Beginner developers on the facebook group often ask me questions like:
What is the next amazing tool they need to learn?
Which PHP framework is the best and easiest to start with?
How to implement ci/cd on AWS or CircleCi?
My answer is simply this – don’t worry about it.
When you're just starting to learn how to code, you naturally want to try any possible tool or framework,
it is a requirement to get a job so it seems reasonable to do that.
Except it is not!
That is actually a really (really) bad idea.
Let me quickly explain why.
Firstly, if you don't know the basics of PHP, I mean the core language, there is no point on using components from packagist because you wouldn't understand them
Secondly, if you know the principles of how the MVC paradigm and a PHP framework work, it will take less than a week to switch between them.
Here's a key principle to remember: top-level developers are the ones who decide which tools NOT to use.
Get a senior developer on your team and ask what are his experiences working with support platforms, various components from GitHub and similar.
Grab a coffee beforehand, cause you'll hear a long answer!
Now, imagine all the extra time you spend online looking for a solution that eventually could have been wrote using a simple PHP built-in function that takes 30 seconds to be written.
Being a top-level developer is about having the ability to write the RIGHT code and use the RIGHT tool only when needed.
To progress with web development, you got to be super picky with your time.
Any now and then the core PHP developer's team comes out with a new release, a new version of the language of which all the tools are built around.
These new versions usually include new features that will make your code easier to write and to read,
deprecations of old function and dangerous technology (sha1 anyone?), and other changes on the code and practices
PHP 7.4 is coming ...
The next version of PHP is just a few days away, and it is bringing new features that will be an important part of PHP 8 just a couple of years down the line.
Staying up-to-date with the core language is the only reason you can keep up with your colleagues, get a new job, learn the concept of the new fancy stuff easily and deploy your code quickly.
In this and the following posts, you are not only going to learn what the new features of PHP 7.4 are,
You will learn what the contributors to the components and frameworks that you like the most will use in the next coming years.
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