CakePHP 5.0.0 was released on September 10th. The current version as of today is 5.0.3 (released Nov 28th and compatible with PHP 8.3 https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/releases/tag/5.0.3). You might be asking yourself some questions related to the upgrade… here's what we've been recommending to our clients to do since version 5 was released. Leaving aside the obvious reasons for an upgrade, today we're going to categorize the decision from 2 different points of view: Your current CakePHP version, and your role in the project.

When should you upgrade? 

  We are going to use current CakePHP version as the main criteria: * If you are in CakePHP <= 2   * We strongly recommend an upgrade as soon as possible. If you are unable to upgrade, try to keep your PHP version and all the underlying dependencies as fresh as you can and isolate the application as much as possible. If your application is internal, consider using a VPN blocking all outside traffic. If your site is open to the public, consider using an isolated environment, hardened. Adding a web application firewall and a strict set of rules could also help to mitigate potential security issues. Even if CakePHP is very secure, the older versions of CakePHP, like  1 and 2  have a very old code base , and other vendors/ libraries could be a serious security risk for your project at this point.   * If you are in CakePHP 3.x   * The effort to upgrade at least to CakePHP 4.x should not be a blocker. We would recommend upgrading at least to the latest CakePHP 4.5.x. You can actually "ignore" the deprecations for now, you don't need to plan for upgrading your authentication/authorization layers just yet, focus on getting your project stable and up to CakePHP 4.5.x in the first round.   * If you are in CakePHP 4.x   * Upgrading to CakePHP 5.x is not an immediate priority for you.   * I would say, 2024 is a good time to start planning for an upgrade. Feature and bugfix releases for 4.x will continue until September 2025. Security fixes will continue for 4.x until September 2026. You have plenty of time to consider an upgrade, and take advantage of newer (and faster!) PHP versions.  

Why should you upgrade? 

  We are going to use your role in the project to provide some good reasons: * If you are a developer   * More strict types, meaning better IDE support and more errors catched at development time.   * New features in CakePHP 5.x will make your code more readable, like Typed finder parameters https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/appendices/5-0-migration-guide.html#typed-finder-parameters      * Quality of life features, reducing development time like https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/appendices/5-0-migration-guide.html#plugin-installer   * Compatibility with PHP 8.3 for extra performance & support   * If you are a manager   * Ensure your development team is forced to drop old auth code and embrace the new authentication/authorization layer https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/appendices/5-0-migration-guide.html#auth   * The new authentication layer will allow you to easily integrate features like single sign on, two factor authentication or hardware keys (like Yubikeys), as there are plugins available handling all these features.   * Get an extended support window. CakePHP is one of the longest maintained frameworks out there, upgrading to CakePHP 5 will keep your core maintained past 2026.   * Upgrade to PHP 8.3 and force legacy vendors to be up to date with the new version, this will also push your team to get familiar with the new PHP core features.   * If you are an investor, not directly related with the project day-to-day operations   * Secure your inversion for a longer period.   * Reduce your exposure to security issues.   * Send a strong message to your partners, keeping your product updated with the latest technology trends.   * Send a strong message to your team, investing in the upgrade of your application will let them know the project is aiming for a long term future.   In conclusion, upgrading to CakePHP 5 is a good move for 2024 whether you're a developer, manager, or investor. The version 5 is stable and ready to go. Staying current becomes not just a best practice but a strategic advantage.   If you are in doubt, feel free to contact us. We'll review your case (for free) and provide an actionable recommendation based on your current situation in the next business day.  

In the realm of web development, a seamless local environment is the bedrock for efficient and stress-free coding. Enter DDEV, a powerful tool that simplifies the setup process and empowers developers to dive into their projects with ease. In this blog post, we'll embark on a journey to demystify the process of setting up a local development environment using DDEV. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting in the world of web development, optimizing your local environment can significantly enhance your workflow.

Pre Conditions :

Install Docker https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/ and install DDEV https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Step 1: Create a new CakePHP project skeleton 

composer create-project cakephp/app myproject A new folder "myproject" will be created with a CakePHP project skeleton inside. Go to this new directory and proceed with the following instructions.

Step 2: Initial ddev setup

Run ddev config
This will do the initial ddev setup, press enter for all questions.  Run ddev auth ssh
This will add ssh key authentication to the ddev-ssh-auth container

Step 3: Adjust the settings

Inside "myproject" a new .ddev folder will be created, open config.yaml  and adjust there: php version, database and the database url environment.  For PHP:
php_version: "8.1"

For the database: database: type: mysql version: "8.0" For the environment variable: web_environment: - DATABASE_URL=mysql://db:db@db/db

Step 4: Start ddev

ddev start  This will spin up the project.

Step 5: Open your application

ddev launch This will open your project in a browser.   Once you have the application up and running, some useful commands you could run are:

• ddev composer to execure composer
• ddev mysql to get into the database
• ddev ssh takes you into the web container.

In this link https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/usage/cli/ you can see more useful commands.   Hope you enjoy playing with DDEV!

 

   

 

 

CakeFest 2023 once again brought together developers from around the world for a weekend of baking (code), insightful talks, and community building. This year's event, featuring speakers from eight different countries and attendees joining both in person and via live streaming, was a refreshing convergence of passion and technology.

International Flavor:

One of the highlights of CakeFest 2023 was its international reach. Speakers from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Brazil, and Spain graced the virtual and physical stages, sharing experiences in the world of CakePHP and software development. This lineup added a diverse perspective to the event's discussions.  

A Weekend of Learning and Networking:

CakeFest attendees enjoyed a weekend filled with learning opportunities, covering things from beginner workshops to cutting-edge software development trends, to the future of CakePHP. Workshops, panels, and presentations provided valuable insights and knowledge of the framework. We hope that everyone had the chance to expand their skills, connect with other developers, and forge new professional relationships. When CakeFest wasn't in session, the core/CakePHP team and attendees spent a lot of time getting to know each other… Groups went to lunch and dinner every day of the event. This is probably my favorite part of the physical conferences.    

Baking and Code:

Day 1 consisted of 2 full workshops from Jorge González and lead core developer Mark Story. The third workshop presented by Kevin Pfeifer was included in day 2’s hybrid model. Followed by talks from: John Killcommons (keynote) of Zulucare/Zulucloud, Rafael Queiroz (Github actions for beginners and applied to CakePHP basic projects), Celso Fontes (PGE Digital, a successful CakePHP project in Rio de Janeiro's Attorney), and Andres Campanario (Integration of inertiajs on CakePHP to bake CRUD SPA).    Day 3’s speakers included: Remy Bertot (keynote) of Passbolt, Mark Scherer  (How to use your IDE effectively for CakePHP), Alejandro Ibarra (Unveiling the Ultimate Showdown: A Comparative Analysis of Local Development Tools), Stefan Koopmanschap (Domain-Driven Design: The Basics), Umer Salman (Agile Deployment of CakePHP Web Applications in a Hybrid Kubernetes Cluster), and Wim Godden (Websockets as the glue to interactivity).    It was a weekend worth remembering for sure. The unique blend of networking and code at CakeFest allowed attendees to see just how far CakePHP has come, and will go, plus some pretty cool things built with the framework.     

