#62 - Filament v4 Beta - Feature Overview 🧪, How to Build a Code Agent 🤖, 30 Years of PHP, 25 Years of PHPUnit 🎂, Uri::pathSegments() 💡

Laravel 12.18.0 enhances Stringable with encrypt() and decrypt() methods, and adds --batched for batchable job creation. The UsePolicy attribute simplifies model-policy linking, while RequestException can now have request-specific truncation limits.

Filament v4 Beta introduces performance boosts, Tailwind CSS v4 integration, improved accessibility, and multi-factor authentication. Enhanced UI components and schema-based configurations streamline development and provide a more consistent, maintainable experience.

Uri class includes a handy pathSegments() method that returns a collection of all path segments. No need to explode() manually.

$uri = Uri::of('https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases');

$first = $uri->pathSegments()->first();  // 'docs'
$version = $uri->pathSegments()->get(1); // '12.x'
$last = $uri->pathSegments()->last();    // 'releases'

The RFC proposes making OPcache a mandatory part of PHP, streamlining maintenance by tightly integrating it with the Zend Engine, while keeping existing INI settings intact for configuration flexibility.

Reflecting on 30 years of PHP and 25 years of PHPUnit, this article highlights PHP's evolution from simple CGI scripts to a modern web backbone and PHPUnit's crucial role in PHP testing.

A detailed analysis of PHP version usage reveals slower adoption of PHP 8.4 due to QA tooling delays. Historical data highlights the trend of packages supporting outdated PHP versions, urging a shift towards modern versions.

Explore PHP 8.4 asymmetric visibility feature, allowing different visibility levels for property getters and setters. Enhance encapsulation by defining properties as publicly readable yet privately settable.

Chophper is a PHP tool for truncating text within HTML, preserving full tag structure. It supports truncation by characters, words, sentences, or paragraphs while maintaining HTML integrity.

This post shows how to build a fully functional, code-editing agent in under 400 lines of code by pairing an LLM loop with just three simple tools—read_file, list_files and edit_file. In a hands-on walkthrough, it demonstrates the agent's ability to inspect, create and modify files entirely from the terminal. The core lesson: there’s no hidden magic, just an LLM, a loop and practical engineering.

Feature flags enable developers to toggle functionalities during runtime, facilitating controlled rollouts, A/B testing, and instant rollbacks without redeploying code, thus enhancing development agility and minimizing operational overhead.