this is more of a
[25:16] natural thing of people coming together
[25:18] and being like oh like we have all these
[25:20] deprecations we maybe maybe we have like
[25:23] a really killer feature around the
[25:25] corner or like there's a big refactoring
[25:27] that we like someone has made like a
[25:29] great change but that is easier if we
[25:32] could clean up some of PHP's past uh and
[25:36] where the the people that work on on
[25:39] source come together and say like now it
[25:41] feels like a good time. Um, so like I
[25:45] know there has been some discussion if
[25:46] there should be an 86 or if there should
[25:48] be a 9. There's like maybe there is some
[25:51] marketing consideration, maybe there is
[25:53] some consideration of like we don't want
[25:55] to pile up all these deprecations and
[25:57] like do we already have a super clear
[25:59] migration path? How did the last release
[26:01] go?
[26:02] >> Yeah. So it it it's more of a community
[26:04] effort in that sense that just a lot of
[26:06] people discuss this and if it feels like
[26:08] the time is right, someone will make a
[26:10] proposal and then it's voted on.
[26:12] I see. And you largely are trying to get
[26:15] all the breaking changes
[26:17] uh just in like major releases.
[26:20] Is that the Yeah. Yeah. I mean
[26:22] [clears throat]
[26:23] >> minor breaking things in the in the in
[26:25] the you know
[26:26] >> Yeah. I mean some sometimes there's like
[26:28] a bug fix in in an external library that
[26:31] you could consider a breaking change and
[26:33] how it processes stuff, but that is also
[26:35] like technically the right thing it
[26:37] should be doing and a behavior people
[26:39] don't rely on. But like I think PHP has
[26:42] learned a lot from um 53 to 7 and or
[26:48] like when when seven came up like and
[26:51] then 56 I think was it and then we went
[26:53] to seven but like that wasn't an easy
[26:55] migration. Four to five wasn't an easy
[26:57] migration for people. I think um the
[26:59] industry took some lessons for there and
[27:02] then Python 2 to Python 3 reinforced
[27:05] those lessons as well with like there is
[27:08] a bunch of stuff that where people say
[27:10] like oh this looks a bit nicer but it
[27:12] just means you have to touch every every
[27:14] file of code that you have and it's not
[27:16] really a tangible benefit and I think
[27:18] the people that work on PHP have a good
[27:20] sense of how much of the internet is run
[27:23] by PHP and how how important that
[27:26] language is for the health of the web
[27:28] also like being a language that isn't
[27:30] funded by like one big company like
[27:32] there is no single organization that
[27:36] runs PHP or pays for it or does a lot of
[27:38] stuff like if you look at um the open
[27:41] collective page like there is
[27:44] a bunch of companies but but none of
[27:46] them has has has like a major share in
[27:48] the contribution and there is not like
[27:49] there isn't like a company that hire I
[27:52] don't think there is any company that
[27:53] hire employs more than two maybe three
[27:56] PHP core people
[27:58] >> and like those are not full-time either.
[28:01] >> Um I'm sure there is a company uh and
[28:04] I'm I'm I'm sorry for that but like just
[28:05] from the contributions that I'm seeing
[28:07] like this is a lot of the stuff comes
[28:09] from the PHP Foundation. Um, and it's
[28:12] not like there is something like with
[28:14] Golang where you have a billion dollar
[28:17] investment from one of the tech giants
[28:19] or something with TypeScript or
[28:20] JavaScript that big companies have an
[28:23] interest in owning the egg ecosystem to
[28:25] to to sell stuff. Um so yeah this works
[28:28] a bit different for for PHP I think and
[28:31] um that freedom also is quite nice
[28:34] because everyone that works on that
[28:35] really works works on it because they
[28:37] want to make it better and they want to
[28:40] contribute to it and not for oh like I'm
[28:42] just paid to do this like it's really
[28:44] nice attitudes of everyone.
[28:47] Yeah, it's always seems a really nice uh
[28:49] community, you know, when and every time
[28:51] you speak to people like the they're
[28:54] always really friendly and helpful. So,
[28:56] it's it's it's always good, I think.
[28:58] Yeah.
[28:58] >> And then from and then from the adaption
[29:01] that we're seeing like with our
[29:03] customers and hideways, there is of
[29:05] course still people who run seven and I
[29:07] hope they do that on on plans that where
[29:11] you still get external support for PHP.
[29:14] Um I think there is still a couple
[29:17] companies like with with tideways itself
[29:19] we still support PHP 72 or 73
[29:24] um like we we do support PHP 5 as well
[29:27] like we just don't change our um tooling
[29:30] um for that much anymore and um some
[29:33] things still work but I'm not seeing a
[29:35] lot of five out there um I think those
[29:37] projects are uh not being actively
[29:39] worked on um and more in in a in a very
[29:42] maintenance state But um especially for
[29:45] e-commerce which is also a chunk of the
[29:47] people that that work with us um 74 we
[29:50] still see some um and I think that's
[29:53] just the natural the natural way of
[29:55] having a language such a long and
[29:57] storied history and that has provided so
[29:59] much value that there is so much stuff
[30:02] out there that also just works um where
[30:06] I think security and uh is is more of
[30:08] the the reasons we eventually upgrade
[30:10] than anything else.
