Senior Laravel Developer Insights

A Laravel Package Code Quality Stack That Survives Version Drift

Andrej Prus — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A practical Laravel package maintenance guide for Pest, PHPStan, Rector, Pint, matrix CI, release gates, and compatibility checks that catch version drift early.

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AI Search Optimization for Laravel Websites in 2026

Andrej Prus — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A 2026 playbook for AI search optimization in Laravel: schema, content depth, llms.txt, sitemaps, IndexNow, and measurable visibility.

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Splitting Laravel Boost Guidelines Into Focused Package Partials

Andrej Prus — Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A package-maintainer pattern for composing Laravel Boost AI guidelines from Blade partials without turning core.blade.php into an unreadable wall of instructions.

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Keep SQLite Alive During Laravel Forge Zero-Downtime Deployments

Andrej Prus — Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A practical deployment guide for running SQLite on Laravel Forge without losing data when zero-downtime releases switch the current symlink.

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Laravel AI SDK Sub-Agents as a Clean Orchestration Pattern

Andrej Prus — Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A practical guide to Laravel AI SDK sub-agents, specialist agent boundaries, tool exposure, queueing, testing, and production orchestration patterns.

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Authenticating Any Eloquent Model in a Laravel Sanctum API

Andrej Prus — Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production guide to using Laravel Sanctum tokens for projects, tenants, devices, and organizations instead of forcing every API request through User.

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Laravel Addressable for Polymorphic Addresses on Eloquent Models

Andrej Prus — Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production-focused guide to Laravel Addressable, polymorphic addresses, billing and shipping relations, eager loading, primary addresses, metadata, and spatial queries.

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Wirebones Generates Livewire Skeletons from the Real DOM

Andrej Prus — Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A detailed guide to Wirebones, Livewire lazy placeholders, DOM-based skeleton generation, responsive capture, CI checks, and production deployment.

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Building Laravel Recommendations with MongoDB Vector Search

Andrej Prus — Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production guide to Laravel recommendations with MongoDB Vector Search, embeddings, Atlas indexes, queued refreshes, filters, caching, and safe UI output.

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PHP Container Best Practices: Alpine Images, Multi-Stage & OCI Labels

Andrej Prus — Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Production Docker guide for PHP - minimal Alpine base images, multi-stage builds, non-root users, and health check configuration.

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Generics in PHP: Current Workarounds and What the Future Holds

Andrej Prus — Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Explores PHP's current lack of runtime generics: PHPDoc template annotations, Psalm and PHPStan generics, and the current RFC landscape.

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PHP 8.5 Property Hooks in Laravel

Andrej Prus — Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A practical guide to PHP 8.5 property hooks in Laravel, including safe use cases, Eloquent boundaries, DTO patterns, and SEO-friendly examples.

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PHP Webhooks With Filament: Admin Panels and Webhook Monitoring UI

Andrej Prus — Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Builds a Filament v3 admin panel with a webhook log viewer, retry controls, and signature verification status dashboard.

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Laravel Pulse: Real-Time Application Monitoring Dashboard Explained

Andrej Prus — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Practical guide to Laravel Pulse: setting up, configuring recorders, creating custom cards, and interpreting performance metrics.

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Laravel Schema Sentinel Turns Schema Drift into a CI Problem

Andrej Prus — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production guide to Laravel Schema Sentinel, schema drift detection, strict checks, generated fixes, CI gates, admin health checks, and release workflows.

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PHP Benchmarking 101: phpbench, Xdebug Profiler & Flame Graphs

Andrej Prus — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces phpbench for micro-benchmarks, Xdebug callgrind output, and flame graph visualization for identifying hot paths.

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Environment Configuration in PHP: .env Files, Secrets & Vault Integration

Andrej Prus — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Best practices for managing config - dotenv libraries, secrets management with HashiCorp Vault, and runtime injection in containers.

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Laravel 13 Multi-tenancy in Production

Andrej Prus — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production Laravel 13 multi-tenancy guide covering database isolation, tenant routing, queues, analytics, security, and SEO-safe tenant pages.

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Hexagonal Architecture in PHP: Practical Ports and Adapters Implementation

Andrej Prus — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Builds a complete hexagonal architecture example - domain model, use cases, ports, and adapters for HTTP, CLI, and database.

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PHP Data Transfer Objects: Validation, Casting and Immutability Patterns

Andrej Prus — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Shows multiple DTO patterns in PHP, including readonly classes, Spatie DTO package, validation at construction, and collection helpers.

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Building a PHP SDK: HTTP Client Abstraction, Retries & Test Fakes

Andrej Prus — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Full tutorial for designing a third-party PHP SDK - fluent interface, PSR-18 HTTP client, retry middleware, and testable fakes.

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Surviving Legacy Laravel Modernization

Andrej Prus — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A practical Laravel modernization plan for legacy applications, covering tests, PHP upgrades, PHPStan, SEO regressions, and safe delivery.

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PHP Refactoring Handbook: How to Modernize Legacy Codebases Safely

Andrej Prus — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Systematic approach to legacy PHP modernization - strangler fig pattern, characterization tests, dependency inversion, and incremental upgrades.

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PHP Memory Management: Reference Counting, Garbage Collection & Leaks

Andrej Prus — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Explains PHP's zval memory model, reference cycles, gc_collect_cycles, and tools like Valgrind and xDebug for leak detection.

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PHP Workers and Queues: Supervisor, Horizon & Zero-Downtime Deploys

Andrej Prus — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Production guide for managing PHP queue workers - Supervisor config, graceful restarts, deploy coordination, and alerting setup.

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Laravel Octane Production Checklist

Andrej Prus — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A production Laravel Octane checklist for safe workers, memory, queues, database connections, Core Web Vitals, and measurable SEO performance gains.

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Laravel Zero: Build Powerful PHP CLI Applications and Distribute Them

Andrej Prus — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Walks through building, testing, and compiling a Laravel Zero CLI tool to a PHAR with self-update and platform-specific builds.

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Securing Laravel APIs: Passport vs Sanctum vs JWT Deep Comparison

Andrej Prus — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Evaluates three Laravel auth strategies for APIs - comparing token types, setup complexity, revocation, and mobile app scenarios.

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PHPStan Level 9 on Existing Laravel

Andrej Prus — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A step-by-step PHPStan Level 9 adoption plan for existing Laravel applications, with baselines, module cleanup, CI rules, and SEO-safe releases.

