Happy Monday All!

Two of this week's three pieces were about new PHP syntax, and the pipe operator shows up in both, so consider this my unofficial pipe week.

The PHP 8.5 Pipe Operator: Function Chains That Read Top to Bottom

I wrote up the |> operator from PHP 8.5, which passes the value on its left into the callable on its right. It replaces the $result = ...; $result = ...; pile and the inside-out nested calls with a chain that reads in the order it runs. I cover why every stage ends in (...), why it compiles away to zero overhead, and the limits: single-parameter callables only, no by-reference functions like sort(). My rule is to reach for it once a chain hits three stages.

Stop Writing PHP Like This (8.6 Fixes It)

PHP 8.6 lands November 19, and this video walks through five features that retire code you write today. Partial function application uses ? placeholders and pairs with the pipe operator to fix the single-parameter limit from my post above. clamp() replaces the max(min()) dance, a SortDirection enum replaces SORT_ASC, readonly properties get default values, and session cookies ship with safer defaults out of the box.

Podcast Repurposing: 21 Pieces from One Episode

Over on The Steady Pack I did the math on one recording: one blog post, ten clips, and ten social posts. The blog post comes from the transcript, the clips come from timestamps I mark while editing, and the social posts come straight from the show notes. It only works if you do it in a batch during editing, because trying to remember the good moments a week later never happens.

See you next Monday.