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The Network as Data Storage

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Just like a file, a socket is an ordered stream of data. Do you know what’s also ordered? You’re right, a queue. So the network is essentially a queue. You know any of those fancy job processing systems, like Gearman or RabbitMQ? We can use the network to achieve some of their features, without any infrastructure.

I'm writing a book about socket programming in PHP

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Since 2012 lots of people have read this blog post about socket programming. It’s the most read post on this blog, year after year. It even got translated into two other languages than English. Many people are sending me questions by email.

Now I’m writing a little book, to make a more comprehensive look at socket programming in PHP.

The book will launch in Fall 2014. You can subscribe now to my mailing list to get the entire first chapter for free, get early access to the launch, and a code for a 20% discount.

Get your free sample chapter now!

Official Heroku PHP support updated with Composer, HHVM and NGINX support

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A long due update to the Heroku PHP buildpack —which adds support for modern PHP development— is now in public beta. Their Devcenter Article has more info.

You know what’s really awesome about it? You can require heroku/heroku-buildpack-php in your Composer dev requirements and run your apps locally with a Procfile and Foreman, just like every other supported language on Heroku.

Congrats David Zülke!

PSA: Once the official PHP buildpack is stable, I plan to no longer support my own PHP buildpack.