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Cover image for Symfony Station Communiqué — 01 March 2024. A look at Symfony, Drupal, PHP, Cybersec, and Fediverse News!
Reuben Walker, Jr.
Reuben Walker, Jr.

Posted on • Originally published at symfonystation.mobileatom.net

Symfony Station Communiqué — 01 March 2024. A look at Symfony, Drupal, PHP, Cybersec, and Fediverse News!

This communiqué originally appeared on Symfony Station.

Welcome to this week's Symfony Station communiqué. It's your review of the essential news in the Symfony and PHP development communities focusing on protecting democracy. Because open-source equals open societies, peeps. That necessitates a mission of destroying big tech. We also cover the cybersecurity world and the Fediverse (more open-source and democracy).

There is a lot of good content in all of our categories, so please take your time and enjoy the items most relevant and valuable to you. This is why we publish on Fridays. So you can savor it over your weekend. 😉

Or jump straight to your favorite section via our website.

Once again, thanks go out to Javier Eguiluz and Symfony for sharing our communiqué in their Week of Symfony.

My opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans.


Symfony

As always, we will start with the official news from Symfony.

Highlight -> "This week, development activity focused on the upcoming Symfony 7.1 version. We optimized the generation of some UUIDs, improved the autocompletion feature in the console and made AutowirePass re-entrant in preparation for further improvements."

A Week of Symfony #895 (19-25 February 2024)

They also have:

SymfonyLive Berlin 2024

Their monthly newsletter

SensioLabs announces:

Symfony 7 Courses Are Now Available!

This is a great value but not free.

SymfonyCasts has:

This week on SymfonyCasts!

The free Symfony 7 course has started, so take a look.

Live Components + Turbo Streams: Navigating a Turbo Frame

Live Stream #11: Turbo Morph Updates & Autocomplete morphing work


Featured Item

A List Apart writes:

Forget death and taxes. The only certainty on the web is change. Ste Grainer takes a brief look at the history of the web and how it has been constantly reinvented. Then he explores where we are now, and how we can shape the future of the web for the better.

The Wax and the Wane of the Web


This Week

Twilio shows us:

How To Implement OTP Authentication in Symfony With WhatsApp

Filip Horvat explores:

Symfony — Detect All Changes On Doctrine Entities

Symfony — Functional Tests for Standalone Bundles

Nikolay Nikolov examines:

Enhancing Code Decoupling in Symfony with Immutable Data Transfer Objects (DTOs)

Oliver Davies looks at:

Building a design system in a few hours with Symfony

AndersonPEM explores:

Symfony: The way of the bundle

Hantsy Bai shows us how to:

Upgrade to Symfony v7

Serghei Pogor examines:

Unlocking Symfony’s Potential: A Guide to Avoiding Hardcoding in PHP Development

eCommerce

BitExpert asks and answers:

What are Sylius Template Events?

Platforms

Ash Allen looks at:

Identifying Performance Issues in Laravel with Inspector

Kevin Dunglas explores:

Running Laravel Apps With FrankenPHP

CMSs

TYPO3 has:

Being TYPO3 at CMS Kickoff 2024

February 2024: Developer Appreciation Day (DAD) 

T3rriffic shares:

TYPO3 and Amazon CloudFront

Drupal has:

Their latest newsletter

The Drupal Association still stands with Ukraine

As anyone who isn't a c^nt should.

Golems shows us some:

Ways to Optimize Carousel Sliders in Drupal for Faster Page Loading

Great stuff.

Agile Drop interviews:

Henk Beld of amazee.io: A focus on marketing & integrations for the next generation of Drupal

Tag1 examines:

Enhancing Drupal's Layout Builder: Introducing Layout Builder Plus

I'm building a Layout Builder-focused site now and will definitely check this out.

The Drop Times has:

Which CMS? Global City Website Trends Examined

Enhancing Digital Accessibility: The Accessible Tableau Integration Module

Specbee shows us:

How to integrate SSO with Drupal using SAML

And Horizontal Digital shows us:

How to Migrate from Video Embed WYSIWYG to Drupal Core Media

CKEditor looks at:

Drupal and CKEditor: a history of advanced content editing

Lullabot explores:

Navigation Blocks and Local Tasks for Drupal's Admin UI

This looks fantastic.

