100th post – retrospective: 6.5 years, PHP 7.2 to 8.4, Magento 2.2 to 2.4.8
This is the 100th post on this blog. I started writing in July 2018, documenting what I was learning and building. 6.5 years, PHP 7.2 through 8.4, Magento 2.2 through 2.4.8, 100 posts. A retrospective – what changed, what stayed the same, and what I would tell myself in 2018 if I could.
- Published in Magento / Adobe Commerce, PHP
PHP 8.5 RFCs – pipe operator, readonly inheritance, why generics are not coming yet
PHP 8.5 RFCs are actively being discussed on the php.net internals list. The pipe operator proposal has been debated for years and may finally ship. Readonly property inheritance fixes an inconsistency. Generics are discussed but will not come in 8.5. I look at the most impactful proposals, show what the code would look like, and explain why generics remain out of reach in the short term.
- Published in PHP
Custom indexer – mview.xml, flat table, full and partial reindex, cron-triggered
Magento 2 indexers maintain denormalised data structures – flat tables, price indexes, category-product mappings – that make frontend queries fast. The built-in indexers cover most needs, but complex custom features sometimes need their own. I show how to build a custom indexer from scratch: mview.xml for change tracking, the indexer class with full and partial reindex, and triggering via cron.
- Published in Magento / Adobe Commerce
PHP / Magento trends 2025 – FrankenPHP, AI tooling update, OpenSearch, Hyvä consolidation
2025 is shaping up as a year of consolidation in the PHP ecosystem. FrankenPHP changes how PHP applications are deployed. AI tooling has matured from “experimental toy” to “daily assistant”. OpenSearch has fully replaced Elasticsearch in the Magento ecosystem. Hyvä has become the default frontend choice. I review where things stand and what is worth learning in the next twelve months.
- Published in PHP