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Understanding PHP Stream API: File I/O, Wrappers & Custom Protocols

Andrej Prus — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Explores PHP streams - wrappers, filters, stream contexts, and building custom stream wrappers for exotic storage backends.

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Full-Text Search in PHP: Elasticsearch, Meilisearch & Laravel Scout

Andrej Prus — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Compares search backends, integrates each with Laravel Scout, and benchmarks relevance and performance on large datasets.

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Symfony UX Components: Turbo, Stimulus & Live Components in 2026

Andrej Prus — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to build dynamic UIs in Symfony with UX Turbo page transitions, Stimulus controllers, and real-time Live Components.

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PHP Profiling in Production: Blackfire, Tideways & SPX Compared

Andrej Prus — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Evaluates three PHP profilers for production use - setup, overhead, callgraph visualizations, and alerting on regressions.

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Laravel Precognition: Real-Time Validation Without Full Form Submission

Andrej Prus — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Deep-dive into Precognition - how it works, how to set it up with Inertia and Livewire, and front-end integration patterns.

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Building a PHP Blog Engine From Scratch: No Framework, Clean Code

Andrej Prus — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Builds a feature-complete blog - routing, templating, SQLite storage, markdown support - using only the PHP standard library.

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Building Webhooks in PHP: Payload Validation, Retries & Idempotency

Andrej Prus — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to implement a robust webhook receiver - HMAC signature verification, duplicate detection, and async processing patterns.

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PHP Event Loops Explained: How ReactPHP and Amp Handle Concurrency

Andrej Prus — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Demystifies event loops, non-blocking I/O, and timer scheduling in PHP, comparing ReactPHP streams vs Amp channels.

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PHP Code Review Checklist: 50 Things Senior Developers Always Check

Andrej Prus — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A comprehensive, annotated code review checklist covering naming, error handling, security, performance, and testability issues.

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PHP and PostgreSQL: Advanced Queries, JSONB & Full-Text Search

Andrej Prus — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Explores PostgreSQL-specific features from PHP - JSONB querying, array columns, CTEs, and pg_query for performance-critical apps.

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API Design Best Practices for PHP Developers: REST, HATEOAS & OpenAPI

Andrej Prus — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Covers API design fundamentals - hypermedia controls, status codes, versioning, and generating OpenAPI docs from PHP attributes.

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Testing Laravel Applications: Feature Tests, Mocking & Database Factories

Andrej Prus — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Covers Laravel's HTTP test helpers, Mockery integration, database factory states, and running tests against in-memory SQLite.

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Pest PHP 3 New Features: Architectural Testing & Mutation Testing

Andrej Prus — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Covers Pest 3's new architectural assertions, built-in mutation testing, how it compares with Infection PHP, and snapshot testing support.

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PHP 9.0 Preview: What's Coming and How to Prepare Your Codebase

Andrej Prus — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Early look at PHP 9.0 planned changes - removal of deprecated features, new syntax proposals, and migration path from 8.x.

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Laravel Volt & Folio: Single-File Components and Page-Based Routing

Andrej Prus — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Explores Laravel Folio's file-based routing and Volt's single-file Livewire components for rapid full-stack PHP development.

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PHP Rate Limiting Strategies: Token Bucket, Sliding Window & Redis

Andrej Prus — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Implements three rate-limiting algorithms in PHP with Redis, covering distributed locking, graceful degradation, and HTTP 429 responses.

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SOLID Principles in PHP: Practical Examples for Better Code Quality

Andrej Prus — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Demonstrates each SOLID principle with before/after PHP refactoring examples, showing how they reduce coupling and increase cohesion.

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Building a PHP Package for Packagist: From Scratch to First Release

Andrej Prus — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Full guide to designing, testing, documenting, and publishing a PHP library on Packagist with SemVer and GitHub releases.

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PHP Observability: Logging, Tracing & Metrics With OpenTelemetry

Andrej Prus — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Implements the three pillars of observability in PHP - structured logging, distributed tracing, and Prometheus metrics with OTEL PHP SDK.

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Symfony 7 Migration Guide: What Changed and How to Upgrade Safely

Andrej Prus — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Step-by-step upgrade path from Symfony 6 to 7 - breaking changes, removed components, new features, and automated migration tools.

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PHP Type System Mastery: Union, Intersection & Never Types Explained

Andrej Prus — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Comprehensive guide to PHP's evolving type system - union, nullable, intersection, never, and void types with strict mode best practices.

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Laravel Reverb: Build Real-Time WebSocket Apps Without Third-Party Services

Andrej Prus — Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces Laravel's first-party WebSocket server - setup, horizontal scaling, authentication, and broadcasting channel integration.

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Database Indexing Strategies for PHP Apps: B-Trees, Full-Text & Composite

Andrej Prus — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Explains index types, covering indexes, partial indexes, and full-text search with practical MySQL and PostgreSQL PHP examples.

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PHP and AI: Integrating ChatGPT & Claude APIs Into Your PHP Application

Andrej Prus — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Practical tutorial for calling LLM APIs from PHP - streaming responses, function calling, context management, and cost optimization.

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Modern PHP Development Workflow: Git, CI/CD, Docker & GitHub Actions

Andrej Prus — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

End-to-end guide for a professional PHP dev workflow - feature branches, automated tests, Docker builds, and zero-downtime deploys.

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What the Next Generation of Languages Is Teaching Us About How We Think Today

Andrej Prus — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looks at emerging languages - Zig, Gleam, Elixir, Carbon - and what their design choices reveal about the limitations in how current mainstream languages have trained developers to think.

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Laravel 11 Complete Guide: New Minimal App Structure & Bootstrapping

Andrej Prus — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Covers the redesigned minimal directory structure, single bootstrap file, merged config, and new artisan commands in Laravel 11.

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PHP 8.4 Released: Complete Breakdown of Every New Feature

Andrej Prus — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Definitive release guide covering property hooks, asymmetric visibility, lazy objects, the new HTML5 parser, and all deprecations.

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Giving Back at Scale: How to Build an Open Source Culture Within Your Engineering Team

Andrej Prus — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Practical playbook for engineering managers - allocating contribution time, choosing strategic projects, recognising contributors, and making open source part of the team identity.

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Symfony Messenger: Async Messaging, Retry Logic & Dead Letter Queues

Andrej Prus — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Explores Symfony Messenger transports, middleware, retry stamps, failure transport, and monitoring with built-in CLI commands.

