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Nowadays, applications are getting more and more complex. The classic way of executing sequential code, with a single PHP script that accepts a request and outputs the information like we used to do in the PHP4 days, still works for simple apps, but using a modern architecture has many benefits. Enter middleware: intermediary code that processes the request and/or response in various ways before it even reaches your custom code.

In the previous article we used the Mezzio Skeleton Installer to build a very basic application. Let's explore what we can do with it right away.

The current components allow us to build a presentation site with static pages. It may not be much to speak of yet, but we can already create new pages.

On Monday, 3 February 2025, the Technical Steering Committee for the Laminas Project held its monthly meeting. The topics discussed included:

• Creating a major release for laminas-session.
• Setting up email accounts for @getlaminas.org.
• Dropping support for PHP 8.1 in future releases for Laminas packages.
• New design and layout for getlaminas.org.

Creating a site from scratch has always been a daunting task for developers. The difficulty doesn't come so much from the complex coding, but from the imprecise specifications. Even if you start with clear goals in mind, the project can grow exponentially in complexity as time goes by. New technical requirements, new features, bug fixes and refactoring all get in the way of the developer resting on his laurels.

One might argue the above are only possible in the programming world. We aren't building bridges here.

We need a reliable, well-maintained starting point for our projects. This scaffolding should be a basis that allows us to expand as needed in the future.

On Monday, 4 November 2024, the Technical Steering Committee for the Laminas Project held its monthly meeting. The topics discussed included:

• Abandoning several Laminas packages.
• Financing of the book Mezzio Essentials.

Laminas Validator Version 3 Released and being implemented in libraries that use it. Adding support for Laminas Service Manager v4 in laminas-filter is in progress. Check here the PHP 8.4 compatibility roadmap for Laminas and Mezzio components.

On Monday, 7 October 2024, the Technical Steering Committee for the Laminas Project held its monthly meeting. The topics discussed included:

• Creating a marketing and outreach committee.
• Hiring a dedicated developer for the Laminas and Mezzio repositories.

We detailed the meaning and some inner workings of Continuous Integration (CI) in a previous article, so here we will focus on what happens after CI completes successfully.

CI is followed by Continuous Delivery (CD) which gets the code ready for deployment to the production or staging environment. This ensures that the code is ready to be released manually. Continuous Deployment goes one step further and automates the release itself. The development team has to decide on what CD is right for them, but in both cases the end result is more frequent and reliable software updates.

Continuous Integration (CI) involves the frequent merging of code updates from developers into a shared codebase. This can be done as often as those updates are ready to be reviewed. Once the CI process is finalized, Continuous Delivery (CD) automatically deploys the code to the production environment. This flow streamlines the development process for faster and more reliable releases.

The Laminas Project has created a large number of packages to serve the needs of the PHP community. But what happens when you need to make sure that the package you want to use in your application is being actively maintained? Sure, you can check each package manually, but the most useful thing would be a full overview of this vital information.