#69 - Everything Announced at Laracon US 2025 🎤, Livewire 4: The Future of PHP Components ⚡️, Pest 4 Announced 🧪, Sam Altman says world wants 1000x more Software, So Programmer Salaries are Skyrocketing 🚀

At Laracon US 2025, several exciting announcements were made to enhance the Laravel ecosystem.

Laravel Cloud has introduced production-ready MySQL with a range of sizing options and automated backups, alongside new features like smarter autoscaling for queues and production-like preview environments for testing pull requests. Additionally, the platform now supports instant app creation from Laravel Starter Kits.

The next generation of Laravel Forge was also unveiled, promising faster server management with zero-downtime deployments. New features include stacked deployments, health checks, and support for Nuxt and Next.js. Forge also introduces integrated terminal with SSH collaboration, and improved SSL and domain management. The announcement of Laravel VPS promises to cut server provisioning time significantly, enhancing the overall developer experience.

Laravel 12 brings AI-powered packages like Laravel Boost and MCP SDK, which enhance the developer experience by simplifying broadcasting and streaming. Laravel Boost acts as an AI-powered development assistant, complete with versioned documentation and Laravel-curated AI rules, while the MCP SDK facilitates the setup of an MCP server in your Laravel app, paving the way for AI-driven features.

The introduction of the Inertia ⁠<Form> component and Wayfinder+++ aims to reduce boilerplate code, with Wayfinder+++ automatically generating client-side type definitions.

Furthermore, Laravel Nightwatch, now includes a Slack integration for real-time alerts. Updated pricing offers more events in every plan, making it more accessible for teams.

From July 30, 2025, Laravel Idea becomes free for PhpStorm users, enhancing Laravel development with powerful features like code generation, Eloquent ORM understanding, and third-party package support.

The article argues against using down migrations, highlighting their lack of testing, potential data loss, and complications in maintaining code-database harmony. It advocates for forward-only migrations.

Livewire 4 is on the way, making single-file components the new standard for simpler, more maintainable code. This release also brings “islands” architecture for smarter UI updates and promises a major performance upgrade while maintaining the exact same developer experience.

When performing operations that involve updating database records while processing them in chunks, using chunkById() method is highly recommended. This approach ensures that your chunk results remain consistent, especially when records are modified during the operation.

DB::table('posts')
    ->where('published', false)
    ->chunkById(
        10,
        function ($posts) {
            foreach ($posts as $post) {
                DB::table('posts')
                    ->where(
                        'id',
                        $post->id
                    )
                    ->update([
                        'published' => true
                    ]);
            }
        }
    );

As of July 31, 2025, an analysis of Packagist.org packages reveals that 99.5% are 50.56 MB or less, marking a 4.94% increase in size since last year. The largest 1% of packages consume a significant portion of disk space, with the top 450 packages using 137.34 MB or more. Additionally, 68 projects have over 10,000 classes, highlighting the growing complexity and size of package development.

Pest has announced a major new version, launching August 21st, with a complete overhaul of browser testing. You’ll get visit(url) for full browser sessions, action chaining, no more manual waits, and access to unit test helpers like RefreshDatabase and Queue::fake(). Highlights include interactive debugging with →debug() and →tinker(), device emulation, JS error checks, parallel runs, and code coverage.

The PHP RFC proposes adding "partitioned" cookie support to setcookie(), setrawcookie(), and session functions, enhancing security by aligning with modern browser standards for cross-site communications via CHIPS.

Easily handle incoming emails in Laravel with the Laravel Mailbox package. Use customizable email handling functions, streamline testing with Laravel Herd, and organize emails into distinct inboxes for efficient debugging.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently discussed the surge in programmer salaries, attributing it to the increased demand for software and the productivity enhancements provided by AI. He explained that AI tools have made programmers significantly more efficient, which has led to higher earnings rather than job losses. Altman illustrated this with an example where AI completed a complex task in minutes, a job that would have previously taken days. Despite the productivity gains, the demand for software is so high that programmer salaries continue to rise. He also cautioned against over-reliance on AI, particularly among young people, emphasizing the importance of maintaining human decision-making in the face of AI's growing influence.

This guide offers practical tips for writing effective unit tests, emphasizing their importance in enterprise applications. It covers test patterns, avoiding fragile tests, and highlights best practices for improving test quality and maintainability.

Cache warming preloads frequently accessed data into memory to reduce latency and prevent performance issues during traffic spikes, deployments, or system restarts. It balances load and avoids cache misses but increases system complexity and resource demands.