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The Slow Death of Boilerplate: How Modern Frameworks Liberated Developer Thinking

Andrej Prus — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Charts the progressive elimination of ceremony in frameworks - from struts XML configs to Laravel's zero-config defaults - and how each reduction shifted developer attention toward actual problems.

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Secure PHP File Uploads: Validation, Storage & Malware Prevention

Andrej Prus — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Complete upload security guide: MIME validation, file-name sanitization, virus scanning integration, and secure S3 storage patterns.

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Post-Mortem Culture: Turning Every Major Bug Into a Team Learning Opportunity

Andrej Prus — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Establishes a blameless post-mortem process - timeline reconstruction, five-whys root cause analysis, and action items that prevent entire classes of future bugs.

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PHP Fibers vs ReactPHP vs Amp: Async PHP Ecosystem Comparison 2024

Andrej Prus — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Side-by-side comparison of PHP async approaches: native Fibers, ReactPHP event loop, and Amp coroutines with benchmark methodology.

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What Corporate Open Source Contributions Actually Look Like From the Inside

Andrej Prus — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

An insider look at how companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft structure open source teams, measure contribution impact, and balance community needs with business objectives.

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Language Paradigms as Lenses: What Learning a New Paradigm Does to Your Developer Brain

Andrej Prus — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Explores the cognitive science of paradigm shifts - how learning OOP, functional, or concurrent programming rewires problem-solving instincts that persist long after you stop using the language.

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Simplicity at Scale: How Great Engineering Teams Keep Codebases Clean Over Time

Andrej Prus — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Examines how high-performing teams sustain simplicity through architectural decision records, complexity budgets, and a shared culture of ruthless editing.

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Optimizing Laravel for High Traffic: Horizon, Telescope & Load Testing

Andrej Prus — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

End-to-end performance playbook: queue tuning with Horizon, debug profiling with Telescope, and k6 load testing strategies.

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Building Event Sourcing Systems in PHP: A Step-by-Step Implementation

Andrej Prus — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Implements an event store, aggregate roots, projectors, and process managers for an event-sourced PHP application from scratch.

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PHP Rector: Automated Code Upgrades and Refactoring Made Simple

Andrej Prus — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction to Rector: running existing rule sets for PHP upgrades, writing custom rules, and integrating into CI/CD pipelines.

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How Kubernetes Rewired the Way Engineers Think About Infrastructure and Applications

Andrej Prus — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Examines how Kubernetes shifted infrastructure thinking from servers and processes to desired state, reconciliation loops, and declarative configuration as the new lingua franca of operations.

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Security in Open Source: Why Transparency Is Both the Greatest Strength and Risk

Andrej Prus — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Examines the dual nature of open source security - public code enables auditing but also attack research - covering responsible disclosure and dependency vulnerability management.

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Debugging Across the Full Stack: Tracing a Bug From Browser to Database

Andrej Prus — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Walks through a realistic end-to-end bug hunt spanning JavaScript console errors, HTTP requests, backend exceptions, and slow database queries.

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Elegant APIs: How to Design Interfaces That Feel Obvious to Use

Andrej Prus — Sat, 18 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Covers the principles behind intuitive API design - minimal required knowledge, consistent conventions, and interfaces that guide users toward correct usage.

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Real-Time Notifications in Laravel With Broadcasting & Pusher

Andrej Prus — Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Implements server-side events, Echo.js front-end integration, private channels, and presence channels for real-time user notifications.

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Mastering PHP Composer Plugins: Extend Your Build Pipeline Powerfully

Andrej Prus — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to write, test, and publish Composer plugins for code generation, post-install hooks, and asset compilation automation.

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The Evolution of SQL: How a 50-Year-Old Language Keeps Reinventing Developer Thinking

Andrej Prus — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Traces SQL from relational theory to window functions, CTEs, JSON columns, and vector search - showing how each addition changed what developers reached for when modelling data problems.

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PHP 8.4 Preview: Property Hooks, Lazy Objects & New Array Functions

Andrej Prus — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Early preview of PHP 8.4 changes: property hooks as a major OOP addition, lazy object proxies, and new array helper functions.

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Writing Code That Is Easy to Debug: Observability-First Development

Andrej Prus — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Shifts the mindset from reactive debugging to proactive observability - designing state machines, audit trails, and invariant checks into the code itself.

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The Culture of Code Review in Open Source: Honest, Harsh & Occasionally Brilliant

Andrej Prus — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Explores the unique norms of open source code review - directness without cruelty, technical precision, and the rare experience of having your code reviewed by true domain experts.

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The Relationship Between Tests and Elegant Design: Simplicity as a Signal

Andrej Prus — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Argues that hard-to-test code is a symptom of poor design, and that writing tests first naturally drives toward simpler, more cohesive structures.

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Laravel API Resources: Transform Your JSON Responses Like a Pro

Andrej Prus — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Covers resource classes, resource collections, conditional attributes, nested includes, and metadata injection for clean API outputs.

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How React Changed the Mental Model of UI Development Across the Entire Industry

Andrej Prus — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Documents React's paradigm shift - declarative rendering, unidirectional data flow, and component thinking - and how it permanently changed how developers conceptualise user interfaces.

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Design Patterns in PHP: Factory, Strategy, Observer & Decorator

Andrej Prus — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Code-heavy tutorial implementing GoF design patterns in modern PHP 8.x with interface-first design and practical use cases.

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The Thrill of the Fix: What Solving a Hard Bug Teaches You About Your System

Andrej Prus — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Reflects on how the most painful debugging sessions yield the deepest system knowledge, and how to capture and share that understanding with your team.

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Contributing to Open Source as a Junior Developer: What Nobody Tells You

Andrej Prus — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Honest account of the challenges new developers face - imposter syndrome, intimidating codebases, slow review cycles - with concrete strategies for pushing through each one.

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PHP Async HTTP Requests With Guzzle Promises & cURL Multi Handle

Andrej Prus — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Compares serial vs parallel HTTP calls, demonstrates Guzzle pool concurrency, and benchmarks real-world API aggregation speedups.

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Code Reviews That Champion Simplicity: What to Look for and How to Say It

Andrej Prus — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Gives reviewers a practical vocabulary for identifying and discussing unnecessary complexity without discouraging experimentation.

