Symfony Station Communiqué — 01 December 2023

This communiqué originally appeared on Symfony Station.

Welcome to this week's Symfony Station communiqué. This time it's even more packed with interesting content. It's your review of the essential news in the Symfony and PHP development communities focusing on protecting democracy. Because open-source equals open societies, peeps. We also cover the cybersecurity world and the Fediverse (more open-source).

Of course, the big news this week is the release of Symfony 7. There is also a plethora of PHP items, a lot of interesting Drupal stuff, and a ton of general coding news. And, there is still good content in the other categories, so please take your time and enjoy the items most relevant and valuable to you. This is why we publish on Fridays. So you can savor it over your weekend. 😉

Or jump straight to your favorite section via our website.

• Symfony

• PHP

• More Programming

• Fighting for Democracy

• Cybersecurity

• Fediverse

Once again, thanks go out to Javier Eguiluz and Symfony for sharing our communiqué in their Week of Symfony.

My opinions will be in bold. And often involve cursing.

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Symfony

As always, we will start with the official news from Symfony.

Highlight -> "This week, Symfony development activity focused on fixing bugs and polishing the new features of the upcoming Symfony 6.4 and 7.0 versions, which will be released next week. In addition, we announced Symfony's Black Friday 2023 deals with 30% to 40% discounts in several Symfony products."

A Week of Symfony #882 (20-26 November 2023)

They also have:

Symfony 7 is here Great stuff!

Introducing the Symfony 7 Certification

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023 starts in 1 week!

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Balancing Act The Product Trio

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Stop firefighting with Blackfire!

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Your Weakness is Your Superpower

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Kaizen-Inspired DevOps

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Caught in a Web Untangling Graph Structures

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Refactoring monolith to multi-app

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Taming container environment maintenance let's go Nix-ing!

SymfonyCon Brussels 2023: Github Actions 101 your 1st action

New in Symfony 6.4: DX Improvements (part 1)

New in Symfony 6.4: AssetMapper Improvements

SensioLabs announces: SensioLabs welcomes Inetum to its partner network

And an interview about Symfony 7: Interview: Symfony 7 in a Nutshell with Nicolas Grekas More great stuff.

SymfonyCasts finishes in PHP Unit course and has an announcement: This week on SymfonyCasts The LAST Stack course starts today, which is awesome (like actually awesome)!

Here are the details on this temporarily free course: 30 Days of LAST Stack Tutorial Free until Jan 15th

And here's the first lesson: 30 Days with LAST Stack

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Featured Item

Backpack's Blog writes:

99.9% of the projects we build will never be the next Facebook or Netflix or Google so using the tools they use is not only overkill, it's counter-productive. Things that make perfect sense at that scale became trendy, yes: front-end frameworks, more abstractions, SPAs, build tools, bundling, compiling. The logic went... If their tools work at that scale, then for sure they will work at our smaller scale, right? Eeeh... not so fast.

This approach, known as the "modern web," added complexity the projects from the start. It made it more difficult to get started, more difficult to keep up, more difficult to maintain. Sure, it's easier if you work in a team of 15 devs, but how many of us work in a team of 15 devs?

A new trend has been forming for the past few years, and it's all about making things simpler. I haven't found the term for it... maybe we can call it "the post-modern web", but I'd rather call it "minimalist web development".

The New Trend in Web Development: Keeping It Simple

This is what I have been living and preaching for years.

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This Week

Stefan Koopmanschap has:
SymfonyCon is coming up: 5 talks you shouldn't miss

Edouard Courty explores:
Symfony Scheduler: Revolutionizing Scheduled Task Execution

Tuhin Bepari examines:
Mastering Symfony’s Service Container: With Real-life Examples

Daniyal Javani shares:
A Simple Way to Validate API Requests in Symfony with DTOs and Annotations

Pham the Ahn looks at:
Docker Setup for Symfony 6.3.* Web Apps

Daniel Rotter explores:
Configuring nginx with php-fpm in kubernetes and the "File not found." error

Les Tilleuls Coop has:
Sortie de Symfony 7 : les nouveautés de cette version

API Platform Con replay: APIs avec Symfony & le mouvement coopératif
The Symfony 7 video is in English.

Hantsy shows us how to:
Upgrade to Symfony v7

Netgen Web Summer Camp announces:
Call for Papers for Web Summer Camp 2024 is now open!
There is a Symfony track And PHP.

Theodo shows us how to:
How to migrate from API Platform v2 to v3?

Platforms

Aaron Francis looks at:
Rendering Blade components in Markdown
I wonder if this would also work with Twig in Symfony???

CMSs

Joomla announces:

Your first glimpse at Joomla! 5.1.0 Alpha1

Christophe Avonture shows us:
Create your Joomla website using Docker

Wolfgang Wagner has a TYPO3 newsletter:
Bleib auf dem Laufenden mit dem kostenlosen TYPO3 Newsletter!

It's Advent calendar season and Wolfgang shares his:
TYPO3 Adventsaktion 2023

LostCarPark adds:
Drupal Advent Calendar day 1 - Gin Admin Theme

Drupal has a few important announcements:
Drupal 10 Will Be Supported Until the Release of Drupal 12 in Mid-Late 2026

Computed bundle fields can be declared to Views

New access policy API
This seems useful.

