php[architect] magazine has posted an announcement about the release of their December 2018 issue - Better Practice - Improve Your Skills.

Practice and more practice are the keys to adopting modern software engineering practices. It doesn’t matter if you’re using WordPress or Drupal to manage website content, trying to learn unit testing, get hired, or looking for better ways to manage date and time data—there’s always an opportunity to learn how to do it better. This issue rounds up articles on each of these topics to help you deepen your problem-solving skills.

Articles in this issue include:

• "Custom Post Types in WordPress" by Andrea Roenning
• "The Flexibility of Drupal 8" by Michael Miles
• "How to Learn PHP Unit Testing With Katas" by David Hayes
• "It’s About Time" by Colin DeCarlo

All of the usual columns have returned as well with thoughts about creating a culture in your development organization, hashing, interview coding challenges and more. Check out the full list of articles and columns for this month's edition on the php[architect] site and pick up a copy of your own! If you want to "try before you buy" you can read this month's free article and get a feel for the content.

On the PHP.net site they've made an announcement about releases of all currently supported major PHP versions with bugfix/security releases.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP [7.0.33, 7.1.25, and 7.2.13]. Five security-related issues were fixed in this release. All PHP 7.0 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

You can download these latest releases from either the main downloads page or windows.php.net for the Windows executables.

There's also a note for the PHP 7.0.33 release based on the release and support timelines: this will be the final release, of any kind, for the PHP 7.0.x branch including security support. If you haven't already upgraded past version 7.0.x, there's never been a better time!

On the main PHP.net site they've announced the first stable release in the PHP 7.3.x series: PHP 7.3.0!

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.3.0. This release marks the third feature update to the PHP 7 series.

PHP 7.3.0 comes with numerous improvements and new features such as:

• Flexible Heredoc and Nowdoc Syntax
• PCRE2 Migration
• Multiple MBString Improvements
• LDAP Controls Support
• Improved FPM Logging
• Windows File Deletion Improvements
• Several Deprecations

You can find out more information about these features and view the Changelog for this release from the announcement. As always, you can download this latest release from either the main downloads page or windows.php.net for the Windows binaries. If you need more information on moving to this new release, check out the migration guide.

The PHP project has released the latest Release Candidate for the upcoming PHP 7.3.0 release: PHP 7.3.0RC6.

The PHP team is glad to announce the presumably last PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC6. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.

For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC6 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.

Based on the release schedule from the PHP wiki, this is the last Release Candidate for PHP 7.3.0. The GA version (not the final release, still testing) will be available on December 6th.

As Freek Van der Herten mentions in his latest post, the videos for the sessions at this year's Laracon AU conference (their first year) have been posted to YouTube.

This year Laracon AU was held for the very first time. According to what I read on Twitter Michael Dyrynda did an awesome job organising it.

The organisation was so kind to record all talks. They are now available on YouTube. You'll find all talks in this playlist.

Sessions from their inaugural event included:

• A real-life journey into the opinionated world of 'utility-first' CSS
• Turning stories into software
• Understanding git - even the scary parts
• Level up with a Microservices architecture

...and many more. Check out the full playlist for all of the great sessions including a keynote from Taylor Otwell introducing the Laravel Telescope introspection tool.

As announced on the main PHP.net site, several new versions of the language have been released including one for the upcoming PHP 7.3.x series:

• PHP 7.1.24
• PHP 7.2.12
• PHP 7.3.0RC5

The v7.1 and v7.2 releases are bugfix releases and include changes in core functionality, date handling, FTP, Tidy and XML.

The PHP 7.3.0RC5 release is the latest Release Candidate for the PHP 7.3.x series. If all goes well and no major issues come up, the next step in the release process is to officially branch the 7.3.0 release and have one more Release Candidate (6) before a GA release.

As always you can download the bugfix releases from the downloads section (or windows.php.net) and the Release Candidate from the QA site (or windows.php.net/qa). Bugs found should be reported via the PHP bug tracking system.

php[architect] magazine has released their latest issue for November 2018: Generics and Project Success. In this issue they feature articles like:

• "The Case for Generics in PHP" by Chris Holland
• "Maintaining Laravel Applications" by Jason McCreary
• "Getting Started With Php? Let’s Start the Right Way!" by Junior Grossi
• "How to Knock Down Any Project in Ten Steps" by Pawe? Lewtak

The usual columns are all returning including Joe Ferguson continuing his series on creating packages, Eric Mann covering five security risks to look for in a code review, and James Titcumb with some resources you can use to continue "leveling up" in your development career.

If you want to "try before you buy", they're also offering a free article, "The Case for Generics in PHP" by Chris Holland. You can pick up a copy of your own directly from the php[architect] site or subscribe to their print or PDF versions!

On the PHP.net site they've posted the announcement about the release of the latest Release Candidate for the upcoming PHP 7.3.x series: PHP 7.3.0RC4

The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC4. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.

[...] For more information on the new features and other changes, you can read the NEWS file, or the UPGRADING file for a complete list of upgrading notes. Internal changes are listed in the UPGRADING.INTERNALS file. These files can also be found in the release archive.

As always, testing of this preview release (not intended for use in production) is appreciated and any bugs found should be reported. The source download can be grabbed from this download page and the Windows binaries are over on the Windows QA site.

The main PHP.net site has announced the release of two new versions of PHP in the 7.1 and 7.2 series: PHP 7.1.23 and PHP 7.2.11.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.1.23 [and 7.2.11. This is a bugfix release.

All PHP 7.1 [and 7.2] users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Bugs fixed in theses releases include updates to the core language, the curl extension, opcaching, reflection functionality and the XMLRPC handling. If you're interested in all of the changes and want more detail, check out their respective Changelogs. As always, you can download these latest releases from the main downloads page or from the windows.php.net site.

The main PHP.net site has posted the announcement about the release of the latest Release Candidate for the upcoming PHP 7.3.0 series: PHP 7.3.0RC3.

The PHP team is glad to announce the next PHP 7.3.0 pre-release, PHP 7.3.0RC3. The rough outline of the PHP 7.3 release cycle is specified in the PHP Wiki.

For source downloads of PHP 7.3.0RC3 please visit the download page. Windows sources and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/qa/.

For more information on what changed and how to migrate to this new version, check out the NEWS and UPGRADING files respectively. The next release would be RC4, planned for October 25th.