Symfony Station Communique - 22 October 2021. A Look at Symfony and PHP News.
Tags: symfony, php, api, doctrine
Published: 2021-10-22 14:21:00

This post originally appeared on [Symfony Station](https://symfonystation.com).
 
Welcome to this week's Symfony Station Communique. It’s your weekly review of the most valuable and essential news in the Symfony and PHP development communities.
 
*My opinions, if I present any, will be in italics.


##Symfony


###This week


As always, we will start with the official news from Symfony.

Highlight -> “the upcoming Symfony 6.0 version continued polishing some of its new features, such as the new debug:dotenv command, the profiler improvement to display authenticators information, and the support of auto-wiring union and intersection types. In addition, we announced the workshops and the first speakers of the SymfonyWorld Online 2021 Winter Edition conference.”

[A Week of Symfony #772](https://symfony.com/blog/a-week-of-symfony-772-11-17-october-2021) (11-17 October, 2021)



They also announced the second round of speakers for December’s SymfonyWorld.

Second Round of Selected Speakers at [SymfonyWorld 2021 Online 2021 Winter Conference](
https://symfony.com/blog/second-round-of-selected-speakers-at-symfonyworld-2021-online-2021-winter-conference)
 
And they updated the UI of their documentation for a better UX.
 
Redesigning the [Symfony Docs website](
https://symfony.com/blog/redesigning-the-symfony-docs-website)
 
 
SymfonyCasts once again looks at Doctrine Relations and using Foundry.

[This week on SymfonyCasts]( 
https://5hy9x.r.ag.d.sendibm3.com/mk/mr/sI0da_67W0DKsdFHUaugYCPNKI1RKpaYI5r2CxTzktKFHInkZ21EP_ZzGRufIMXpYbm9DpIKj-A5uiu2zscJ7OShtfs3Lpc-qwfGn7upoA2x1Br7yaUajrFiXmzL_tR3P6jRe4G9qA)

Johan Vervloet wanted to try using Twig components in combination with Stimulus for the frontend of dikdikdik, a hobby webapp he maintains. This is what happened.

Trying out [Symfony Twig Components]
(https://blog.johanv.org//posts/trying-out-symfony-live-components/)

He followed that post up with this one.

My First [Symfony Live Component]
(https://blog.johanv.org/posts/first-symfony-live-component/)

Sensio University Labs recently attended the API Platform Conference and share their favorite presentations.

8 talks to inspire you from the [API Platform Conference 2021](https://university.sensiolabs.com/news/2021-10-20/8-talks-to-inspire-you-from-the-api-platform-conference-2021)

Walter Carabain tells us why we should stop repeating ourselves and leverage service classes in our applications.

[3 Useful services for Symfony applications](
https://woutercarabain.com/webdevelopment/3-useful-services-for-symfony-applications/)


###Last Week


He also notes that when developing a large scale application the software often needs to perform many different tasks. This can consume too much time. Because you want your application to be fast and offer a great user experience you don’t need to process these tasks immediately. This is where the Symfony Messenger component comes into play.

[Using the Symfony Messenger component](https://woutercarabain.com/webdevelopment/using-the-symfony-messenger-component/)


###Timeless


ZYXWare wants you to learn about Symfony and its relationship with Drupal.

What is Symfony and Why EOL of [Drupal Versions Depend on Symfony?](https://www.zyxware.com/articles/6069/what-is-symfony-and-why-eol-of-drupal-versions-depend-on-symfony)


##PHP


###This week


The October 2021 issue of PHP Architect is now available.  In the issue: Cryptography, SQL Schema Design, Security, and more.

[Get your copy](https://www.phparch.com/magazine/2021/10/decrypting-cryptography/).
 
null corresponds to PHP's unit type, i.e. the type which holds a single value. It is currently not possible to use null as a type declaration on its own. As per its nature of it being the unit type, it cannot hold any information. This RFC looks to change that.

[PHP RFC: Allow null as standalone type](https://wiki.php.net/rfc/null-standalone-type)

Abstract classes in PHP are used to extend other classes. They’re implemented when more than one class uses the same logic. They are good for readability and for hiding smaller (obvious) details to make our life simpler.

[PHP Abstract Classes Explained](https://dev.to/eelcoverbrugge/php-abstract-classes-10eh)

Shubhdeep Rajput makes the case for writing secure PHP Scripts.

Best Practices for [writing secure PHP scripts](https://medium.com/bobble-engineering/best-practices-for-writing-secure-php-scripts-98787502eacd)
 
Simon Ugorji notes that nesting a ternary operation is like having multiple if/else statements.
 
[How to write a nested ternary operation](https://simon-ugorji.medium.com/how-to-write-a-nested-tenary-operator-287f304cfe27)
 
Antoine Sueur proposes that we take an interest in PHPMailer which will allow us to create a functional contact form to receive emails from our users. This article is in french but it’s on Medium so your browser should translate it.

[PHPMailer : Contact form](https://medium.com/@antoine.sueur17/phpmailer-formulaire-de-contact-6cc890e0d133)
 
Also on Medium another Antoine says if you handle sensitive data, encrypting files before storing them on a server or cloud storage may be necessary. Let’s see how to encrypt and decrypt files in PHP with the openssl_encrypt function.

[How to encrypt files in PHP?](https://medium.com/@antoine.lame/how-to-encrypt-files-with-php-f4adead297de)
 

###Last Week
 

This one is self-explanatory.

[PhpStorm 2021.2.3 is released](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2021/10/phpstorm-2021-2-3-is-released/)
 
Matt Glaman reports that with the 0.12.15 release, the ability to detect and report usages of deprecated services should have full coverage! 

phpstan-drupal 0.12.15: [Improved detection of deprecated service usage](https://mglaman.dev/blog/phpstan-drupal-01215-improved-detection-deprecated-service-usage)

Doken.org provides a quick and enlightening lesson in computer science. Let's branch out a bit, and root ourselves in some Graph Theory.

[Trees and Tree Traversal in PHP](https://doeken.org/blog/tree-traversal-in-php)


##Other


Foreign Affairs writes about how States have been the primary actors in global affairs for nearly 400 years. That is starting to change, as a handful of large technology companies rival them for geopolitical influence.

The Technopolar Moment: [How Digital Powers Will Reshape the Global Order](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-10-19/ian-bremmer-big-tech-global-order)

Here’s a look at how two of my favorite tools work together.

[How Trello Makes Communication Better For Slack Users](https://blog.trello.com/trello-makes-communication-better-for-slack-users)

Along similar lines Toptal looks at communication within engineering teams.

[The Importance of Written Communication for Engineering Teams](https://www.toptal.com/engineering-management/written-communication-workplace)

Venture Beat reports that Intel open-sourced ControlFlag, a tool that uses machine learning to detect problems in computer code — ideally to reduce the time required to debug apps and software.

Intel open-sources [AI-powered tool to spot bugs in code](https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/20/intel-open-sources-ai-powered-tool-to-spots-bugs-in-code/)
 
That's it for this week. I look forward to sharing next week's Symfony and PHP news with you on Friday. 
 
Please share this post. :)
 
Happy coding Symfonistas!
 
![Photo of Reuben Walker](https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/029e7d9a-e63f-4682-93b6-9b0642aa546c/blob-0005.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1280)

Reuben Walker
Founder Symfony Station
Reuben is also Ringmaster of Mobile Atom Media and its division Mobile Atom Code.