[30:13] M so that when we do eventually go to
[30:17] version 9 that pathway should be easier
[30:21] for people than say 5 to 7 or 7 to8 that
[30:24] that's that's kind of the hope is it
[30:26] >> I mean it is it I think that has always
[30:28] been the hope um I think we we can also
[30:31] make this a reality this time like um I
[30:34] think the the next um like all that if
[30:39] if you have a code base on 85 without
[30:42] seeing a lot of deprecations. And from
[30:45] what I'm seeing, like we do collect
[30:47] deprecation information from all of the
[30:49] people that run Tideways if they
[30:51] activate that feature. Um, it's looking
[30:54] quite good. Like there isn't a lot of
[30:55] like core stuff that that gets people.
[30:58] Um, I think if you run a mostly
[31:01] deprecationfree thing by either like
[31:04] looking at your logs or having a tool
[31:05] like like tideways or using some other
[31:08] way to to track that, then the upgrade
[31:10] to 9 should be rather painless from what
[31:13] I'm seeing now. But of course there will
[31:16] might also be a reason why we switch to
[31:18] nine to to change some other stuff. Um
[31:21] but I think like I said like everyone in
[31:23] that that works on core is quite aware
[31:25] of the of the impact of that and uh I
[31:28] think one of the important parts to
[31:29] realize about the PHP community is also
[31:32] that it is a lot of smaller communities
[31:35] that all don't talk so much to one
[31:37] another like WordPress is a big thing
[31:40] Drupal is a big thing is a big thing
[31:42] Laravel is a big thing and like all of
[31:44] these like communities exchange ideas
[31:46] but they also all do things a bit in
[31:48] their own way do these things a bit
[31:50] different and I don't think there is
[31:52] like the one right way to to to write
[31:54] PHP which is also the challenge for core
[31:56] like that you can't say like oh like
[31:59] here we here's a feature that should
[32:00] that make makes only sense if you do
[32:02] functional programming I think
[32:04] personally is something that really
[32:05] doesn't fit into PHP uh because like
[32:08] everything that the the core language
[32:09] has should serve all of these
[32:11] communities and like of course there is
[32:14] some APIs in PHP that are like only
[32:16] object-oriented um and that's something
[32:19] that has the language has built around.
[32:21] But like it it managed to stay rather
[32:23] generic to serve all of these different
[32:25] needs. And given that all of these
[32:28] communities also do provide feedback in
[32:30] their own way with for example Symfony
[32:32] and PHPUnit being really great at
[32:34] integrating against the current version
[32:36] like the the master the the master or
[32:38] main branch of the PHP repository. Uh
[32:40] and then you get feedback very early
[32:42] like when we broke something during the
[32:44] the first uh or second alpha release
[32:48] like I I was talking to the folks from
[32:50] composer about like hey like the symfony
[32:53] install broke this broke because of
[32:55] composer this broke because of this
[32:57] thing that like actually I put into PHP
[32:59] and then we got that fixed in a day uh
[33:02] just by having these like very quick
[33:03] feedback cycles. Uh and that's really
[33:06] cool.
[33:08] Yeah, I suppose it's really good that
[33:09] you do have these people kind of running
[33:11] really at the bleeding edge just to feed
[33:14] back those those kind of issues. And I
[33:17] imagine also like the whole all of the
[33:19] tech stack is is getting a lot more
[33:20] mature. Like you've got really good
[33:22] static analysis. You've got tools like
[33:24] recctor to help people upgrade from one
[33:26] version to the next. So I I kind of
[33:28] imagine that um and actually I think
[33:31] people are doing a lot more testing. You
[33:33] know, you've got PHPUnit, you've got
[33:35] pest, I suppose. I suppose that does
[33:37] mean that when people upgrade, you know,
[33:39] if they've at least got a test suite,
[33:41] you know, it can act as some kind of
[33:43] smoke test what what you know the what's
[33:45] going on in PHP. Uh so I suspect if all
[33:49] of those practices improve and people
[33:50] take uh you take up all of these tooling
[33:53] then that does mean that your feedback
[33:55] will be will be a lot quicker I suppose.
[33:58] >> Absolutely. Yes. Like I think there is
[34:00] like the people you talked about now I
[34:03] think mostly are like application
[34:04] developers that work on more custom
[34:06] applications. Then there is of course
[34:08] like a big chunk of the ecosystem is
[34:09] people running software written in PHP
[34:11] is people running Drupal is people
[34:13] running Shopware um or or other things.