The Cake Ceremony:

No CakeFest would be complete without the much-anticipated cake ceremony. We hope that those attending virtually were able to enjoy some with us. In LA, we carried on the tradition of allowing Mark Story to be the “cutter of the cake”. Now that I think about it, he never asks to cut the cake, but it’s a honor nonetheless. 

   

Conclusion:

CakeFest 2023 was a celebration of passion, knowledge, and creativity. With its global reach, experienced speaker lineup, and faithful community, we believe that the event left attendees inspired and eager to continue their works using Cake. We also learned about all of the cool places that CakePHP is being utilized, from the attorney general's office in Brazil, all the way to nasa using some CakePHP in space (more or less). We also heard from some of our CakePHP core developers - specifically their thoughts on CakePHP 5 and what’s to come. You can see a lot of photos on Facebook and Twitter and the edited presentation videos will be posted to YouTube soon. We are working on getting slides uploaded into the CakeFest site as we speak (or type).    Someone said to me that there's a little bit of magic in every slice of cake and every line of code… I think that pretty well sums up our great weekend at CakeFest.

The title speaks for itself, let’s jump right in! As a preliminary step, we start from a user registered in DigitalOcean with a validated account. Use the doctl tool for the entire communication process with DigitalOcean.

Step 1: Install doctl

$ cd ~ $ wget https://github.com/digitalocean/doctl/releases/download/v1.71.0/doctl-1.71.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz $ tar xvf doctl-1.71.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz $ sudo mv doctl /usr/local/bin

 

Step 2: Create an API token

  Go to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens Generate new token for read and write and save apart the value of token generated <TOKEN NAME>: personaltoken 
<TOKEN VALUE>: 6e981fc2a674dbb7a610b9b85d0c8b00

Step 3: Use the API token to grant account access to doctl

$ doctl auth init --context personaltoken Validating token... OK

Prompt for <TOKEN VALUE>, then enter it and press return 
 

Step 4: Validate that doctl is working

$ doctl auth init  Validating token... OK

  Prompt for <TOKEN VALUE>, then enter it and press return  Validate by obtaining the account information

$ doctl account get Email      Droplet Limit    Email Verified    UUID         Status [email protected]    10     true     5415bbf8-d501-4096-9b75-ab781c017948    active

 

Step 5: Create a Container Registry with doctl

<MY-REGISTRY-NAME> : container-nyc-795 <REGION> : nyc3

$ doctl registry create container-nyc-795 --region nyc3 Name       Endpoint        Region slug container-nyc-795    registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795    nyc3

Important: the region of the Container registry and Kubernetes cluster MUST be the same Keep in mind that container names must be unique, must be lowercase, and only accepts alphanumeric characters and hyphens.  

Step 6: Login to authenticate docker with your registry

$ doctl registry login Logging Docker in to registry.digitalocean.com

 

Step 7: Create kubernetes cluster

$ doctl kubernetes cluster create cluster-static-example --region nyc3 Notice: Cluster is provisioning, waiting for cluster to be running ................................................................... Notice: Cluster created, fetching credentials Notice: Adding cluster credentials to kubeconfig file found in "/home/andres/.kube/config" Notice: Setting current-context to do-nyc3-cluster-static-example ID                                      Name                      Region    Version        Auto Upgrade    Status     Node Pools d24f180b-6007-4dbc-a2fe-3952801570aa    cluster-static-example    nyc3      1.22.7-do.0    false           running    cluster-static-example-default-pool

Important: the region of the Container registry and Kubernetes cluster MUST be the same here as well.  This operation isn’t a fast process.  

Step 8: Integrate kubernetes cluster in Container register

$ doctl kubernetes cluster registry add cluster-static-example

 

Step 9: Get token certificate and connect to cluster

$ doctl kubernetes cluster kubeconfig save cluster-static-example Notice: Adding cluster credentials to kubeconfig file found in "/home/andres/.kube/config" Notice: Setting current-context to do-nyc3-cluster-static-example

To validate this, use the kubectl tool to get context. If is not installed, get the last version you find - for example in googleapis

$ wget https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.23.5/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl $ chmod +x kubectl $ sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/

Check with

$ kubectl config current-context do-nyc3-cluster-static-example

Here, you see: bash prompt do-ny3-cluster-sttic-example. That is the context you created in Step 7
 

Step 10: Generate docker image, tag and push to DigitalOcean

We assume that the user already has docker installed

$ mkdir myapp $ mkdir myapp/html $ nano myapp/Dockerfile

  Inside Dockerfile put   

FROM nginx:latest COPY ./html/hello.html /usr/share/nginx/html/hello.html

  We create simple Dockerfile with NGINX Server and copy the file hello.html in the default html of nginx  

$ nano myapp/html/hello.html

  Inside hello.html put  

<!DOCTYPE html> <html>  <head>    <title>Hello World!</title>  </head>  <body>    <p>This is an example of a simple HTML page served from the Nginx container.</p>  </body> </html>

Then build a docker image file tag with repository and push with docker
 

$ cd myapp $ docker build -t registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app . Sending build context to Docker daemon  3.584kB Step 1/2 : FROM nginx:latest latest: Pulling from library/nginx c229119241af: Pull complete 2215908dc0a2: Pull complete 08c3cb2073f1: Pull complete 18f38162c0ce: Pull complete 10e2168f148a: Pull complete c4ffe9532b5f: Pull complete Digest: sha256:2275af0f20d71b293916f1958f8497f987b8d8fd8113df54635f2a5915002bf1 Status: Downloaded newer image for nginx:latest  ---> 12766a6745ee Step 2/2 : COPY ./html/hello.html /usr/share/nginx/html/hello.html  ---> 2b9be913c377 Successfully built 2b9be913c377 Successfully tagged registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app:latest   $ docker images REPOSITORY                                               TAG       IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app   latest    2b9be913c377   2 minutes ago   142MB   $ docker push registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app Using default tag: latest The push refers to repository [registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app] ac03ae036a53: Pushed ea4bc0cd4a93: Pushed fac199a5a1a5: Pushed 5c77d760e1f4: Pushed 33cf1b723f65: Pushed ea207a4854e7: Pushed 608f3a074261: Pushed latest: digest: sha256:22615ad4c324ca5dc13fe2c3e1d2d801bd166165e3809f96ed6a96a2b2ca2748 size: 1777