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Laravel Eloquent Relationships: HasManyThrough, MorphMany & Performance

Andrej Prus — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Deep-dive into complex Eloquent relationships, N+1 problem detection with Telescope, eager loading strategies, and query optimization.

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The Symfony Component Model: How One Framework Taught PHP to Think in Reusable Parts

Andrej Prus — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Traces Symfony's evolution from monolithic framework to a decoupled component library - and how that architectural shift influenced every major PHP project that followed.

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Functional Thinking as a Path to Simpler Code: Pure Functions & Immutability

Andrej Prus — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Explains how functional programming ideas - pure functions, no side effects, immutable data - produce code that is dramatically easier to reason about.

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PHP Serverless With Bref on AWS Lambda: Cold Starts, Layers & Cost

Andrej Prus — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Guide to running Laravel/Symfony on Lambda via Bref, covering layer management, cold start mitigation, and real-world cost analysis.

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Debugging Third-Party Libraries: When the Bug Is Not Your Code

Andrej Prus — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Guides developers through diagnosing bugs inside dependencies - reading source, bisecting versions, writing minimal reproducers, and filing useful issues.

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How Open Source Shaped the Modern Internet: A History Worth Knowing

Andrej Prus — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Traces the infrastructure of the modern web - Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, PostgreSQL, and Git - showing how freely shared code became the foundation everything else runs on.

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Implementing OAuth 2.0 in PHP: Authorization Code Flow From Scratch

Andrej Prus — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Full implementation of OAuth 2.0 authorization code + PKCE flow in PHP, authorization endpoint, token exchange, and refresh logic.

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How to Develop an Eye for Elegant Code: A Skill-Building Roadmap

Andrej Prus — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Outlines a deliberate practice path - reading great codebases, performing kata exercises, and seeking feedback to develop aesthetic code judgment.

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How Docker Changed the Way Developers Think About Environments Forever

Andrej Prus — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Argues that Docker's container model did not just solve deployment - it fundamentally shifted how developers conceptualise application boundaries, dependencies, and reproducibility.

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When the Bug Is Not Where You Think It Is: Classic Misdirection in Debugging

Andrej Prus — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Examines common misdirection patterns - symptoms in module A caused by bugs in module B - and how to retrace assumptions when a trail goes cold.

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Building CLI Tools With PHP and Symfony Console Component

Andrej Prus — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Creates a feature-rich CLI application with commands, progress bars, table output, interactive prompts, and PHAR compilation.

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Forking as a Feature: How Disagreement Drives Innovation in Open Source

Andrej Prus — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Reframes the fork not as a failure of community but as a vital mechanism - exploring famous forks like MariaDB, LibreOffice, and Node/io.js and what they produced.

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Linux IPv6 Configuration: Enabling, Addressing & Firewall Rules With ip6tables

Andrej Prus — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Configures static and SLAAC IPv6 addressing, sets up ip6tables firewall rules, enables Router Advertisements, and tests connectivity end-to-end.

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Automated Testing Pyramid in PHP: Unit, Integration & E2E With Pest

Andrej Prus — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces Pest as an expressive PHP testing framework, demonstrates the testing pyramid, and shows parallel test execution.

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The Object-Oriented Revolution: How OOP Changed the Mental Model of an Entire Industry

Andrej Prus — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Examines how object-oriented thinking transformed software design in the 1990s and how its dominance shaped - and occasionally distorted - the way developers model every problem.

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The YAGNI Principle in Practice: Shipping Simple Code That Lasts

Andrej Prus — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Practical guide to You Aren't Gonna Need It - recognizing speculative features in code review, and techniques for deferring decisions safely.

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Configuring Linux Audit System: auditd Rules, Reports & Compliance

Andrej Prus — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sets up auditd with custom rules for file access, privilege escalation, and network-related syscalls, then generates aureport reports for compliance audits.

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The Debugging Notebook: Why Writing Down Your Hypotheses Makes You Faster

Andrej Prus — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Makes the case for keeping a live debugging journal - recording what you tried, what you ruled out, and what you suspect to prevent circular thinking.

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PHP Encryption Best Practices: AES-256, Libsodium & Secure Key Management

Andrej Prus — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Shows proper symmetric and asymmetric encryption, key rotation, and envelope encryption using PHP's sodium extension.

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Linux Boot Process Deep Dive: GRUB2, initramfs & systemd Target Config

Andrej Prus — Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Traces the full boot sequence from BIOS or UEFI through GRUB2 menu configuration, initramfs hooks, systemd targets, and default runlevel setup.

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SQL vs NoSQL in PHP Apps: When to Use MySQL, MongoDB or Redis

Andrej Prus — Sun, 14 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Decision guide comparing relational, document, and key-value stores for common PHP use cases, with code examples for all three.

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From User to Contributor to Maintainer: The Open Source Career Path

Andrej Prus — Tue, 09 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Maps the natural progression from grateful user to active contributor to trusted maintainer, with milestones, mindset shifts, and skills developed at each stage.

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Implementing CQRS in PHP: Separating Commands and Queries for Scalability

Andrej Prus — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Walks through a PHP CQRS implementation - command/query buses, read models, projections, and eventual consistency trade-offs.

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Setting Up Ansible for Linux Configuration Management: Playbooks & Roles

Andrej Prus — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction to Ansible inventory, playbooks, roles, handlers, and Vault for secrets, automating repeatable Linux server configuration at scale.

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Elegant Error Handling: How Simplicity Applies Beyond the Happy Path

Andrej Prus — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Applies elegance principles to error handling - meaningful error types, fail-fast design, and avoiding defensive code that obscures real intent.

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How Functional Programming Languages Quietly Reshaped Mainstream Development

Andrej Prus — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Traces how ideas from Haskell, Erlang, and Clojure - immutability, map/filter/reduce, pattern matching - migrated into Python, Java, JavaScript, and PHP over two decades.

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Linux Kernel Module Configuration: Loading, Blacklisting & Building

Andrej Prus — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Covers modprobe, /etc/modules-load.d, blacklisting problematic modules, writing a minimal kernel module in C, and signing for Secure Boot.

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Using a Debugger Properly: Breakpoints, Watch Expressions & Call Stack Inspection

Andrej Prus — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Goes beyond print statements to teach conditional breakpoints, logpoints, memory inspection, and stepping strategies in modern debugger tooling.

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Laravel Octane: Turbocharged PHP With Swoole & RoadRunner in Production

Andrej Prus — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Explains how Octane boots your app once per worker, covers stateful pitfalls, memory leaks, and production deployment considerations.