[34:17] And for them they like they upgrade when
[34:20] the hostet tells them to upgrade or they
[34:22] update when um
[34:24] >> they they run out of security support
[34:26] for a thing hopefully. and um or they
[34:29] update because the new version has like
[34:31] performance benefits that they've heard
[34:32] about and they want to see that or to
[34:34] get rid of a bug or something like this
[34:35] is usually what motivates or they just
[34:37] like have a well organized IT setup
[34:39] where they just want to be on current
[34:41] versions for like to to be protected uh
[34:45] always and to to manage their
[34:46] infrastructure. And like these are two
[34:49] very different feedbacks that you get
[34:51] from from people who can fix their own
[34:53] bugs or from people that are dependent
[34:55] on vendors to to do stuff. Um but of
[34:57] course uh you get more detailed and more
[35:00] frequent feedback of course from the
[35:01] people who actually like develop these
[35:03] applications than you get from the
[35:05] people who run them.
[35:07] >> Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you know you
[35:09] see the I don't know sometimes I learn
[35:12] about language features you know when
[35:14] you have this what's new in PHP the
[35:16] latest version and then normally at the
[35:18] end of those talks people have a whole
[35:19] series deprecations and stuff they've
[35:21] been removed and often I learn about
[35:24] language features at the point they're
[35:26] being removed because they just seem
[35:28] some of them just seem absolutely crazy
[35:29] that they they existed in the first
[35:31] place and I imagine uh if you're quite
[35:34] conservative about your PHP usage and
[35:36] you stick to like uh like just the
[35:39] fundamental main bits, then you're
[35:41] probably going to be okay on the
[35:42] upgrades really. I can never really
[35:44] remember having any difficulty on a a
[35:46] PHP version upgrade, you know. say even
[35:48] from 7 to 8 and 5 to 7.
[35:51] >> I think one of the one of the more
[35:53] frustrating things for um for that
[35:57] ecosystem is of course you you mostly
[35:59] hear from the most vocal people that
[36:02] struggle maybe with a tiny thing that um
[36:04] would take 5 minutes to fix and takes
[36:07] hours to complain about. Um but uh that
[36:11] is just people who might like have a lot
[36:14] of stuff to do on their job and now that
[36:16] also happened and now that is really
[36:17] annoying to them but it's actually not a
[36:19] big change. They might just not be very
[36:21] familiar with with with what they're
[36:22] doing there or they might not stay up to
[36:24] date. So thinking about these people and
[36:26] being respectful of their time I think
[36:27] is as important as people who like come
[36:30] to PHP with an issue and say this broke
[36:33] something also being respectful and like
[36:35] the easiest way to to make sure that
[36:37] your stuff works is of course to test it
[36:39] before we make a new release because
[36:40] then we can discuss that and change
[36:42] things. Uh but yeah just due to the
[36:45] nature and the age of PHP there is a a
[36:47] lot of stuff in there like I think PHP
[36:49] has always um over the years like been a
[36:53] language where if you had a very
[36:54] specific problem especially like in the
[36:56] in the earlier like 2 three four days
[36:58] like you could put that in PHP and you
[37:00] had like your very specific solution to
[37:02] your very specific problem and now like
[37:04] the standard library is not changing as
[37:07] much like new things like the um the new
[37:10] random extension or the the URI passer
[37:13] or something are built into their own
[37:15] name spaces so they fit like very well
[37:16] with um with the rest of the ecosystem
[37:19] but uh the the real core functions
[37:22] aren't touched so much because it's just
[37:25] hard to not break people's things
[37:28] >> um and like also for people who want to
[37:32] now put features in PHP like come from
[37:34] very different backgrounds in how they
[37:35] write applications and like what they
[37:37] want to do and um I think over the years
[37:40] PHP has adapted features from all other
[37:43] programming languages. Um, and like
[37:47] sometimes there I feel like there's a
[37:48] checklist of like, oh, this language has
[37:50] a feature like with a syntax that
[37:52] doesn't fit in PHP. Can we cram that in
[37:54] as well? Um, as a bit of a joke, of
[37:57] course, but like people get inspired by
[37:59] a lot of stuff and are like, why doesn't
[38:00] PHP have that? And because the language
[38:02] is so welcoming to to changes, um, a lot
[38:06] of that stuff then happens. So, uh, I
[38:08] think it's quite fun to see like all the
[38:10] little bits and pieces coming coming
[38:11] together.
[38:14] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I found this really
[38:17] interesting actually just finding out
[38:18] what happens uh I suppose from the
[38:20] release manager point and how the
[38:22] language is um put together and and all
[38:25] the additional constraints that you have
[38:26] to work with things that perhaps most
[38:28] developers don't think about because
[38:30] they just think about their own you know
[38:33] sphere of knowledge they know about. So,
[38:35] uh, thank you very much for all the work
[38:37] you do on we've done and for getting PHP
[38:40] 8.5 out. Uh, I'm looking forward to your
[38:42] talk at, uh, PHP UK conference, uh,
[38:45] which is on the February the 20th, uh,
[38:48] of, uh, 2026 in London. Um, so I look
[38:52] forward to to seeing you there and thank
[38:53] you for having this taking this time for
[38:55] this chat.
[38:56] >> Very excited to be there and, uh, yeah,
[38:58] looking forward to it and thank you very
[39:00] much. That was a great conversation, a
[39:02] lot of fun.