Agile Drop has an interesting interview with someone I met at DrupalCon Lille: Interview with John Faber of Chapter Three: Next-Drupal & securing the future of Drupal

McDruid looks at:
Remote Code Execution in Drupal via cache injection, drush, entitycache, and create_function

Deepak Tomar shows us how to:
Prevent ‘access of authenticated pages’ after user logout on pressing browser back

Four Kitchens explores:
Using Composer for modules not ready for the next major version of Drupal

Inwebworks examines:
Drupal 11's Arrival in 2024 – Is Your Website Prepared?

The Drop Times has:
Distributions and Recipes: Streamlining Configuration Recovery for Improved User Experience

Drupal Core Renames EntityReferenceTestTrait for Improved Clarity

Droopler's Next Chapter: Grzegorz Pietrzak's Insights | Part 2

Drupal Core 10.3.0 Upgrade Enables Seamless Integration of Computed Bundle Fields in Views

Costa Rica 2023: A Glimpse into Success at Drupal Camp

Roman Agabekov demostrates:
How MySQL Tuning Dramatically Improves the Drupal Performance

Previous Next shares:
Drupal front-end nirvana with Vite, Twig and Storybook
This is not keeping it simple.

CTI Digital says and asks:
CKEditor 5 Empowers Creativity: What's New in Drupal 10

Most of the DrupalCon Lille presentations are now on YouTube:
Drupal Association's DrupalCon Lille Presentations
They are set to auto-play, unfortunately.

Previous Weeks

Civic Actions takes a look at some of the one's focused on the environment.
Lessons from Lille: Sustainability and DrupalCon

Markie (not Mark) shows us:
How to use once() in Drupal

Kevin Quillen demonstrates:
Upcasting Custom Route Parameters in Drupal

DDEV shares:
Migrating Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 with Acquia Migrate: Accelerate (AM:A)
This is a wonderful tool and if you are on Drupal 7, it's time to use it.

PHP

This Week

The PHP Foundation has an update:
The PHP Foundation Update, November 2023

php[architect] released its November edition:
Command Line Picasso

In case you missed our last communique, Kinsta explores:
PHP 8.3: What’s New and What’s Changed In the Latest Release

Laravel News adds:
PHP 8.3 is released with typed class constants, a json_validate function, and more

Hayden James adds:
PHP 8.3 is Out! – 60% Still Using End-of-Life PHP 7 Which is horseshit and almost as bad as Drupal.

Hence:
PHP 8.0 reaches EOL leaving some websites vulnerable

And Cleyton Bonamigo finishes with:
PHP 8.3: Unpacking the Latest Features for Developers at All Levels

He also has this:
Unlocking the Power of PHP Generators

Tom Smykowski notes there are:
4 New Rounding Methods Likely In PHP 8.4

Italo Baeza Cabrera also looks to the future:
PHP wishlist for 2024

Ramy Hakam examines:
Mastering PHP Debugging: Embracing Xdebug in a Docker Environment With VSCode

Hidden Hat shares:
PHP Library for OpenAI Assistants API

Tomas Votruba shares:
3 Signs Your Project is Becoming Legacy and How to Avoid Them

Ariel Podzorski shows you how to:
Boost Your Productivity with This Simple PhpStorm Feature

Alex Web Dev looks at:
PHP References: What They Are and How to Use Them

Dan Leech explores:
PHP Term

Rubin Rubio examines:
Testing an OpenAPI specification in PHP

DerEuroMark looks at:
Working with decimals in PHP apps

DDEV announces:
New DDEV Docker Providers for macOS

PeakD explores static methods and properties:
Cutting through the static

bitExpert shares:
OpenAI experiments

Exakat has:
Array, classes and anonymous classes memory usage

SquizLabs explores:
The Future of PHP_CodeSniffer

Previous Weeks

Developer Tricks shows us how to do SEO in PHP:
Code optimization in PHP

More Programming

The Guardian opines:
AI doesn’t cause harm by itself. We should worry about the people who control it

Deborah Osagie looks at:
Web5: A Symphony of Connectivity and Control

Kevin Dunglas explores:
Mercure, Braid, PREP… news about subscribing to HTTP resource updates

Heather Buchel explains:
It's 2023, here is why your web design sucks.
This is true.

Luis Berumen Castro examines:
Defending user privacy in digital products A great (though long) read.

The HTMHell advent calendar is one of my favorite series each year:
The UX of HTML

That HTML blog asks:
Is 2024 the Year of CSS Nesting?

Smashing Mag shares:
A Few Ways CSS Is Easier To Write In 2023

Frances Covetere has:
The CSS property you didn't know you needed And it's an interesting one.

JoliCode announces:
Introducing JoliMarkdown, for a more robust and rigorous markdown content Fantastic stuff here.