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Why Documentation Is the Most Undervalued Contribution in Open Source

Andrej Prus — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Makes the case that great documentation multiplies the impact of every other contribution, and gives a practical framework for writing docs that actually help newcomers.

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Deploying PHP Apps to AWS: EC2, ECS Fargate & Lambda Runtimes Guide

Andrej Prus — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Compares deployment approaches for PHP on AWS - from traditional EC2 to containerized Fargate and serverless Bref Lambda functions.

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Configuring Samba on Linux: File Shares, Active Directory & Permissions

Andrej Prus — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sets up Samba shares with user authentication, joins Linux to Windows Active Directory with Winbind, and maps UNIX/Windows permissions.

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Linux Namespace and cgroup Fundamentals: How Containers Really Work

Andrej Prus — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Explores PID, network, mount, UTS, IPC, and user namespaces, linking them to cgroups to show the foundations of container isolation.

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Debugging Race Conditions and Concurrency Bugs: A Practical Field Guide

Andrej Prus — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Tackles the hardest class of bugs - race conditions, deadlocks, and stale reads - with thread sanitiser tools, lock analysis, and deterministic replay.

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Writing Code for Humans First: Readability as a Professional Responsibility

Andrej Prus — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Makes the case that code is read far more than it is written, and that optimising for the reader is the most impactful thing a developer can do.

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From Callbacks to Promises to Async/Await: How Async Thinking Evolved in JavaScript

Andrej Prus — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Traces the decade-long evolution of asynchronous JavaScript - how each abstraction layer changed how developers reason about time, concurrency, and error handling.

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PHP 8.3 Features: Typed Class Constants, json_validate() & More

Andrej Prus — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Comprehensive coverage of PHP 8.3 additions: typed class constants, json_validate(), mb_str_pad(), Randomizer improvements, and migration notes for PHP 8.2 teams.

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Hardening Linux SSH: 2FA With Google Authenticator & Certificate Auth

Andrej Prus — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Implements SSH two-factor authentication with the Google Authenticator PAM module and OpenSSH certificate authority authentication for controlled server access.

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The Economics of Open Source: Sponsorships, Grants & Building a Sustainable Income

Andrej Prus — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Surveys funding models for open source developers - GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective, Tidelift, consulting arrangements, and dual-licensing strategies.

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API Versioning in PHP: Strategies, URL Paths & Header-Based Approaches

Andrej Prus — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Evaluates URL path, query string, header, and media-type versioning with PHP implementation examples and backwards-compatibility tips.

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Simple Abstractions vs Leaky Ones: How to Tell the Difference

Andrej Prus — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Defines what makes an abstraction genuinely useful versus one that forces callers to understand its internals to use it correctly.

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Linux High Availability With Keepalived: VRRP & Failover Configuration

Andrej Prus — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Sets up Keepalived VRRP for virtual IP failover, configures health check scripts, tracks interface state, and tests manual failover.

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PHP Microservices With RoadRunner: High-Performance Worker Pattern Explained

Andrej Prus — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces RoadRunner as a Go-based PHP app server, covering worker loops, middleware, HTTP/2, and benchmarks vs php-fpm.

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How to Reproduce a Bug Reliably: The Most Underrated Debugging Skill

Andrej Prus — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Argues that reliable reproduction is 80% of the solution, covering environment snapshots, seed data, request replay, and minimising the reproduction case.

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The Laravel Effect: How One Framework Made PHP Developers Think in Elegant Patterns

Andrej Prus — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Documents how Laravel introduced expressive APIs, Eloquent ORM, and a developer-experience philosophy that fundamentally raised expectations across the entire PHP ecosystem.

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Building Multi-Tenant SaaS Apps in Laravel: Architecture & Tenancy Strategies

Andrej Prus — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Compares single-database, multi-database, and schema-based tenancy with practical code for middleware, scoping, and data isolation.

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How to Maintain an Open Source Project Without It Consuming Your Life

Andrej Prus — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Practical boundaries and systems for maintainers - issue triage templates, bot automation, co-maintainer onboarding, and how to say no without guilt.

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Configuring PostgreSQL on Linux: Authentication, Tuning & Replication

Andrej Prus — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Covers pg_hba.conf authentication methods, postgresql.conf memory and connection tuning, WAL-based streaming replication, and pg_stat monitoring.

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Linux Resource Limits: ulimit, cgroups v2 & Systemd Slice Configuration

Andrej Prus — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Sets per-user and per-process limits with ulimit and /etc/security/limits.conf, then manages resources with cgroups v2 and systemd slices.

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Memory Leaks and Infinite Loops: Debugging the Bugs That Hide in Plain Sight

Andrej Prus — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Methodical approach to diagnosing memory leaks and infinite loops - profiler usage, heap snapshots, watchdog timers, and systematic reproduction steps.

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The Art of Knowing What to Delete: Elegance Through Subtraction

Andrej Prus — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how the most impactful refactors remove code rather than add it - dead branches, redundant layers, and abstractions that outlived their purpose.

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Working With PHP Attributes: Replace Annotations With Native Metadata

Andrej Prus — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to write, read, and validate PHP 8 Attributes, and how frameworks like Symfony and Doctrine are adopting them internally.

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Open Source Governance Models: BDFL, Committees & Foundation-Led Projects

Andrej Prus — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Compares how major projects make decisions - from Linus Torvalds' Linux model to Python's steering council and Apache Foundation's committee structure.

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How Rust Changes the Way You Think About Memory Forever

Andrej Prus — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Explores how Rust's ownership model does not just prevent bugs - it instils a permanent mental model of memory lifetimes that improves how developers reason in every language they return to.

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Setting Up a Linux DNS Server With BIND9: Zones, Records & DNSSEC

Andrej Prus — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Configures BIND9 authoritative and recursive resolvers, writes forward and reverse zone files, enables DNSSEC signing, and tests with dig.

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PHP Static Analysis With PHPStan & Psalm: Catch Bugs Before Runtime

Andrej Prus — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Compares PHPStan and Psalm, covers level configuration, baseline management, custom rules, and CI integration for zero-defect deploys.

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Linux Container Networking: Bridges, veth Pairs & iptables Deep Dive

Andrej Prus — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Explains how Docker and LXC use Linux bridges, veth pairs, network namespaces, and iptables NAT rules for container connectivity.