Step 11: Create app

Create file example-static-app.yaml and insert: alerts:                                 
- rule: DEPLOYMENT_FAILED               
- rule: DOMAIN_FAILED                   
name: example-static-app                
region: nyc                             
services:                               
- http_port: 80                         
  image:                                
    registry_type: DOCR                 
    repository: static-app              
    tag: latest                         
  instance_count: 2                     
  instance_size_slug: professional-xs   
  name: static-service                  
  routes:                               
  - path: /                             
  source_dir: /                           Validate file with

$  doctl apps spec validate example-static-app.yaml

Create app

$ doctl apps create --spec example-static-app.yaml Notice: App created ID        Spec Name             Default Ingress    Active Deployment ID    In Progress Deployment ID    Created At     Updated At 55a7cb68-65b7-4ff1-b6af-388cdb1df507    example-static-app   2022-03-30 09:34:01.288257225 +0000 UTC    2022-03-30 09:34:01.288257225 +0000 UTC

If you access https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps And in the live url + /hello.html you can see:

Step 12: Deploy app

If you modify the code of your app, you need to generate a new image with docker and push  (see step 10). Then you don’t need to create a new app, you need to deploy the image in the already created app, with the id executing the command to deploy in bash.

$  doctl apps create-deployment 55a7cb68-65b7-4ff1-b6af-388cdb1df507

 

How to generate deploy of Docker image to Container Registry on DigitalOcean Platform Apps

Once you have created the application (and if you have the code in gitlab), you can create a direct deployment of your code in the DigitalOcean container and deploy on top of your application.

Step 1: Define variables

First two variables are defined in gitlab. You can find these inside project in the left menu - enter in Settings > CI/CD > Variables $DIGITALOCEAN_API_KEY = token generated in DigitalOcean dashboard $APP_ID = previously generated application identifier   More can be defined as the name of the repository. The value of these variables will be injected into the file that we will create below in the Step 3  

 

Step 2: Register runner in gitlab

In your project in the left menu, go to Settings > CI/CD > Runners Create a specific runner for the project in the URL with registration token. Register GitLab Runner from the command line. It is important to use docker and privileged

# Download the binary for your system sudo curl -L --output /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-runner-linux-amd64 # Give it permission to execute sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner # Register runner sudo gitlab-runner register -n --url https://git.cakedc.com --registration-token GR1348941gx7sgV3pZFQgRqg5qUR_ --executor docker --description "My Docker Runner" --docker-image "docker:19.03.12" --docker-privileged --docker-volumes "/certs/client"

 

Step 3: Create file gitlab-ci.yml 

The gitlab-ci.yml file takes care of

• Authentication and identification using doctl in DigitalOcean
• Generating and sending the docker image to the DigitalOcean container
• Deploying the container image to an existing app

Create the file gitlab-ci.yml in the root of your project as

image: docker:20-dind variables:   DOCKER_HOST: tcp://docker:2375   DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay2   DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR: ""   REPOSITORY_URL: registry.digitalocean.com/container-nyc-795/static-app   CONTAINER_NAME: static-app services:   - name: docker:20-dind     alias: docker     command: ["--tls=false"] before_script:   - apk update   - apk upgrade   - apk add doctl --repository=http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community   - docker info build:   stage: build   script:     - doctl auth init --access-token $DIGITALOCEAN_API_KEY     - doctl account get          - echo $DIGITALOCEAN_API_KEY | docker login -u $DIGITALOCEAN_API_KEY --password-stdin registry.digitalocean.com     - docker build -t $REPOSITORY_URL:latest .     - docker push $REPOSITORY_URL     - doctl apps create-deployment $APP_ID

Now, every time you do a git push in your project, the runner will automatically inject the variables defined previously in the gitlab-ci.yml file. Then, it will generate a docker image with docker (docker-in-docker) to create an image of your project, send it to the digitalocean repository and deploy it in the app configured.   That’s it!  

Here we are again coming off of the CakeFest sugar high! I don’t even know where to begin.    Unfortunately, or fortunately - I haven’t decided, we had to do another virtual event. The safety of speakers, staff and attendees is very important to us, so a physical event was not the best option in our opinion with traveling.    However, after this event, I started thinking about the people who were able to attend from the comfort of their own homes or offices. These people may not have been able to travel or attend otherwise, and that gives me our silver lining. Not to mention that we had more ticket sales this year than any of our previous events (at least that I can remember).    The theme, for me anyway, ha ha, was traveling the world, ironically. We started in the Canary Islands, traveled to Germany, to Canada, to England and Austria. We had new faces from the US, the Czech Republic and even Japan - and more! This is, as I’ve mentioned, one of the best things about the CakePHP community, we have community members all over the world. This was our chance to come together.    So let’s get to the event. Here’s what you may have missed: 

Workshops:

Workshop 1 Jorge González (Twitter: @steinkelz) Topics covered included: 0:00 - Docker development environment for CakePHP 15:56 - Middlewares  30:05 - Security 1:31:36 - Performance optimization 2:04:49 - Events   Workshop 2 Michael Hoffmann (Twitter: @cleptric) Topics covered included: 0:00:00 -Setup login action in CakePHP 0:29:10 - Vite with hot reloading Vue.js tailwind css   Workshop 3 Mark Story (Twitter: @mark_story) Topics covered included: 0:04:25 - Leveraging new style fixtures 0:48:26 - Using the DI container 1:30:13 - Browser automation testing with Panther. 2:17:13 - Helpers you may need.
 

Talks:

* Juan Pablo Ramirez (Twitter: @jpramidev) gave the keynote talk on behalf of Passbolt. * Sho Ito (Twitter: @itosho) taught us all about Components * Yuki Kanazawa (Twitter: @yakitori009) and this talk about Automatically Distributing Reference Queries to    Read Replica in CakePHP4 * Mark Scherer (Twitter: @dereuromark) schooled attendees on IDE in CakePHP development * Jiri Havlicek (Twitter: @Jerryhavl) played a big role in fighting COVID-19 by helping create a  contact tracing app (developed with CakePHP) in Czech Republic * Chris Miller (Twitter: @ccmiller2019) explained standards and why we use them * Kevin Phifer (Twitter: @lordsimal)  joined in to explain how to re-use code - utility classes and PHP namespaces * Paul Henriks created a plugin with attendees LIVE * Ed Barnard (Twitter: @ewbarnard) brought the dragons! He talked about finding the Joy in Software Development * Chris Hartjes (Twitter: @grmpyprogrammer) delivered a Grumpy Programmer's Guide to being a senior developer  * Joe Ferguson (Twitter: @joepferguson) shared his knowledge on Modern Infrastructure as code with Ansible * Timo Stark (Twitter: @linux_lenny) shared details about NGINX Unit - and how to modernize your CakePHP deployments

Trivia and giveaways 

Cake ceremony dedicated to Mark Story

We took this time to thank and acknowledge Mark Story for all of his hard work and dedication that he puts into CakePHP. He then headed the cake cutting ceremony (virtually of course) as speakers and attendees enjoyed their own treats!   See the full archive here: https://cakefest.org/archive/virtual-2021  

So what’s to come? 