ComputerMinds examines:

Aegir 3 and Drupal 10: just about working

Four Kitchens looks at:

Configuration splits and upgrade maintenance

DDEV has:

DDEV Project 2023 Review

Previous Weeks

TYPO3 has:

Report From The Content Types Team

T3Planet shares:

What's New in TYPO3 v13.0? (Feature Release Series #1)


PHP

This Week

The PHP Foundation shares:

The PHP Foundation: Impact and Transparency Report 2023

The Next Web asks:

Why PHP continues to be a popular but divisive programming language

PHP is not divisive. There are people who use it because it works and ignorant fucks. 😉

php[architect] publishes:

The PHP Gambit: Winning Strategies in Code - February 2024

Barely made it.

Nemanja Milenkovic explores:

Rethinking Database Migrations: The Diminishing Role of the down() Method in PHP Frameworks
Dragan Rapić asks:

What is PHP Metaprogramming?

Antonio Silva examines:

PHP 8 News: Attributes

Michał Kurcewicz looks at:

Value Objects in PHP

Alex asks:

Strict Types: Should You Use Them?

PhpStorm shows us:

How to Generate PHP Tests With JetBrains AI Assistant

And João Vitor Lima shows us:

Como configurar o VSCode para programar em PHP no Windows

Dariusz Gafka explores:

Integrating PHP Applications with Ecotone and RabbitMQ

Kuluoluo examines:

The Benefits of Migrating Your Local Development to ServBay (MacOs Users)

Sean Kegel shows us how to:

Fix Flaky Tests with Pest Repeat

Nikolay Nikolov looks at:

Mastering Traits in PHP: Reusability and Separation of Concerns

Jochelle Mendonca explores:

The Lazy Loop: How Generators Saved My PHP Applications

Jimmy Klein says:

Never write another loop again 


More Programming

Smashing Mag shares:

A Web Designer’s Accessibility Advocacy Toolkit

Free Code Camp looks at:

Advanced CSS Selectors – How and When to Use Them

Parthipan Natkunam is:

Exploring CSS Isolation Property: Enhancing Web Design with Stacking Contexts

InfoQ explores:

The Creators of the Atom Code Editor Open-Source Zed, Their New Rust-Based High-Performance Editor

The Hacker News reports:

GitHub Rolls Out Default Secret Scanning Push Protection for Public Repositories


Fighting for Democracy

Please visit our Support Ukraine page to learn how you can help kick Russia out of Ukraine (eventually, like ending apartheid in South Africa).

The cyber response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery

This section is encoragingly long this week.

Bleeping Computer reports:

FTC sues H&R Block over deceptive 'free' online filing ads

Registrars can now block all domains that resemble brand names

New executive order bans mass sale of personal data to China, Russia

U.S. charges Iranian for hacks on defense orgs, offers $10M for info

The Register reports:

Sandvine put on America's export no-fly list after Egypt used network tech for spying

Rights groups file GDPR suits on Meta's pay-or-consent model

The Verge reports:

The US is investigating Chinese vehicles amid security concerns

Apple’s decision to drop iPhone web apps comes under scrutiny in the EU

9 to 5 Mac has more:

Apple blocking web apps in Europe looks set to lead to antitrust investigation

Apple says iOS 17.4 won’t remove Home Screen web apps in the EU after all

Gee, I wonder why?

The Hacker News reports:

Microsoft Expands Free Logging Capabilities for all U.S. Federal Agencies

Undark reports:

A Transparent, Open-Source Vision for U.S. Elections

Euronews reports:

EU Policy. Meta second to set up EU online election centre to fight disinformation

'Furious': Critics question Microsoft's deal with Mistral AI, as EU set to look into it

The Next Web reports:

EU antitrust case against Microsoft-Mistral deal amounts to ‘decisive influence’

The Guardian reports:

Google sued for $2.3bn by European media groups over digital ad losses

Court orders maker of Pegasus spyware to hand over code to WhatsApp

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

This section is depressingly long this week.