Jake Lazaroff shows us how:
Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-in

And Hawk Ticehurst shares:
A year working with HTML Web Components

Sitepoint shows us how to:
Create Dynamic Web Experiences with Interactive SVG Animations

Raju Ghorai looks at:
Mastering Docker: Essential Best Practices for Optimized Containerization
I had a lot of fun with Docker this week. 🙃

Dr. Derek Austin explores:
Navigating Git Branches Like a Pro: The Git Branch Command

Smashing Mag explains:
Recovering Deleted Files From Your Git Working Tree

Thomas Broyer shares:
How I teach Git I also had a lot of fun with Git and the command line the past week. 🙃

Tin Plavic lists:
5 Things GitLab Does Better Than GitHub

NextCloud announces:
Open source email pioneer Roundcube joins the Nextcloud family
This has nothing to do with programming, but you should use open-source as much as you can. I use NextCloud for personal storage and am slowly moving off Google to it.

Fighting for Democracy

Please visit our Support Ukraine page to learn how you can help kick Russia out of Ukraine (eventually).

The cyber response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery

The Kyiv Post reports:
Ukraine IT/Tech Sector Successfully Promoted at Web Summit

TechRepublic reports:
New AI Security Guidelines Published by NCSC, CISA & More International Agencies

TechCrunch reports:
Feds seize Sinbad crypto mixer allegedly used by North Korean hackers

More details are here:
Treasury Sanctions Mixer Used by the DPRK to Launder Stolen Virtual Currency

The BBC reports:
Meta takes down China-based network of thousands of fake accounts

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The AP reports:
Facebook parent Meta sues the FTC claiming ‘unconstitutional authority’ in child privacy case

Ars Technica reports:
Google caught placing big-brand ads on hardcore porn sites, report says
Jesus.

Meta’s “overpriced” ad-free subscriptions make privacy a “luxury good”: EU suit

Elon Musk on X antisemitism controversy: “Don’t advertise. Go f*** yourself”
So called entrepreneur and all-around c^nt, Space Karen, proves he is also a fucking moron who doesn't understand how free enterprise works.

TechDirt explains his moronity:
Elon, After Personally Driving Away Advertisers, Tells Them To Go Fuck Themselves (Repeatedly), And Says ‘Earth’ Will ‘Judge’ Them For Killing ExTwitter

SF Gate explains his c^ntitry:
The end of Elon Musk

The Verge reports:
Some X ‘misinformation super-spreaders’ may be eligible for ads payouts
Exhibit 12,801 of Shitter's c^ntitry.

Knock LA reports:
LAPD Is Using Israeli Surveillance Software That Can Track Your Phone and Social Media

The Hacker News reports:
Cybercriminals Using Telekopye Telegram Bot to Craft Phishing Scams on a Grand Scale

North Korea's Lazarus Group Rakes in $3 Billion from Cryptocurrency Hacks

The Guardian reports on:
‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros

Critics of Serbia’s government targeted with ‘military-grade spyware’

PC Magazine reports:
US Warns of Iranian Hackers Targeting Water Facilities

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Tuta asks:

[Why Bother With uBlock Origin Being Blocked In Chrome? Now Is The Best Time To Switch To Firefox](https://tuta.com/blog/best-private-browsers)](https://tuta.com/blog/best-private-browsers)
Indeed. Fuck Chromium browsers.

Speaking of which, David Garcia shows us:
How to start de-Google-ing your life with privacy-first service providers

The Hacker News reports:
Design Flaw in Google Workspace Could Let Attackers Gain Unauthorized Access

Okta Discloses Broader Impact Linked to October 2023 Support System Breach

Ars Technica reports:
ownCloud vulnerability with maximum 10 severity score comes under “mass” exploitation

The Register reports:
Europol shutters ransomware operation with kingpin arrests

Dark Reading reports:
General Electric, DARPA Hack Claims Raise National Security Concerns

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:
Fediverse Report: in other news – episode 45

A Fediverse look at NLnet’s latest grant round

PeerTube v6 update, with password protect and more new features

And its editor, Laurens Hof has:
Innovation in decentralised social networks

Björn Brembs opines:
The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can’t ignore

TheNewStack reports on:
The State of the Open Web: 3 Takeaways Heading into 2024

Activity Pods announces:
The road to ActivityPods 2.0
This is a very interesting idea.

Eric Bailey shares:
I restyled my Mastodon instance

The Nexus continues a series on Mastodon moderation controversy:
It's possible to talk about The Bad Space without being racist or anti-trans – but it's not as easy as it sounds

The University of Innsbruck shares:
Univer­sity of Inns­bruck focuses on Mastodon

We Distribute is:
Debunking the Top 10 Myths About Mastodon

Framasoft announces:
Peertube v6 is out and powered by your ideas

It's FOSS News has more:
PeerTube Gets Better Features Than YouTube With Version 6 Release

Flipboard releases:
ActivityPub and the End of Walled Gardens, with Evan Prodromou (Dot Social Podcast)
Be sure to follow our Flipboard magazine, Symfony for the Devil.

Mac Rumors reports:
Threads Is Coming to the EU in December

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

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You can find a vast array of curated evergreen content.

Author

Reuben Walker

Founder
Symfony Station