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The Role of Logging in Debugging: What to Log, What to Skip & How to Search It

Andrej Prus — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Designs a logging strategy that makes future debugging fast - structured log fields, correlation IDs, appropriate log levels, and querying with grep and jq.

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Integrating Stripe Payments in Laravel: Subscriptions & Webhooks Guide

Andrej Prus — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Step-by-step Stripe Checkout integration covering recurring billing, webhook verification, idempotency, and failed-payment handling.

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Naming Things Well: The Single Biggest Step Toward Elegant Code

Andrej Prus — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Argues that precise, honest naming is the foundation of simplicity - covering variables, functions, classes, and the discipline of renaming when meaning shifts.

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Configuring Redis on Linux: Persistence, Memory Limits & Replication

Andrej Prus — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Tunes redis.conf for production: RDB and AOF persistence, maxmemory policies, bind address, password auth, and primary-replica replication.

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The Art of Writing a Good Pull Request: What Open Source Maintainers Actually Want

Andrej Prus — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Covers what separates accepted PRs from rejected ones - focused scope, clear description, linked issues, passing tests, and respectful engagement with feedback.

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The Go Language Philosophy: How Simplicity and Constraints Produce Better Engineers

Andrej Prus — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Examines how Go's deliberate omissions - no generics for years, no inheritance, minimal syntax - force developers to solve problems differently and value clarity over cleverness.

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Event-Driven Architecture in PHP: Events, Listeners & Message Buses

Andrej Prus — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Implements a simple in-process event bus in PHP, then scales to RabbitMQ and Symfony Messenger for distributed event processing.

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Linux Disk Encryption With LUKS: Full-Disk & Container Encryption

Andrej Prus — Tue, 31 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Encrypts partitions and loop devices with LUKS2, manages key slots, sets up auto-unlock with TPM2, and configures /etc/crypttab.

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Database Migrations Best Practices in Laravel: Rollbacks, Seeds & Factories

Andrej Prus — Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Covers atomic migrations, safe schema changes in production, Eloquent factories for realistic test data, and migration-only deployments.

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Debugging in Production: Safe Techniques for Live Systems Without Downtime

Andrej Prus — Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Covers non-destructive production debugging - distributed tracing, feature flags, canary analysis, and live log tailing without touching running processes.

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What Beautiful Code Actually Looks Like: Real Examples Across Languages

Andrej Prus — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Curates genuinely elegant code snippets from open-source projects, analysing what makes each example immediately readable and intention-revealing.

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PHP Performance Tuning: OPcache, JIT Compiler & Profiling With Blackfire

Andrej Prus — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to enable and tune OPcache and JIT, use Blackfire.io to pinpoint bottlenecks, and reduce response times by up to 60%.

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How to Configure SELinux: Policies, Contexts & Troubleshooting Denials

Andrej Prus — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Covers enforcing vs permissive modes, reading audit2allow output, writing custom type enforcement modules, and labeling files correctly.

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Building a Welcoming Open Source Community: Code of Conduct, Docs & Onboarding

Andrej Prus — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Practical guide for maintainers to reduce contribution friction - writing good CONTRIBUTING files, labelling beginner issues, and creating a culture of constructive review.

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Heisenbug, Schrodinger Bug & Other Phantom Failures: Debugging the Unpredictable

Andrej Prus — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Catalogs bugs that vanish under observation, change behavior with logging, or only appear in production - and the techniques to corner each type.

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Python's Rise to Dominance: How Readability as a Value Reshaped a Generation of Programmers

Andrej Prus — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Traces Python's journey from scripting utility to the language of science, AI, and education - and how its radical readability ethic influenced language design far beyond its own community.

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How to Secure PHP Applications: HTTPS, CSP Headers & Input Validation

Andrej Prus — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Practical implementation guide covering TLS enforcement, Content Security Policy headers, and robust server-side input sanitization.

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Linux Time Synchronization: Configuring NTP and chrony Correctly

Andrej Prus — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Sets up chrony as an NTP client and server, configures stratum hierarchy, verifies sync status, and handles leap second adjustments.

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Building a GraphQL API in PHP With Webonyx: A Complete Tutorial

Andrej Prus — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Full guide to defining schemas, resolvers, mutations, and subscriptions using the webonyx/graphql-php library with Laravel integration.

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Setting Up HAProxy on Linux: Load Balancing, Health Checks & SSL

Andrej Prus — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Configures HAProxy frontend/backend blocks, round-robin and least-connections balancing, active health checks, and SSL termination.

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The Psychology of Complexity: Why Developers Default to Over-Engineering

Andrej Prus — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Examines the cognitive biases - fear of future requirements, desire to appear clever - that push developers toward needless complexity.

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Binary Search Debugging: The Fastest Way to Isolate Any Bug in Any Codebase

Andrej Prus — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Applies binary search thinking to bug isolation - systematically halving the problem space with targeted experiments to converge on the root cause fast.

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How Companies Exploit Open Source and What the Community Is Doing About It

Andrej Prus — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Examines the tension between commercial adoption and community contribution, covering license changes like SSPL, the Commons Clause, and fair-code experiments.

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PHP 8.2 Released: Readonly Classes, DNF Types & Deprecations Explained

Andrej Prus — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

First look at PHP 8.2 features — readonly classes, Disjunctive Normal Form types, new ini options, and upcoming deprecation clean-ups.

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Linux Backup Strategies: rsync, Restic & Automated Snapshot Rotation

Andrej Prus — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Compares rsync incremental backups and Restic deduplicated snapshots, covering remote targets, encryption, retention policies, and restore testing.

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How TypeScript Changed the Way JavaScript Developers Think About Correctness

Andrej Prus — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Explores TypeScript's cognitive impact - how adding a type layer shifts mental models from runtime debugging to compile-time reasoning and changes how APIs are designed and consumed.

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Refactoring Toward Elegance: How to Simplify Code Without Breaking It

Andrej Prus — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Step-by-step refactoring guide - extracting intent into named functions, collapsing conditionals, and eliminating redundant state one change at a time.

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Configuring AppArmor on Ubuntu: Profiles, Modes & Custom Policies

Andrej Prus — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Covers AppArmor enforce vs complain modes, reading audit logs, generating profiles with aa-genprof, and writing custom policy rules.

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Caching Strategies in PHP: Redis, Memcached & HTTP Cache Headers

Andrej Prus — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Covers key-value caching, cache-aside pattern, cache invalidation, and HTTP cache headers to reduce server load significantly.