First!  Videos are starting to be released. With the help of community member Aroop Roelofs, we will be releasing these videos faster than expected. Ticket holders have been receiving access, and they will be released publicly in the coming days.  In regards to future events, it’s up in the air. We will have some internal discussions about safety measures and restrictions, then we will weigh the option between another virtual or physical event. We will, of course, reach out to the community for their input.  I will close by just saying THANK YOU. Thank you for making my job worth it. When an event runs smoothly and gets so much great feedback, that is a direct reflection from the community support. We hope you all will continue to join us in years to come!    Thanks for baking!  

Let’s talk about Dependency Injection!

SOLID principles

As you know SOLID is an acronym for the  five object-oriented design principles. In this topic, we will focus on Interface segregation principle and Dependency inversion principle. Interface segregation principle states that a client must not be forced to implement an interface that they do not use, or clients shouldn’t be forced to depend on methods they do not use. In other words, having  many client-specific interfaces is better than one general-purpose interface. From the other side, Dependency inversion principle states that objects must depend on abstractions, not on concretions. It states that the high-level module must not depend on the low-level module, but they should depend on abstractions. To follow Dependency inversion principle, we need to construct low-level modules and pass them to constructors, and that might create a lot of manual work for developers. The dependency injection container is created specifically for solving the problem with manual construction of an object, before creating a specific object. If we follow interface segregation principle when developing application modules, it would be easy to configure a container and switch module dependency. This is where the interface shows its incredible power.  

Few words about CakePHP Events System

CakePHP Events System was created to allow injecting some logic using listeners. However, in some cases, it is used to get results from code that will be created by the module user. When an event is dispatched by the listener, it can return the result. Callback injection through the event system has some drawbacks. First of all, parameters passed to the event need to pass as a hash array. So unfortunately, there is no way to check that all params are really passed or to be sure that all passed params have correct types. Is there a way to solve this problem? Yes, and containers could help with that. Instead of passing events, we can get the required object from the container and call it method. But you could say: wait, we don't know what object could be used in client code within the developed plugin. That's fine, and this  is where interface segregation principle can help. In our plugin, we define an interface for each such case, and instead of dispatching an event, we can easily get an object from the container by interface.       $updater = $container->get(AfterLoginInterface::class);     if ($updater !== null) {         $user = $updater->afterLogin($user);     }   In the Application::services method, users link the interface with the specific class.       public function services(ContainerInterface $container): void     {         $container->add(AfterLoginInterface::class, MyAfterLogin::class);     }   In some of default behavior needed we can map service class for container to default implementation using Plugin::services method.       public function services(ContainerInterface $container): void     {         if (!$container->has(AfterLoginInterface::class)) {             $container->add(AfterLoginInterface::class, NullAfterLogin::class);         }     }  

Container propagation

Dependency injection is an experimental feature. Initial implementation limited by Controllers constructors and methods, and Commands constructors. If we want to access the container in other parts of the application, we may want to propagate it from app level. The most logical way would be to implement middleware and store the container inside the request attribute.   <?php declare(strict_types=1);   namespace App\Middleware;   use Cake\Core\ContainerInterface; use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface; use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface; use Psr\Http\Server\MiddlewareInterface; use Psr\Http\Server\RequestHandlerInterface; use RuntimeException;   /**  * Container Injector Middleware  */ class ContainerInjectorMiddleware implements MiddlewareInterface {     /**      * @var \Cake\Core\ContainerInterface      */     protected $container;       /**      * Constructor      *      * @param \Cake\Core\ContainerInterface $container The container to build controllers with.      */     public function __construct(ContainerInterface $container)     {         $this->container = $container;     }       /**      * Serve assets if the path matches one.      *      * @param \Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface $request The request.      * @param \Psr\Http\Server\RequestHandlerInterface $handler The request handler.      * @return \Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface A response.      */     public function process(ServerRequestInterface $request, RequestHandlerInterface $handler): ResponseInterface     {         return $handler->handle($request->withAttribute('container', $this->container));     } }    That’s it! I hope that this will help you when you are baking with dependency injections. If you run into any problems, there are many support channels that allow the CakePHP community to help  You can check them out under the community tab at CakePHP.org.

The whole team here at CakeDC are big supporters and contributors of the CakePHP community. For this month, I decided to do “one CakePHP project per day” to share with the community.  Here are some of my projects so far:

Project 01 - Notes App

A one page note application using CakePHP 4 and Bootstrap 5. This project is  a good starting point to learn the framework. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-project-a-day-challenge-01-notes  

Project 02 - Contact List

An application to manage contacts - you are able to list, add, edit and delete contacts, upload contact avatar images or use avatar images from gravatar.com . It was built using CakePHP 4, plugin friendsofcake/search, plugin josegonzalez/cakephp-upload, Gravatar, and Bootstrap 5.  Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-project-a-day-challenge-02-contact-list  

Project 03 - Recipe Box

An application to manage recipes, using CakePHP 4,  CouchDB and Bootstrap 5. This one is a good starting point to learn to use CouchDB with CakePHP, including how to list, add and edit recipes (documents). Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-03-recipe-box  

Project 04 - Service Plan with Exchange rate

An application to list services and apply exchange rate using the api https://exchangeratesapi.io/documentation/ and CakePHP 4. In this one you see the custom namespace WebService to handle logic related to api as client. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-04-service-plans-ex-rate  

Project 05 - Polls

A fun poll app, using the awesome Bulma CSS Framework and CakePHP 4. A good example of model association and the CounterCache Behavior. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-05-polls-emmy  

Project 06 - Movie Theater Schedule

An application to see which movies are in the theaters and which hours by screen each day of the week. A good example of complex queries, model associations and seed data. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-06-movie-theater-schedule  

Project 07 - Podcast Finder

An application to help easily find podcasts and download episodes. In the source code you’ll find how to use the itunes api,  a structure to handle Model actions (that I think is a good option to make your models cleaner), and a way to parse podcasts feed (XML); example usage of dependency injection. The application was built with CakePHP 4 and Bulma CSS Framework. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-07-podcast-finder  

