Broadcasting events with Laravel and Socket.io
PHP frameworks like Laravel aren’t really set up to handle real-time events properly, so if you want to build a real-time app, you’re generally better off with another platform, such as Node.js....
View ArticleAdding Google AMP support to my site
You may have heard of Google’s AMP Project, which allows you to create mobile-optimized pages using a subset of HTML. After seeing the sheer speed at which you can load an AMP page (practically...
View ArticleUsing Jenkins pipelines
I use Jenkins as my main continuous integration solution at work, largely for two reasons: It generally works out cheaper to host it ourselves than to use one of the paid CI solutions for closed-source...
View ArticleTesting your API documentation with Dredd
Documenting your API is something most developers agree is generally a Good Thing, but it’s a pain in the backside, and somewhat boring to do. What you really need is a tool that allows you to specify...
View ArticleAn introduction to managing your servers with Ansible
If, like me, you’re a web developer who sometimes also has to wear a sysadmin’s hat, then you’ll probably be coming across the same set of tasks each time you set up a new server. These may include:...
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Creating a personal dashboard with React and Webpack
The Raspberry Pi is a great device for running simple web apps at home on a permanent basis, and you can pick up a small touchscreen for it quite cheaply. This makes it easy to build and host a small...
View ArticleMaintaining your CV with Markdown and Emacs
I’ve recently been jobhunting, so that has meant having to update my CV. Fortunately, I’ve got into the habit of keeping it up to date easily by writing it in Markdown and generating it in the required...
View ArticleDeploying new versions of a Laravel app with Fabric
Envoy is the official way to run tasks on a remote server for Laravel apps. A typical Envoy task for deploying a new version might look like this: @servers(['web' =>...
View ArticleBuilding a Phonegap app with Laravel and Angular - Part 1
A lot of my work over the last few years has been involved Phonegap apps. Phonegap isn’t terribly hard to use, but the difference in context between that and a more conventional web app means that you...
View ArticleBuilding a Phonegap app with Laravel and Angular - Part 2
In this lesson, the initial scope of the app will be extremely simple. We will implement functionality that: Allows users to log in and out Displays the home page That’s fairly simple, and easily...
View ArticleBuilding a Phonegap app with Laravel and Angular - Part 3
Apologies for how long it’s taken for this post to be appear. I’ve got a lot on my plate at present as I recently started a new job, so I haven’t been able to devote as much time to this series as I’d...
View ArticleCreating an Azure storage adapter for Laravel
About a year ago I was working on my first non-trivial Laravel application. The client had, for their own reasons, wanted to use Microsoft’s Azure platform, particularly for its blob storage...
View ArticleBuilding a Phonegap App with Laravel and Angular - Part 4
In this instalment we’ll return to the back end. What we’ve done so far is typical of the kind of proof of concept we might do for a client early on, before going back and implementing the full set of...
View ArticleEasy static asset versioning in PHP
It’s prudent to cache static assets such as images, Javascript and CSS to improve performance, but that raises the issue of changes not being reflected in your site due to visitor’s browsers retaining...
View ArticleTesting Laravel Middleware
It’s widely accepted that high-level integration tests alone do not make for a good test suite. Ideally each individual component of your application should have unit tests, which test that component...
View ArticleIntegrating Behat with Laravel
The Gherkin format used by tools like Cucumber is a really great way of specifying how your application will work. It’s easy for even non-technical stakeholders to understand, it makes it natural to...
View ArticleMy first Laravel package
For some time now I’ve had a Laravel middleware I use extensively to add ETags to HTTP requests. I often use it for work projects, but obviously copying and pasting it all the time was a pain. I always...
View ArticleDecorating Laravel repositories
As mentioned previously, when building any nontrivial Laravel application, it’s prudent to decouple our controllers from the Eloquent ORM (or any other ORM or data source we may be using) by creating...
View ArticleEnforcing a coding standard with PHP CodeSniffer
We all start new projects with the best of intentions - it’ll be clean, fully tested and work perfectly. Sadly as deadlines loom, it’s all too easy to find yourself neglecting your code quality, and...
View ArticleSnapshot test your Vue components with Jest
At work I’ve recently started using Vue as my main front-end framework instead of Angular 1. It has a relatively shallow learning curve and has enough similarities with both React and Angular 1 that if...
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