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Designing a Clean PHP Architecture: Hexagonal, Onion & Clean Code

Andrej Prus — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Contrasts architectural patterns, shows PHP project layouts for each, and explains the dependency rule and port/adapter separation.

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Who Owns Open Source Code? Licenses, Copyright & Contributor Agreements Explained

Andrej Prus — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Clarifies the legal landscape - MIT, Apache, GPL, and AGPL licenses, contributor license agreements, and what corporate adoption means for ownership and control.

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Rubber Duck Debugging and Why Explaining Your Bug Out Loud Actually Works

Andrej Prus — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explains the cognitive science behind verbalising a problem - how articulation forces precision and surfaces hidden assumptions in your mental model.

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Bash Shell Configuration: .bashrc, .bash_profile & Environment Variables

Andrej Prus — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explains login vs non-login shells, customizing PS1 prompts, managing PATH, aliases, functions, and sourcing configs in the right order.

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Linux Monitoring With Prometheus & Grafana: Full Stack Setup Guide

Andrej Prus — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Installs Node Exporter and Prometheus, configures scrape intervals, builds Grafana dashboards, and sets up alerting rules.

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Mastering PHP Generators: Memory-Efficient Data Processing at Scale

Andrej Prus — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Demonstrates generators as iterators and coroutines, benchmarking memory savings against array-based approaches for large datasets.

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Simplicity as a Design Principle: Lessons From Unix, Python & Go

Andrej Prus — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Draws lessons from languages and systems famously built around simplicity, showing how their constraints produced more maintainable ecosystems.

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Test-Driven Development in PHP: A Practical Workflow for Teams

Andrej Prus — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to embed TDD red-green-refactor cycles into team sprints, configure CI pipelines, and measure coverage regressions.

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How to Configure NFS on Linux: Server Setup, Exports & Client Mounts

Andrej Prus — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Sets up NFS v4 server, configures /etc/exports with security options, mounts shares on clients, and automates with /etc/fstab.

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Maintainer Burnout in Open Source: The Hidden Crisis Nobody Talks About

Andrej Prus — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Documents the epidemic of maintainer exhaustion - unpaid pressure, hostile issues, and endless support requests - and what communities can do to protect the people who keep projects alive.

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The Frustration Loop: Why Debugging Feels Impossible Before It Suddenly Clicks

Andrej Prus — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explores the psychological cycle of confusion, tunnel vision, and breakthrough that characterises a difficult debugging session and how to shorten it.

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The Cost of Complexity: How Over-Engineered Code Kills Developer Productivity

Andrej Prus — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Quantifies the hidden costs of unnecessary abstraction - slower onboarding, harder debugging, and cascading rework caused by premature generalization.

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Laravel Livewire vs Inertia.js: Choosing the Right Full-Stack Approach

Andrej Prus — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Compares both approaches side-by-side with architecture diagrams, performance profiles, and developer experience analysis.

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Linux Kernel Tuning With sysctl: Network Stack & Security Hardening

Andrej Prus — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Tunes TCP buffer sizes, connection tracking, SYN flood protection, ICMP restrictions, and kernel hardening parameters via sysctl.conf.

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Symfony 6 New Features: What Every PHP Developer Must Know

Andrej Prus — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Comprehensive overview of Symfony 6 highlights including PHP 8 attributes, typed properties, and the mature Mailer/Notifier components.

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Setting Up Postfix Mail Server on Linux: SMTP, DKIM & SPF Records

Andrej Prus — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Full Postfix configuration walkthrough covering virtual domains, TLS encryption, OpenDKIM signing, SPF and DMARC DNS records, and spam filtering.

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The Philosophy of Giving Back: Why Open Source Sustainability Depends on Contributors

Andrej Prus — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Examines the tragedy of the commons in software - how projects collapse when everyone consumes and nobody contributes - and what healthy contribution cultures look like.

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How Senior Developers Think When Debugging: A Mental Model Breakdown

Andrej Prus — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Reveals the systematic reasoning process experienced engineers use - narrowing scope, isolating variables, and resisting the urge to guess.

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Linux User Management: Groups, sudo Policies & PAM Configuration

Andrej Prus — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Covers useradd, usermod, groupadd, /etc/sudoers syntax, sudo logging, password policies with PAM, and account expiration management.

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PHP Fiber Introduction: Async Programming Without the Complexity

Andrej Prus — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explains PHP 8.1 Fibers as lightweight coroutines, compares them to async/await patterns, and shows practical cooperative scheduling.

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Code Elegance Explained: What Senior Developers Mean When They Say Less Is More

Andrej Prus — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Defines elegance in software through concrete examples - minimal surface area, single responsibility, and expressive naming that removes the need for comments.

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Configuring Linux swap: Size, Priority & zram for Better Performance

Andrej Prus — Sat, 08 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explains swap partitions vs swapfiles, tuning swappiness and vfs_cache_pressure, and setting up compressed zram for low-memory systems.

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Domain-Driven Design in PHP: Entities, Value Objects & Aggregates

Andrej Prus — Thu, 06 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces DDD tactical patterns, showing how to model complex domains with PHP classes while keeping business logic framework-agnostic.

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How to Make Your First Open Source Contribution Without Feeling Like an Imposter

Andrej Prus — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

A beginner-friendly walkthrough of finding a welcoming project, understanding contribution guidelines, and submitting a first pull request that gets merged.

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How to Implement JWT Authentication in Pure PHP Step by Step

Andrej Prus — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Builds a JWT auth flow from scratch without libraries, covering header/payload/signature generation, verification, and refresh tokens.

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The Art of Reading a Stack Trace: What Every Line Is Really Telling You

Andrej Prus — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Teaches developers to extract maximum signal from stack traces - reading frame order, spotting framework noise, and identifying the true origin of a failure.

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Linux Performance Tuning: CPU, Memory & I/O Optimization Techniques

Andrej Prus — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Covers sysctl kernel parameter tuning, CPU governor settings, NUMA awareness, swappiness, and I/O scheduler selection for workloads.

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How to Set Up a Linux VPN Server With WireGuard: Complete Tutorial

Andrej Prus — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Installs and configures WireGuard on Ubuntu, generates key pairs, sets up peer configs, enables IP forwarding, and automates with wg-quick.