Bleeping Computer reports:

New IDAT loader version uses steganography to push Remcos RAT

Lazarus hackers exploited Windows zero-day to gain Kernel privileges

The Hacker News reports:

Iran-Linked UNC1549 Hackers Target Middle East Aerospace & Defense Sectors

Phylum reports:

Fake Developer Jobs Laced With Malware

The Guardian reports:

‘Disinformation on steroids’: is the US prepared for AI’s influence on the election?

Cory Doctorow examines:

Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms

The Verge reports:

A lot of Redditors hate the Reddit IPO

Who in the hell enjoys enshittification.

Mashable reports:

Tumblr CEO's public 'meltdown' is mocked, memed by users

Matt needs to stay on his sabbatical and shut the fuck up.

Tumblr's staff has their say:

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic

404 Media reports on Etsy douchebaggery:

Bound Up in Fanfic Controversy

And Amazon's:

AI-Generated Kara Swisher Biographies Flood Amazon

And Automattic continuing their enshittification:

Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools

Here is Automattic's spin:

More Control Over the Content You Share

Goblin.band has:

The View of a Former Worker

Again mofos, opt-out is invasive and opt-in is privacy-oriented.

**At least they provided a tutorial for opting out. Note that this is the company Automattic and its wordpress.com and Tumblr products. At the moment it does not appear to apply to Jetpack users.

Also note that this is not the open-source wordpress.org software and its contributors behind the doucheness.

Then 404 Media came out with this:

A WordPress ‘Firehose’ Allows AI Companies to Buy Access to a Million Posts a Day

Unfortunately, this does include Jetpack and WordPress.org blogs using it.

Automattic replied to 404 Media:

Automattic just emailed me and said they are "deprecating" WP Firehose altogether and dropping SocialGist as a client.

What a disaster.

The Markup has a series reporting on automated biased censorship from the shits at Instagram:

Platformer reports:

Meta's data dance with its Oversight Board

The Jewish Chronicle asks:

Why is Holocaust denial rampant on Gen Z’s favourite news source?

Tik Tok.

Thomas Steiner answers:

So, what exactly did Apple break in the EU?

Lawfare Media reports:

Why Is the Government Fleeing Key Tech Partnerships Before 2024?

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Dark Reading reports:

NIST Releases Cybersecurity Framework 2.0

The Next Gen of Cybersecurity Could Be Hiding in Big Tech

This is a sterling idea.

Bleeping Computer reports:

Savvy Seahorse gang uses DNS CNAME records to power investor scams

TechCrunch reports:

A government watchdog hacked a US federal agency to stress-test its cloud security

Decipher reports:

CISA, FBI Warn of Continued BlackCat Ransomware Activity


Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Last Week in Fediverse – ep 57

The Journal of Online Trust and Safetly has:

Securing Federated Platforms: Collective Risks and Responses

Digital Pioneers shares:

Fediverse tip: platforms and instances! Huh?

il Post shares:

In the Fediverse Aquarium

We Distribute reports:

Newsmast Brings Huge New Features in 3.0 Update

Akkoma announces:

Akkoma stable 2024.02 - Background followbacks

Funkwhale announces:

The path to Funkwhale 2.0: a new app

Forgejo has:

Forgejo monthly update - February 2024

TechCrunch reports:

Threads widens the gap with X, with triple the daily downloads on iOS

It's FOSS compares:

Bluesky vs. Mastodon: Which Twitter Alternative Should You Choose?

Other federated social media

Steve Klabnik asks and answers:

How Does BlueSky Work?

Manton Reece shares:

Bluesky opening up federation

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky snags former Twitter/X Trust & Safety exec cut by Musk


CTAs (aka show us some free love)

Do you own or work for an organization that would be interested in our promotion opportunities? Or supporting our journalistic efforts? If so, please get in touch with us. We’re in our toddler stage, so it’s extra economical. 😉

More importantly, if you are a Ukrainian company with coding-related products, we can offer free promotion on our Support Ukraine page. Or, if you know of one, get in touch.

You can find a vast array of curated evergreen content on our [communiqués page]((https://symfonystation.mobileatom.net/communiques). 

Author

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Reuben Walker

Founder
Symfony Station

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