Project 08 - Url Shortener

An application to create short urls - a good example of how to create custom routes and use custom primary key types for a model. The application was built with CakePHP 4. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-08-url-shortener  

Project 09 - Quiz

Users can list quizzes, create quizzes and answer at any time. A good example of how to use MongoDB with CakePHP 4 with a base structure for Collection classes.  Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-09-quiz  

Project 10 - File Transfer

An application to easily send files to anyone, create an account, upload the file and inform the person email to send to. Built with CakePHP 4, plugin CakeDC/Users,  plugin Josegonzalez/Upload,  plugin friendsofcake/bootstrap-ui, SMTP and Bootstrap. A good example to see the usage of these plugins. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-10-file-transfer  

Project 11 - Tasks

A one page application for  users to manage their tasks. The user can create and remove decks, create and complete tasks, and list tasks grouped by decks. Built with CakePHP 4, plugin CakeDC/Users and Bootstrap 5 Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-11-tasks  

Project 12 - Blog

A blog website with blog posts and tags management, WYSIWYG editor, blog search, tags filtering. Built with CakePHP 4, CakeDC/Users plugin, friendsofcake/bootstrap-ui, Muffin/Slug, friendsofcake/search and Bootstrap 4 . A good example of usage of custom routes, route prefix, finders and multiple plugins. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-12-blog  

Project 13 - Olympic Medal Count

Perfect time for this project, right?! An application to display olympic medal count by country and sports. The source code uses CouterCache behavior and aggregated query. Built with CakePHP 4 and Bootstrap 5. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-13-olympic-medal-count
 

Project 14 - Smart Home Dashboard

An awesome dashboard to manage smart devices using MQTT Messaging, CakePHP 4, CakeDC/Users plugin, php-mqtt/client (testing with Mosquitto Broker) and Bootstrap 5. The application is able to publish messages to change device status and subscribe for status changes. Link: https://github.com/rochamarcelo/one-cakephp-project-a-day-challenge-14-smart-home-dashboard-mqtt    I hope that this initiative will somehow inspire others to put their Cake skills to work, and share their projects with the community. If you’d like to see my future projects and posts, you can follow me on Twitter, and I will share them all there! https://twitter.com/mrcodex

The log of applications is gold. It's an important part of the software, they represent the health of the application. By default, CakePHP will use the FileLog adapter which will write to /logs/ folder. It's hard to track the live issues, and by hard I mean you will need to connect to the server, open the file on /logs/ and look at the issue which you want to investigate.   What do you think if your application sends the error directly to your team communication (Slack, Teams, RocketChat) application? Will be easier to know about a new error after some deployment? This error is sneaky, and can be in command applications. Often, we only look at the errors when the users report it.   For this sample I will use Slack, but this approach can be implemented for any application.  All we need is to create a Log adapter and configure it. So…let’s bake that:     Now we may get errors like this:   That’s all bakers! I hope this article can be useful and you can improve your logs.  

We sponsor a monthly CakePHP training session (register here https://training.cakephp.org ) where we cover different topics about the framework. One of our sessions, the "Getting Started with CakePHP 4" is aimed to help developers starting a new project quickly and following the best practices.   Our previous "recommended" quick setting for a CakePHP development environment was using a vagrant box. See details here:  https://www.cakedc.com/jorge_gonzalez/2018/01/17/using-a-vagrant-box-as-quick-environment-for-the-getting-started-with-cakephp-training-session. However, we've switched internally to use docker as our primary development environment and also we started using docker in our training sessions.   Here's a quick overview of a simple docker based development environment for CakePHP.  

1. Create a new CakePHP project skeleton using 

composer create-project cakephp/app myproject   A new folder "myproject" will be created with a CakePHP project skeleton inside. Go to this new directory and proceed.  

2. Create a new "docker-compose.yaml" file with the following contents

version: '3' services:   mysql8:     image: mysql:8     restart: always     container_name: mysql     environment:         MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root         MYSQL_DATABASE: my_app         MYSQL_USER: my_app         MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret     volumes:       - ./:/application     ports:       - '9306:3306'     cakephp:     image: webdevops/php-apache:8.0     container_name: cakephp     working_dir: /application/webroot     volumes:       - ./:/application     environment:       - WEB_DOCUMENT_ROOT=/application/webroot       - DATABASE_URL=mysql://my_app:secret@mysql/my_app     ports:       - "8099:80"
 

3. Run "docker-compose up"

You'll create 2 containers named mysql and cakephp -  check the docker-compose configuration to see default database and users created in the mysql container, and the same environment params passed to the cakephp container via DATABASE_URL to allow the cakephp container to connect with the mysql database.   NOTE: the ports exposed are 9306 for mysql and 8099 for cakephp webserver. You can list them using docker-compose ps.  

4. Access your database and cakephp shell

• To access the database you can use the command:

mysql --port 9306 -umy_app -psecret my_app   To restore a database dump for example, you can use the command: curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CakeDC/cakephp4-getting-started-session/master/my_app.sql |mysql --port 9306 -umy_app -psecret my_app   You can also configure any database tool to access the database in: localhost:9306  

• To access the cakephp environment and shell you can use the command:

docker exec -it --user application cakephp bash   You'll go to the webroot folder, so in order to run the cake shell you'll need to: cd .. bin/cake 
  Now you have a working environment to play with the training session contents.   In this previous article, we covered another approach to setting up a local docker environment: https://www.cakedc.com/rochamarcelo/2020/07/20/a-quick-cakephp-local-environment-with-docker    We hope to see you in our next training session! https://training.cakephp.org   

One reason to migrate from CakePHP 2.x to newer versions, is the very powerful ORM system that was introduced in CakePHP 3.x.  

Improved ORM Objects

The CakePHP model layer in CakePHP 3.x uses the Data Mapper pattern. Model classes in CakePHP 3.x ORM are split into two separate objects. Entity represents a single row in the database and it is responsible for keeping record state. Table class provides access to a collection of database records and describe associations, and provides api to work with a database. One notable change is afterFind callback removal. In CakePHP 3.x, it is possible to use Entity level getters to provide calculated fields on entity level.  