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How Programming Languages Shape the Way Developers Think About Problems

Andrej Prus — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Argues that the language you work in daily does not just express your thinking - it actively constrains and moulds how you conceptualise solutions before you write a single line.

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Why Simple Code Is Not the Same as Easy Code: A Developer's Perspective

Andrej Prus — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Breaks down the cognitive gap between writing code that works and writing code that is effortlessly understandable by others.

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PHP 8.1 Enums Deep Dive: Pure, Backed, and Interface Implementation

Andrej Prus — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explores every aspect of PHP 8.1 enums, including pure vs backed enums, cases(), from(), tryFrom(), interface implementation, and use in match.

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Building CRUD APIs With Laravel Sanctum Authentication in 2021

Andrej Prus — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

End-to-end tutorial creating a token-authenticated CRUD API with Laravel Sanctum, resource transformers, and form request validation.

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Linux Log Management: rsyslog, logrotate & Centralized Logging Setup

Andrej Prus — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Configures rsyslog for remote log forwarding, sets up logrotate policies, and introduces the ELK stack for centralized log aggregation.

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Open Source Culture Explained: What It Really Means to Build Software Together

Andrej Prus — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Introduces the values underpinning open source - radical transparency, shared ownership, and the belief that software improves faster when built in public.

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Debugging as Detective Work: Why Hunting Bugs Is the Most Thrilling Part of Development

Andrej Prus — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Draws a direct parallel between software debugging and criminal investigation - forming hypotheses, gathering evidence, and closing in on the culprit.

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Automating Linux Tasks With Cron and Systemd Timers: Full Guide

Andrej Prus — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Compares cron and systemd timers, covers crontab syntax, environment variables, logging cron output, and monotonic vs realtime timers.

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Composer Best Practices: Autoloading, Version Constraints & Monorepos

Andrej Prus — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Essential Composer tips including PSR-4 autoloading, semantic versioning strategies, and managing a PHP monorepo with path repositories.

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The Beauty of Elegant Code: Why Simplicity Is the Hardest Skill to Master

Andrej Prus — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Explores why writing simple, readable code demands more discipline and experience than writing complex solutions, with real before/after examples.

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Linux Network Configuration: Static IP, DNS & Netplan on Ubuntu

Andrej Prus — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Covers Netplan YAML syntax, setting static IPs, configuring DNS resolvers, bonding interfaces, and troubleshooting with ip and ss commands.

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How to Configure a LAMP Stack on Ubuntu: Apache, MySQL & PHP Tuning

Andrej Prus — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Full LAMP installation and optimization: MPM worker tuning, MySQL InnoDB settings, PHP-FPM pools, and .htaccess security hardening.

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PHP 8.0 New Features: Complete Developer Guide to Named Arguments, JIT and More

Andrej Prus — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The biggest PHP release in years, with a practical breakdown of new syntax features, JIT compilation benefits, and migration tips.

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PHP 8 Match Expression vs Switch: Everything You Need to Know

Andrej Prus — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Detailed comparison of the new match expression against switch, covering exhaustiveness, strict comparison, and return values.

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Linux Disk Management: LVM, Partitions & Filesystem Configuration

Andrej Prus — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Explains fdisk, parted, LVM physical volumes, volume groups, logical volumes, and resizing filesystems without downtime.

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How to Use Docker With PHP: Complete Local Development Setup Guide

Andrej Prus — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to containerize a PHP app with PHP-FPM, Nginx, and MySQL using Docker Compose for reproducible dev environments.

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Building a Real-Time Chat App With PHP WebSockets and Ratchet

Andrej Prus — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Full project walkthrough using the Ratchet library to implement pub/sub messaging, rooms, and authentication over WebSockets.

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Setting Up a Linux Firewall With UFW: Rules, Logging & Best Practices

Andrej Prus — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Practical UFW configuration covering allow/deny rules, application profiles, rate limiting, IPv6 support, and persistent rule management.

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Linux systemd Services: Create, Enable & Manage Custom Unit Files

Andrej Prus — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Shows how to write systemd service, timer, and socket unit files, configure restart policies, and use journalctl for log inspection.

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Understanding PHP Traits: When to Use Them and When to Avoid Them

Andrej Prus — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Practical guidance on trait composition, method conflict resolution, and the design pitfalls developers commonly fall into.

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PHP Unit Testing With PHPUnit: From Zero to 100% Code Coverage

Andrej Prus — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Comprehensive tutorial on writing unit, integration, and data-provider tests using PHPUnit, including mocking and assertion best practices.

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Configuring Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04: Virtual Hosts, SSL & Reverse Proxy

Andrej Prus — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Complete Nginx setup guide - server blocks, Let's Encrypt TLS, HTTP/2, Gzip compression, and proxying to upstream application servers.

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Optimizing MySQL Queries in PHP: Indexes, Joins and Execution Plans Explained

Andrej Prus — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Deep-dive into slow-query diagnosis, index strategies, and using EXPLAIN to drastically cut database round-trip time.

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Linux File Permissions Explained: chmod, chown & ACLs in Depth

Andrej Prus — Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Demystifies octal and symbolic permission notation, setuid/setgid/sticky bits, and extended ACLs for fine-grained access control.

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PHP Security Checklist 2020: Protect Your App From XSS, CSRF and SQL Injection

Andrej Prus — Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A complete, actionable security checklist covering the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities with PHP-specific remediation code snippets.

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How to Configure SSH on Linux: Keys, Port Change & Fail2Ban Setup

Andrej Prus — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Step-by-step guide to generating SSH key pairs, disabling password authentication, changing the default port, and blocking brute-force attempts with Fail2Ban.

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Master PHP Dependency Injection: A Practical Guide with Real Examples

Andrej Prus — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Explains constructor, setter, and interface injection with concrete examples, showing how DI improves testability and flexibility.

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Laravel vs Symfony in 2020: Which PHP Framework Should You Choose?

Andrej Prus — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

An objective, data-driven comparison of Laravel and Symfony covering performance benchmarks, ecosystem, and learning curve.

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Linux Server Initial Setup: Complete Security Configuration Guide for Beginners

Andrej Prus — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Covers first-login hardening steps: creating sudo users, disabling root SSH, configuring UFW firewall, and enabling automatic security updates.

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How to Build a REST API in PHP Without a Framework in 2020

Andrej Prus — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Step-by-step tutorial building a lightweight, dependency-free REST API using only native PHP and best-practice folder structure.

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