2 \ November 2018 \ http://www.phparch.comEditorial
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Issue's Code
Archive:
http://phpa.me/Nov2018_codeGenerics and Project
Success
Oscar Merida
Providing a good foundation for your
application pays off in the long run by
reducing technical debt, finding bugs
earlier, and making it faster to add
features. This month we look at how
generics could make your code concise,
other new features you should be using,
practices to keep your Laravel applica-
tion easy to upgrade, and the project
management practices to avoid if you
want to succeed.
The majority of the time you’ll spend
reading and maintaining existing code.
That does not mean you should not
look to improve it when you’re fixing
a bug or adding a new feature—bonus
points if you can actually set aside time
to refactor code. Yes, this is easier said
than done. It can feel like managers
just want to see new bells-and-whis-
tles added at each sprint. The practices
we use to organize our teams to meet
goals and deadlines may not be opti-
mal—or work against us—and it’s easy
to get overwhelmed. But you can make
things better, just not all at once. Find
one thing to tweak or change, like start-
ing to have formal code reviews. Talk
to your managers and colleagues and
find common ground where you can
collaborate to improve. It won’t happen
overnight, and there will always be
something that can be done better but
every step you take to work smarter will
be worth it.
Leading off this issue, Chris Holland
makes The Case for Generics in PHP. He
starts by explaining how generics are
used in other programming languages
and what kind of problems they help
to solve. Jason McCreary returns to
write again about Maintaining Laravel
Applications. He’s sifted through the
upgrade data collected by his Laravel
Shift service to identify the practices
which keep a Laravel codebase main-
tainable and easy to upgrade. In How
to Knock Down Any Project in Ten Steps,
Paweł Lewtak draws on his experience
to identify the management practices
which can derail any software project.
If you’re new to PHP or an old hand,
Junior Grossi writes Getting Started
With Php? Let’s Start the Right Way! to
look at how PHP has evolved and iden-
tify the features you should adopt when
writing code.
Jump over to The Workshop by Joe
Ferguson to continue Producing Pack-
ages, Part Two and read about the
importance of picking a license and
writing good documentation for your
library. Eric Mann writes about Five
Risks to Look for In a Code Review in
November’s Security Corner. You may
be used to looking for quality and main-
tenance issues in a code review, but don’t
overlook the chance to also ensure your
application is more secure during one.
In Community Corner, James Titcumb
will help you in Leveling Up (long-time
readers will recognize this as the name
of David Stockton’s defunct column) by
sharing resources you can use to keep
up with the pace of change in the tech
industry. If one of your team members
is not performing as expected, Chris
Tankersley will guide you in having The
Ta l k in The Dev Lead Trenches. You’ll
learn the steps to address the issue
professionally. In Education Station:
The Day the Internet Died, Edward
Barnard looks back at how the Morris
worm changed the internet and forced
early web denizens to take information
system security seriously. To finish the
issue, Eli White continues his tour of
The Seven Deadly Sins of Programming:
Sloth in finally{}. Yes, a measure of lazi-
ness can be a virtue but in excess, it will
end up hurting you.