Association Upgrade 

In CakePHP 2.x associations are defined as arrays properties like this:     public $belongsTo = [         'Profile' => [             'className' => 'Profile',             'foreignKey' => 'profile_id',         ]     ];   In CakePHP 3.x and 4.x associations are declared in the initialize method. This gives much more flexibility in association configuration.     public function initialize(): void     {         $this->belongsTo('Profile', [                 'className' => 'Profile',                 'foreignKey' => 'profile_id',         ]);              }   Or using setters syntax, it could be done this way: public function initialize(): void     {         $this->belongsTo('Profile')         ->setForeignKey('profile_id')     }  

Behavior Upgrade

In CakePHP 2.x, behaviors are initialized as arrays properties:     public $actsAs = [         'Sluggable' => [             'label' => 'name',         ],     ];   In CakePHP 3.x and 4.x,  behaviors are configured in the initialize method. This gives much more flexibility in configuration, as in params it's possible to pass anonymous functions.     public function initialize(): void     {         $this->addBehavior('Sluggable', [             'label' => 'name',         ]);              }  

Validation Upgrade

In CakePHP 2.x, behaviors are  initialized as arrays properties:     public $validation = [         'title' => [             'notBlank' => [                 'rule' => ['notBlank'],                 'allowEmpty' => false,                 'required' => true,                 'message' => 'Title is required'             ],         ],     ];   In CakePHP 3.x and 4.x, validation is defined in validationDefault method which builds validation rules.     public function validationDefault(Validator $validator): Validator     {         $validator             ->scalar('title')             ->requirePresence('title', 'create')             ->notEmptyString('title');           return $validator;     }   Additionally, CakePHP introduced the buildRules method, which is where  described foreign keys constraints, uniqueness, or business level rules.     public function buildRules(RulesChecker $rules): RulesChecker     {         $rules->add($rules->existsIn(['user_id'], 'Users'));         $rules->add($rules->isUnique(['username'], __('username should be unique')));                            return $rules;     }  

Finder Methods

In CakePHP 2.x, the custom finder method is called twice - before and after fetching data from the database, which is defined by the $state parameter. Parameter $query contains current query state, and in $results passed data returned from database.     protected function _findIndex($state, $query, $results = array()) {         if ($state == 'before') {             $query['contain'] = ['User'];         } else {             // ...         }     }       In CakePHP 3.x, custom finder method accepts query object and some options passed from client code and returns an updated query. This allows for combining multiple finder methods in the same call, and has better grained finder logic.     public function findIndex(Query $query, array $options): Query     {         return $query->contain(['Users']);     }   The afterFind method could be implemented with the Query::formatResults method, which accepts an anonymous function to map each collection item.

Nowadays people are not concerned about how large their database is in terms of MB. Storage is cheap. Even getting cheap SSD storage is not a big deal.    However, this is true if we are talking about hundreds of MB or even several GB, but sometimes we get into a situation where we have massive amounts of data (i.e Several tables with lots of longtext columns). At this point it becomes a concern because we need to increase the hard disk size, and find ourselves checking to see  if the hard disk is full several times per day or week, etc.   Now, if you have faced a situation like this before, it's time to talk about database compression. Compression is a technique, developed theoretically back in the 1940s but actually implemented in the 1970s. For this post we will focus on MySQL compression, which is performed using the open-source ZLib library. This library implements the LZ77 dictionary-based compression algorithm.   Before going into MySQL compression details, lets name some of the main DBMS and their compression techniques:

• MySQL: ZLib (LZ77) [1]
• Oracle: Oracle Advanced Compression (Proprietary)[2]
• Postgres: PGLZ or LZ4 (if added this option at compilation level) [3]
• DB2: Fixed-length compression or Huffman in some systems [4]

  So, now that we know this useless information, lets learn how to implement this in MySQL.   Firstly, you need to know that you CAN'T enable compression if:

• Your table lives into `system` tablespace, or
• Your tablespace was created with the option `innodb_file_per_table` disabled.

  It is important to test if the compression is the best solution for you.  If you have a table with a lot of small columns, you will probably end up with a larger-size table after "compressing" because of the headers and compression information. Compression is always great when you have longtext columns which can be heavily compressed.   Then, to enable compression for a table, you just need to include the following option when your table is created, or execute it as part of an alter statement: ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED These are the basics but you may find more useful information in MySQL manual.   You can also take a look at Percona which implements a Column level compression. This is interesting if you have a table with a lot of small fields and one large column, or if you have to optimize your database as much as possible. [6]   Finally, just say that even that storage is cheaper than ever, the amount of information has increased as well and we are now using and processing an incredible amount of data... so it looks like compression will always be a requirement.   I hope you find this information useful and please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions below in the comments section.

  [1]:https://dev.mysql.com/doc/internals/en/zlib-directory.html  [2]:https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/options/compression/advanced-compression-wp-12c-1896128.pdf  [3]:https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/runtime-config-client.html  [4]:https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2-for-zos/12?topic=performance-compressing-your-data  [6]:https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-server/8.0/flexibility/compressed_columns.html

The CsrfComponent was deprecated since CakePHP version 3.5.0. On CakePHP 4, we now have a new middleware to help us protect applications against Cross Site Request Forgery attacks. In this article, we are going to show the different ways to enable and disable Cross Site Request Forgery between the controller and the new middleware.  

Enable CSRF

Do these changes:

• In your Application::middleware add $middlewareQueue->add(new CsrfProtectionMiddleware());
• Remove $this->loadComponent('Csrf') from your controllers.

The configuration keys from CsrfComponent cookieName, expiry, secure and field are also available in the middleware. If you used any of these, you should be able to continue using the middleware.  

Disable CSRF

Is not recommended to disable CSRF, but sometimes you really need to. With the component you could have something like this in your controller:   Now with the middleware, we can use the method skipCheckCallback to disable Csrf based on a custom logic:     That’s it, we have migrated CSRF protection from CsrfComponent to CsrfProtectionMiddleware.  

Let's imagine you have a huge application in CakePHP 2.x (or 1.x) and you're planning to upgrade to the latest CakePHP 4.x. After doing some estimations, you realize the upgrade process is out of your scope, because you don't have the budget or developer availability to do it in 1 shot. At this point, some companies would abort the upgrade and keep working on 2.x for "some more time" until "this last release is delivered" or until "budget is available next fall", digging deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole…   There's an alternative you could follow if this is your case: proceed with the upgrade of a smaller portion of your application and let the 2 versions coexist for some time.   Warning: This is NOT for every project or company. Please carefully think about this decision as it has overhead you'll need to handle.   So, if your application has a portion that could be extracted, with a small set of dependencies from other areas of your application, or if you are creating a new feature with a limited set of dependencies with the rest of your application, this approach would be good for you.   In order to allow both applications to coexist, we are going to keep the CakePHP 1.x application as the main one, and use CakePHP 4.x as a subfolder inside of the first one. It's important to note that in order to share sessions between both applications you'll need to use a storage you can actually share, like database or cache based sessions (redis, etc). Then, you can use a configuration like this one (see below) to add a new upstream to handle your new application. Note: the upstream could be located in another server of your network, using a different PHP version etc.   We've used nginx as an example, but you can use the same approach in other web servers like Apache.   In our example we're going to use all paths starting with /api  to be managed by our new CakePHP 4.x application. upstream cake4 {      # Note this could be any server/port in your network where the cake4 application is installed          server 127.0.0.1:9090; }   # This is our CakePHP 2.x server server {     server_name example.com;       root   /var/virtual/example.com/app/webroot;     index index.php;       # All requests /api are forwarded to our CakePHP 4.x application location /api {         proxy_pass http://cake4;             proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;         proxy_set_header Host $host;             proxy_http_version 1.1;         proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;             proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";     }       location / {             try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;     }       location ~ \.php$ {           try_files $uri =404;           include fastcgi_params;                fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;           fastcgi_index index.php;             fastcgi_intercept_errors on;         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;     } }   # This is our CakePHP 4.x server server {     listen 9090;     server_name example.com;       root   /var/virtual/cake4-example.com/webroot;     index index.php;       location / {         try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;     }       location ~ \.php$ {         try_files $uri =404;             include fastcgi_params;         fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;             fastcgi_index index.php;         fastcgi_intercept_errors on;             fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;     } }   As you can see, we have 3 blocks defined in our configuration file:

