April | Nix for PHP Developers + Breaking Backwards Compatibility

We’re back in April with another PHP Sussex meetup, this time featuring two excellent talks covering very different aspects of software development.

First up, Oliver Davies (Lead Software Developer at Transport for Wales) will introduce us to Nix, a different way of thinking about development environments and deployments.

After a short break, Gina Banyard (Core PHP Developer at The PHP Foundation) will take us into the world of backwards compatibility and why breaking it is sometimes the right thing to do.

We’re not live streaming events anymore, so be sure to join us at Runway East in Brighton from 6:30 pm (talks from 7 pm).

Nix for PHP Developers

Nix is a package manager with more than 120,000 packages, an operating system with more than 20,000 options, and a build tool for creating reproducible and reliable software that works the same for everyone, every time.

In this talk, Oliver will explain what Nix is, show how to create development shells for PHP that mean you no longer need to use containers or virtual machines, and how to package PHP applications that are easy to deploy and distribute.

Progress Lies Within Backwards Compatibility Breaks

Backwards Compatibility (BC) is the notion that practices and designs conceived under some prior status quo remain correct in the current context.

Breaking BC is making changes that alter the underlying design, often with cascading and disruptive downstream effects. The benefits of maintaining compatibility are clear, so then why do various industries routinely break it?

In this talk, Gina will explore examples from various fields to show how breaking backwards compatibility is often the necessary and unavoidable price of progress.

As always, we’ll have food and drinks (big thanks to our new sponsor Jump24!), and plenty of time to chat with fellow developers before and after the talks.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

PHP Sussex is supported by Silicon Brighton, Jump24, and Runway East.

Runway East has been fighting boring offices since 2014. Members get team bliss guaranteed, space to scale and Big Desk Energy.