Symfony 4 is here and it is better than ever. With Flex, it can be a micro framework and an amazing beast with any feature you want. What changed from version 3, what new best practices are and why Symfony is moving the PHP world forward once again, you can find in this talk.

1. Symfony4: a new way to develop
applications
Antonio Perić-Mažar, Locastic
04.06.2019 - #ipc19

2. Antonio
Perić-Mažar
CEO @ Locastic
Co-founder @ Tinel Meetup
Co-founder @ Blockada
t: antonioperic
m: antonio@locastic.com

3. Locastic
Helping clients create web
and mobile apps since 2011
• UX/UI
• Mobile apps
• Web apps
• Training & Consulting
www.locastic.com
@locastic

6. 2005.

7. php 5.3
2009.2005.

8. php 5.3
2009.2005. 2015.

9. php 5.3
2009.2005. 2015. Nov 2017.

11. • Installing bundle is too cumbersome
• Remove bundle is too cumbersome
• The standard edition is not good enough
• You always had a feeling that you have a bunch of code and
packages that your are not using
What we can do better?

12. – Fabien Potencier
“As a developer, I want to start small, without too many
dependencies. But I also want to be able to grow my
application as I see fit. From a micro-framework style app to a
gigantic monolith. Your choice. The framework should not get
in the way.”

13. – Fabien Potencier
“As a developer, I want to start small, without too many
dependencies. But I also want to be able to grow my
application as I see fit. From a micro-framework style app to a
gigantic monolith. Your choice. The framework should not get
in the way.”

14. Composition over
inheritance

15. • Starting as micro framework
• Compose your application
• Build anything you want; console app, traditional web app, etc
• Based on a micro-kernel and contain 70% less code and files than
new Symfony 3 apps
Symfony4

17. Composer started as a conversation about how to generically install
bundles/plugins/extensions for Symfony and phpBB.
Fun fact

18. Composer started as a conversation about how to generically install
bundles/plugins/extensions for Symfony and phpBB.
Fun fact
Neither Symfony nor phpBB uses Composer as a way to install its
bundles/plugins/extensions.
WTF fact

19. • Composer plugin
• Auto-configurable via recipes
• Official and private recipes
Symfony Flex

21. Decide which package to install
Run any task to configure them

22. {
"bundles": {
"SymfonyBundleSwiftmailerBundleSwiftmailerBundle":
["all"]
},
"copy-from-recipe": {
"config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/"
},
"env": {
"#1": "For Gmail as a transport, use: "gmail://
username:password@localhost"",
"#2": "For a generic SMTP server, use: "smtp://localhost:
25?encryption=&auth_mode="",
"#3": "Delivery is disabled by default via "null://
localhost"",
"MAILER_URL": "null://localhost"
},
"aliases": ["mailer", "mail"]
}
Symfony mailer recipe

23. • Two repositories
• symfony/recipies
• maintained by Symfony core team, contains only recipies for
components and bundles ‘opinionated’ by core team
• can use alias
• symfony/recipies-contrib
• anyone can contribute
• cannot use alias
Symfony Flex Recipies

24. https://flex.symfony.com/

26. • With composer
• composer create-project symfony/skeleton
• composer create-project symfony/website-skeleton
• composer create-project symfony/demo
Starting a new project

27. • With Symfony Client
• Helps you create new Symfony applications
• supports multiple PHP versions, different PHP config per directory
• Provides a local HTTP/2 web server
• Generates TLS certificates
• Checks for security vulnerabilities
• Seamlessly integrates with SymfonyCloud
• Works on Windows also
Starting a new project

28. • With Symfony Client
• symfony new my_project
• symfony new ——full my_poject
• symfony serve
Starting a new project

30. Configuration

31. No more different
controllers for different enviroments

32. Your code goes
here

33. Cache, log…

34. vendors

35. .env variables

36. symfony.lock is used
by flex to track which recipies are
installed in the project

37. • parameters.yaml is gone
• more flexible but still you need to care about security
• .env - commit - defaults
• .env.local - gitignore
• .env.test - commit - defaults
• .env.test.local - gitignore
.env

38. Don’t put secrets in .env
file!!!

39. • Bundle vs no-bundle apps
• All in src/ folder
• App/ namespace
• You should separate, but no need for bundles
• Moving forward to standardisation
• Reduces the perceived complexity, makes your code feels more
decoupled from symfony
• Bundle inheritance mechanisms are depricated in 3.4, removed in 4.0
Bundle-less
applications

40. Say hi to autowiring

41. • Introduced in Symfony3
• Allows you to manage services in the container with minimal
configuration
• Reads type-hints on your constructor (or other methods) and
automatically passes the correct services
• Designed to be predictable; if it is not absolutely clear which
dependency should be passed, you will see actionable exception
• Registers each class it finds as the fully qualified class name (FQCN)
Autowiring

42. # This file is the entry point to configure your own services.
# Files in the packages/ subdirectory configure your dependencies.
# Put parameters here that don't need to change on each machine where the app is deployed
# https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/configuration.html#application-related-configuration
parameters:
services:
# default configuration for services in *this* file
_defaults:
autowire: true # Automatically injects dependencies in your services.
autoconfigure: true # Automatically registers your services as commands, event subscribers, etc.
# makes classes in src/ available to be used as services
# this creates a service per class whose id is the fully-qualified class name
App:
resource: '../src/*'
exclude: '../src/{DependencyInjection,Entity,Migrations,Tests,Kernel.php}'
# controllers are imported separately to make sure services can be injected
# as action arguments even if you don't extend any base controller class
AppController:
resource: '../src/Controller'
tags: ['controller.service_arguments']
# add more service definitions when explicit configuration is needed
# please note that last definitions always *replace* previous ones

43. By default, all services
are now private.
$container->get(‘service_name’)
is dead

44. <?php
namespace AppService;
use AppUtilRot13Transformer;
class TwitterClient
{
private $transformer;
public function __construct(Rot13Transformer $transformer)
{
$this->transformer = $transformer;
}
public function tweet($user, $key, $status)
{
$transformedStatus = $this->transformer->transform($status);
// ... connect to Twitter and send the encoded status
}
}

45. bin/console debug:autowiring

46. • Webpack Encore is a simpler way to integrate Webpack into your
application
• Step forward after AsseticBundle
• composer require webpack-encore
• Works outside of Symfony
Symfony Webpack
Encore

49. • Symfony on PHP 7.2 makes your code quite a bit faster than 7.1
• Symfony 2.3 is the second fastest Symfony release since 2.0
• Symfony 3.4 is the slowest release since 2.0 (deprecated features are
probably one of the reasons);
• Symfony 4.0 is almost three times faster as Laravel 5.5.
Performance

50. Stability and
predictability

51. • It is possible, not so complex (depending on project)
• It will take a little bit of time
• Upgrade first to Symfony 3.4
Updating to Symfony4

52. Symfony 4.3 (May 30, 2019)

54. Keep cooding features!
Symfony4 spirit

55. • It is a great feeling working with Symfony4
• Symfony has great community that is moving framework forward
• Flex is amazing thing
• New folder structure is more organised and more natural
• Better standardisation
A year later

56. • Symfony is great as microframework
• Higher level of abstraction is better for prototyping and building
things faster
• Very easy to start, but maybe new developers will think there is to
much magic
• Symfony as framework should not be a limitation for you
A year later

58. Thank you!

59. Questions?
Antonio Perić-Mažar
t: antonioperic
m: antonio@locastic.com