• upstream cake4 {...} to forward requests to the CakePHP 4.x application
• server {... 2.x ...} using a location /api to forward all these calls to the CakePHP 4.x server
• server {... 4.x ...} using a specific port (9090) to handle requests in CakePHP 4.x

  Using this approach, you can break your application into 2 parts, and start moving features by path to CakePHP 4. You'll need to handle the changes in 2 projects for a while, and pay this overhead,  but this could be better to maintain than a CakePHP 2.x application sitting on an old PHP version. Happy baking!  

Dependency Injection is some of the bigger buzzwords in PHP frameworks.  Historically, CakePHP application logic didn’t support that, until the version 4.2 was released last December. You can do that on your own and have a few plugins for that. This is a new chapter of the framework, let's see how to bake it.  

Use Case

First, let’s talk about a classic Use case on real applications. Our application will include an address form, such as the shipping address for an online order, or provide information about User, Company, etc. Autocomplete can help users supply the details.   We will use the Geocoding API from Google Maps Platform, making a HTTP request for API with json output format and address parameter: https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=89104&key=****** And here we go, we will get this result:  

Baking a Address Service

After seeing the Use case, all we need on our backend is to make a HTTP request for API and return the JSON result for the frontend to populate related fields.   1. First, let’s exposing our application for accept “.json” requests:   2. Now, we can bake a Address Controller and let’s request an empty result: $ ./bin/cake bake controller Address --actions index   Now our app requests /address.json will return an empty JSON.   3. Let’s bake (manually) the Address Service:   Basically I’m using Cake\Http\Client to make the API request. Also I read Geocode.key from Cake\Core\Configure, we don't want to expose our key on public requests (add the key on config/boostrap.php).   4. Let’s rewrite our Controller:   5. Finally, let’s add our Service on Application.php:   That’s all bakers! Now our endpoint /address.json will support query parameters and return the result of the API request.  

The cost of shiny

I’m here selling an idea and I don't start with the cons. Unfortunately, the Dependency Injection container is an experimental feature that is not API stable yet.  The support is a bit limited, CakePHP will inject services into: constructors of Controllers and Commands and Controller actions. The core team hopefully stabilizes the feature on version 4.3, or at most 4.4. They need your help testing and finding cases, and feedback always is welcome.   I hope this post can be useful for you and your projects.  See you next time!  

Having a successful upgrade implies not only upgrading the code itself, but also identifying the different tasks that will be part of the Upgrade Plan. Making a good plan for an upgrade requires identifying the current status of the application. A good plan is based upon clear, well-defined, and easily understood objectives.   After years of experience with CakeDC making upgrades, migrating applications from CakePHP 1 to CakePHP 4 in all possible combinations, we have noticed there are a set of elements or characteristics that are useful to evaluate and identify before starting the upgrade. Having a clear understanding of these elements will be helpful to define the different tasks that will be included in the Upgrade Plan, and reduce any risk while upgrading and delivering.   Imagine that you want to run a marathon - but before starting any of the thousands of plans you can find on the internet about “How to run a Marathon”, you must know where you are. You could ask yourself:  How many miles per week are you currently running? What is the base training needed to start this program? What is the distance of your longest run in the past 3 weeks? How many days per week do you have available to exercise?, etc. This will help you to choose the plan that better fits you. It’s important to identify where you are, where you want to get and how to get where you want.    Wondering how  to evaluate where you are for the Upgrade? Evaluate the status of your application. You could consider the following points as reference:

• What is your current CakePHP version? 
• Identify the weaknesses and the strength of the current code by making a code review.
• Identify the versions of the packages, plugins, libraries that your application is using. 
• If you are using CakePHP Third Party plugins, figure out if those plugins have already been upgraded.
• Identify any third party integration and how the upgrade could affect it. 
• What is the unit test coverage, if any? 
• Is there any existing documentation?
• Is there any custom change in the CakePHP core? (I hope there is not!)

  The complexity, time, cost, and resources required to upgrade your application will depend on the status of your application. Once you know where you are, it’s the time to plan how to get where you want.  Let’s talk about this in a future article. In case you are looking for some guidance on preparing your Upgrade Plan, don’t hesitate to contact us, we could help you to identify your current status, define the plan and execute the whole plan for you. We can also work together with your team on the upgrade, helping them understand the upgraded codebase so you can maintain the project with your own team as you did before.  

Since the version 2.x of CakePHP has a requests and response objects, they are provided an abstraction around HTTP Requests and responses. If you are not familiar with CakePHP, it’s a common step when you bake and use $this->request->data instead of $_POST. Most of the time, we need to modify and append values on our Request data. This can be an identifier of logged user or values for any fields. In many situations, implementations will like this: Data can be modified easily - you just need to call withData or withParsedBody method and after set the Request  (you can also modify the query calling withQueryParams): Both implementations will generate the same value, but if you have a keen eye, you will see that the second implementation is more clear. Also, our Request has these values on data. This information can be useful when you use Components from Plugins, as they will expect the values on Requests.   That’s all bakers! I hope this content is useful for you and will improve your requests!  

Marketing is an essential part of your business’ success. I don’t just say this because I myself am a marketing connoisseur... or maybe I do. But either way, I’m going to shoot you some quick knowledge about getting your name out there... specifically into the cyber world.   

