The New New PHP

PHP 7, it's new, released last fall and makes life better. PHP 6 never happened it was just PHP 5.3. This talk was by Larry Garfield of Platform.sh

What is new?

One of the most important releases in a decade, biggest change since PHP 5. You can view the slides to this presentation on his website

1. Return Types
   • As of PHP 7 we have return types.
   • not nullable (good)
     • helps with error handling because Type system will handle weird edge cases
   • Returning false on error is a big 'screw you' to your users
2. Type Specs
   • full type list with new new type specs
     • int *new
     • float *new
     • string *new
     • bool *new
     • array
     • callable
     • any class name
   • random zip codes need to be strings because some start with 0 and integers cannot start with 0
   • Strict vs Weak mode
     • in Weak by default
       • string -> int may E_NOTICE
     • Strict
       • ```php

       declare(strict_types=1);

  class Address inplements AddressInterface {
    public function _construct(string $street, string $city, string $state) {
      // ...
    }
    public function getZip() :string {
      // ...
    }
  }
  ```
  - Int convers to float automatically if needed.
  - When should you use strict types
    - 90% of the time
    - (everywhere except input)
      - on input everything is a string to start
  - Also, Documentation
    - Stict typing makes it so you don't need too much documentation

1. T_SPACESHIP <=>
   • Does cool stuff
2. NULL coalesce!
   • $username = $username ?? 'Anyonmous';
     • returns username is it is defined & not null.
     • used to be: $username = isset($username) && !is_null($username) ?: 'Anyonymous';
3. CSPRNG! (Crypotgraphically Secure Psedudo-...)
   • Cryptography is hard!
   • rand() isn't actually random - DONT USE THIS FOR CRYPTOGRAPHY!
   • mctypt() don't use that either
   • openssl is hard to use
   • $junk = random_bytes(16);
   • $val = random)int(1, 100);
   • Only use random_byes() random_int()
4. Fakes
   • Mocking is hard
   • Fakes are easy
5. Type Errors
   • Fatal errors Suck!
   • Recoverable errors... aren't actually recoverable
   • You can actually catch type errors

   -

    try {
      // ...
    }
    catch (\ParseError $e) {
      // ...
    }
   

   • Exceptions: the user screwed up
   • Errors: the coder screwed up
6. Expectations
   • Assertions suck
   • it makes assert not suck
7. Generators
   • iterators are hard.
   • Icicle io
8. Uniform varialbe syntax
   • Always Left-To-Right

   - ```php $foo()'bar'; [$obj1, $ob2][0]->prop; getStr(){0} $foo['bar']::$baz;

(...)['foo'];
(...)->foo;

(function() { ... })();
($obj->closure)();
```

PHP 7 is really really fast! How did it do that? Too nerdy... basically the PHP engine rewrote most of the PHP engine to be faster.

Drupal on PHP 7 is WAYY faster than Wordpress like 3+X faster! You can see 50% improvement in speed just by switching to PHP 7. If you take away nothing else from this switching to PHP 7 is the best performance boost you can do. PHP 7 is the most tested .0 release of PHP ever, it's safe.

PHP 7-ready hosts: 34 listed on phpversions.info/php-7 meaning you can run Drupal 8 on PHP 7 today!

PHP 7 is the correct way to run Drupal 8