Author Archives: Mark Baker

Type the List: A Proposal to support type-casting in PHP’s list language construct

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Mark Baker

I wrote recently about some changes that I’d like to propose for list() in core PHP for version 8.3: namely that it should work with iterables as well with arrays, and that it should allow a variadic “argument” that would … Continue reading →

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Default the List: A Proposal to support default values in PHP’s list language construct

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Mark Baker

I wrote recently about some changes that I’d like to propose for list() in core PHP for version 8.3: namely that it should work with iterables as well with arrays, and that it should allow a variadic “argument” that would … Continue reading →

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Splat the List: A Proposal to support Variadics in PHP’s list language construct

Posted on June 26, 2022 by Mark Baker

I was thinking recently about how useful PHP’s splat operator (…), also known as variadics or array packing/unpacking, can be. I’ve written about variadics before, here and here. Variadics are incredibly powerful and useful; but there are still some limitations … Continue reading →

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List-o-mania

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Mark Baker

The list() language construct is one of the most powerful constructs in PHP, allowing you to assign one or more elements from an array to specific named variables in a single step; but it may not work in quite the … Continue reading →

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PHP 8.2 – The Release of Deprecations

Posted on May 22, 2022 by Mark Baker

The release date for PHP 8.2 has been announced, with General Availability set for the 24th November 2022; the release managers have been elected with Ben Ramsey (@ramsey) as the “veteran” supporting Pierrick Charron (@adoyy) and Sergey Panteleev (@s_panteleev) as … Continue reading →

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Cassie’s First Night

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Mark Baker

It’s been a long time since I last finished any of the short stories that I write. This short piece was written 8-years ago. For some reason, I was reminded about it just this evening. It isn’t that I don’t … Continue reading →

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Support the whole PHP Ecosystem

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Mark Baker

Just a few short weeks ago, for a 24 Days in December post, I wrote about remembering all of the Open Source Maintainers that create and support the tools that we all use as developer in our daily work. It … Continue reading →

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Reflections on Thought and Expression

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Mark Baker

For me, it’s been a particularly difficult and traumatic last few months of 2021. Not simply because of the whole covid situation, or the usual stresses of work; but because I started taking therapy over the Summer. I know that … Continue reading →

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The Wonderful World of Callbacks

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Mark Baker

Anybody that has read any of my previous blog posts or looked at my code samples before should know that I’m a big fan of using callbacks. Whether it’s simply using callbacks with those standard functions that accept them as … Continue reading →

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ReadOnly Gotchas – A few more limitations with PHP 8.1 ReadOnly Properties

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Mark Baker

Last month I wrote about the new readonly properties in PHP 8.1, and the difficulties if you want to clone an object that uses them (together with a couple of potential solutions to that problem). The inability to clone an … Continue reading →

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