Social media 

Branding is very important here. This will be another blog for another time... but having a uniform look, format, font, etc will help you look professional and stand out. Some of the platforms I work with for our company is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. In our industry, Twitter is our cake and frosting (see what I did there). Most developers have a Twitter and use this to interact with other developers, frameworks, and companies. Having a company page allows you to engage with your followers, have conversations, and build relationships. Remember, you need to be posting things that are important for those who follow you to see, and when they reach out, be ready to respond.  For business contacts and networking, I am a big fan of LinkedIn. This platform is an easy way to connect and search for others in your field. Also, it's a good way to find people looking for your specific services. Very business. Very professional.  You definitely need to get to know your audience. Tracking your social analytics will tell you where you stand out most. Then, you utilize that information!  

Ads

 I’m a fan of Google Ads. While I know that the idea of paid advertising isn’t ideal or financially possible for everyone, there are other options. Keeping up with your SEO, or search engine optimization, will help with organic ads. Organic ads is a fancy way of saying free clicks, or free adveritsing. When people are searching Google for services or phrases pertaining to your business, then your site will show in the results. Obviously if you pay for ads, you can manually add phrases and terms that may be searched for... and these are called keywords. I think Google Ads pointers may be a good blog for me to share in the future *makes mental note*.    Speaking of Google, make sure your “my Google business” account is up to date, otherwise you will literally NEVER show up on the search engine. Even when someone specifically searches for you or your company.   

Email Marketing

We must be careful here. Gone are the days of spam emailing... and cold calling? Please don’t. I’d say most people are ready to get restraining orders against telemarketers. Just me?  However, if you have specific things (sales, offers, important news) to share with your customer base, then by all means - onward. At least emails can be ignored if they are unwanted. If you want your email to be opened, make sure that you are offering your recipients something worth clicking (specials. Giveaways. Etc.). A good platform to help you with this is MailChimp, but there are soo many ways to generate these emails, and many even offer pre-made templates... so no excuses.   

Newsletters

Similar to email marketing, there are newsletters. The difference here is that the people who will be receiving your monthly (most likely) newsletter are only those that have chosen to. “Subscribers” sign up to receive these emails. Usually, these aren’t offers of sales, but rather news, events, tips etc. You can get an idea of what I mean by checking out the CakePHP Newsletter archives. 
  So let's close with some quick facts: Newspaper advertising? Out Telemarketing? Out  Print? Maybe  Billboards? If the price is right and you are local to certain areas. International companies, like CakeDC do not benefit from this type of print, unless we could put one in every city around the world. I think that would blow my marketing budget pretty quick.  If you are a freelancer, I definitely suggest Fiverr. Let people find you. Essentially you get quality leads for free.    All of these marketing platforms and items need to be explained in deeper detail, so if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me!  

Let’s talk more about upgrading your CakePHP application. In last week’s blog, we talked about why you should hire externally for all of your upgrade needs. You may have been thinking… but why would I (or my company) even need to spend the time, effort, and money on upgrading our projects. Well… for many reasons. You need better security, compatibility, functionality.  You’ve seen our posts, you know what needs to be done. Your old CakePHP application needs to be updated.  I want to remind you about some of the benefits that there is to upgrading.   

SECURITY

The more maintained a CakePHP version is, the more security it can provide. This not only protects the projects themselves, but can also give you peace of mind knowing that the latest versions will be functional a lot longer than say CakePHP 2.x. And of course, the latest releases fix a number of security issues. No company wants to offer quality services to their customers,  and end up with a security breach that was out of their control. It is extremely important to get ahead of the security issues on the front end. Be proactive, and you won’t have to be reactive.  The biggest concern is that many hosting providers are abolishing old PHP branches, essentially overnight. This is why it is important to be aware of when to migrate/upgrade and do it before it is too late. You can see a list of the end of life date for each unsupported branch of PHP HERE.   

PERFORMANCE

CakePHP 4 follows the latest conventions, helping your application run faster and smoother. Old sites / applications run slow… that is no secret. I promise you one thing, today’s Google searcher will not think twice to do a different search if the site is lagging (ain’t nobody got time for that).  Also, migrating to a current PHP release over 5.6 and using the new ORM, could lead to improvements over 50%. So I mean, win-win.    If you are wondering about your performance, speed, or  which versions of PHP you are running on, you can use tools like Pingdom - https://tools.pingdom.com/ or Google Chrome Devtools - https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools.  

SCALABILITY & TOOLS

CakePHP 4 is shipped with best practices to streamline horizontal scaling and deployment into containers. As new tools and plugins are released, they may only be compatible with the latest versions. Currently, there are over 900 updated plugins, see here: https://plugins.cakephp.org/, covering from background job processing, image processing, CMS, file upload and management, cache, and more. This provides more features and results in developers WANTING to use and work with the framework. 

Of course there is a long list of additional benefits, but these are some of the most important. 2021 seems to be turning into the year of upgrades. Don’t get left behind!

There are many reasons that CakePHP recommends upgrading. But should you, really? Contrary to what you would expect, I am here to tell you that maybe you should not upgrade your application. WHAAAAAAT? I said what I said. The answer is no… but yes, the application should be upgraded. What do I mean? I mean that SOMEONE should upgrade to CakePHP 4, but that someone should not necessarily be you or your team.  Let’s be real… upgrading takes time. It will take priority and focus. Is extra time something your team has? Usually not. This is why I suggest outsourcing for any upgrading.   

Prioritization

Perhaps your team is extremely busy with internal work, and you just can't fathom the idea of utilizing your resources on a time consuming project, such as upgrading. I would imagine that it’s not an easy task to go to your CEO / IT manager and explain why you were unable to meet a deadline due to unexpected complications during a migration. This is one reason that it would be beneficial to hire a team. Then, you are able to keep your team working on tasks that actually add value to your business, providing the best service for your customers…. What I am trying to say is let us doing the boring tasks of upgrading    

No Training / New Skills

Even if a junior level developer was tasked with upgrading one or all of the company's projects, why pay for their time when it is not advancing them in any way? During an upgrade, the tedious work is not resulting in any new skills for the developer. There is no training, or development skills to be learned during an upgrade process. This is a huge factor for a lot of CakeDC’s upgrade clients. The money and time spent for doing these actions internally does not provide long term gains. For us - we need to know the ins and outs of upgrading, and we can prioritize these items for our client work. We actually learn from each migration that we do and we can utilize those skills in future upgrades.    

Hire A Team

Obviously, I am going to tell you to hire CakeDC for upgrading, but truthfully that is because we have done many upgrades (and learned the mistakes / solutions to many problems that occur) and have well experienced developers in most time zones  This allows us to have great relationships with our clients, and stay in constant contact. The biggest benefit is that hiring externally will not disrupt your routine, and it gets the upgrading / migration done a lot quicker. We are all tempted with distractions, prioritized work, etc. Save time, and probably money by looking into a company to do the work for you, and I promise you will thank me later.    Another shameless plug: see our development service details HERE. Need more reason to upgrade? Check back to read next week’s blog for the many benefits.