Pushing the limits of PHP with React PHP

It's 2016 and times have changed - yet PHP is still most often associated with your average product catalogue or blogging platform. In this talk you will learn that PHP's huge ecosystem has way more to offer and PHP is not inferior at all to its evil cousin Node.js.

You will learn about the core concepts of async PHP and why you too should care about React PHP being a real thing. The talk has a strong focus on sparking the idea that PHP can be way faster and more versatile than you probably thought. Bring along an open mind and through lots of examples and demos learn why what sounds crazy at first might soon be a valuable addition in your toolbox.

Transcript

1. pushing the limits with React PHP
   why React PHP is awesome and why YOU should care
   

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2. Agenda
   - Hello!
   - PHP, the web of the ‘90s?
   - Enter React
   - Core concepts
   - Examples and demo time
   - Conclusions
   2
   

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3. Hello!
   3
   

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4. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück
   4
   

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5. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck
   5
   

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6. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck → @clue
   6
   

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7. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck → @clue → @another_clue
   7
   

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8. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck → @clue → @another_clue
   - Team Coach / Software Engineering, working professionally for 10 years
   - Masters degree in Information Systems Engineering
   8
   

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9. $ whoami
   - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck → @clue → @another_clue
   - Team Coach / Software Engineering, working professionally for 10 years
   - Masters degree in Information Systems Engineering
   - Started coding 15 years ago and could never stop :)
   - Passionate about pushing the limits!
   - Open source contributor and maintainer (React, Docker, Graphs and more)
   9
   

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10. $ whoami
    - Christian Lück → Christian Lueck → @clue → @another_clue
    - Team Coach / Software Engineering, working professionally for 10 years
    - Masters degree in Information Systems Engineering
    - Started coding 15 years ago and could never stop :)
    - Passionate about pushing the limits!
    - Open source contributor and maintainer (React, Docker, Graphs and more)
    - Quit my job in April to focus on thrilling things ahead…
    - Freelance job: Bigger momentum, higher impact, spread the word!
    10
    

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11. Who are you?
    11
    now that you know me…
    

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12. Who are you?
    12
    now that you know me…
    - PHP developers?
    - architecs / engineers?
    

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13. Who are you?
    13
    now that you know me…
    - PHP developers?
    - architecs / engineers?
    - know React?
    

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14. Who are you?
    14
    now that you know me…
    - PHP developers?
    - architecs / engineers?
    - know React?
    - know the other React?
    

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15. PHP, the web of the ‘90s?
    15
    

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16. PHP and the web of the ‘90s
    - traditional LAMP stack
    - Request-Response-Cycle
    Apache
    Client PHP MySQL
    16
    

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17. PHP and the web of the ‘90s
    - traditional LAMP stack
    - Request-Response-Cycle
    - PHP is too slow?
    - We sure can improve this…
    17
    Apache
    Client PHP MySQL
    

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18. PHP and the web of the ‘90s
    - traditional LAMP stack
    - Request-Response-Cycle
    - PHP is too slow?
    - We sure can improve this…
    18
    Apache
    Client PHP MySQL
    Apache
    Client
    FPM
    MySQL
    PHP
    PHP
    

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19. PHP and the web of the ‘90s
    - traditional LAMP stack
    - Request-Response-Cycle
    - PHP is too slow?
    - We sure can improve this…
    19
    Apache
    Client PHP MySQL
    Apache
    Client
    FPM
    MySQL
    PHP
    PHP
    nginx
    Client
    FPM
    MySQL
    PHP
    PHP
    

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20. PHP and the web of the ‘90s
    - traditional LAMP stack
    - Request-Response-Cycle
    - PHP is too slow?
    - We sure can improve this…
    20
    Apache
    Client PHP MySQL
    Apache
    Client
    FPM
    MySQL
    PHP
    PHP
    nginx
    Client
    FPM
    MySQL
    PHP
    PHP
    nginx
    Client
    FPM
    memcache
    PHP
    PHP
    MySQL
    

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21. PHP may not be pretty…
    but it gets the job done!
    21
    

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22. Knock knock!
    Who’s there?
    22
    

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23. Knock knock!
    2016!
    Who’s there?
    23
    

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24. Knock knock!
    2016!
    - Separation of concerns
    (Frontend)
    - HTTP APIs (RESTful)
    - Integration with 3rd parties
    - Live-Data (ticker)
    - CLI tools
    Who’s there?
    24
    

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25. node js?
    25
    

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26. node js!
    26
    

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27. Enter React!
    27
    

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28. What is React?
    28
    

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29. What is React?
    non-blocking I/O
    29
    

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30. What is React?
    non-blocking I/O
    event-driven
    30
    

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31. What is React?
    non-blocking I/O
    event-driven
    async, not parallel
    31
    

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33. 100%
    33
    

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34. 100%
    pure PHP
    34
    

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35. 100%
    pure PHP
    no extensions
    35
    

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36. 100%
    pure PHP
    no extensions
    no magic
    36
    

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37. What does that even mean?!
    37
    

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38. non-blocking I/O
    38
    

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39. non-blocking I/O
    39
    - Calculations are fast – I/O is slow
    

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40. non-blocking I/O
    40
    - Calculations are fast – I/O is slow
    Source: Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
    

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41. non-blocking I/O
    41
    - Calculations are fast – I/O is slow
    - So why wait on I/O? (blocking)
    Source: Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
    

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42. non-blocking I/O
    42
    - Calculations are fast – I/O is slow
    - So why wait on I/O? (blocking)
    - Start multiple I/O operations (non-blocking)
    - get notified when something happens
    - hello async!
    Source: Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
    

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43. non-blocking I/O
    43
    - Calculations are fast – I/O is slow
    - So why wait on I/O? (blocking)
    - Start multiple I/O operations (non-blocking)
    - get notified when something happens
    - hello async!
    - single thread only so far
    - Multithreading + multi cores
    Source: Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
    

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44. What React is not
    44
    

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45. What React is not
    - React is not a framework
    - Indepentent components (libraries)
    45
    

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46. What React is not
    - React is not a framework
    - Indepentent components (libraries)
    - React is not black magic / vodoo
    - Does not make your code faster magically
    46
    

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47. What React is not
    - React is not a framework
    - Indepentent components (libraries)
    - React is not black magic / vodoo
    - Does not make your code faster magically
    - React is not a replacement for your favorite framework
    - Symfony is here to stay
    47
    

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48. What React is not
    - React is not a framework
    - Indepentent components (libraries)
    - React is not black magic / vodoo
    - Does not make your code faster magically
    - React is not a replacement for your favorite framework
    - Symfony is here to stay
    - React is not the new buzz
    - React is here to stay as well (started in 2012)
    48
    

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49. React core concepts
    49
    

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50. React Core concepts
    - Event loop (reactor)
    - Promises
    - Streams
    - Avoid blocking
    50
    

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51. Event loop
    Consumers
    - THE core, low-level component
    51
    

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52. Event loop
    Consumers
    - THE core, low-level component
    - Create an instance
    - Just use the Factory
    - Additional extensions for bigger payloads
    - something inbetween…
    - just pass the $loop around
    - Start running
    - keeps running forever
    - unless stopped or done
    52
    

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53. Event loop
    Consumers
    - THE core, low-level component
    - Create an instance
    - Just use the Factory
    - Additional extensions for bigger payloads
    - something inbetween…
    - just pass the $loop around
    - Start running
    - keeps running forever
    - unless stopped or done
    53
    Implementors
    - Reactor pattern (hence the name)
    

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54. Event loop
    Consumers
    - THE core, low-level component
    - Create an instance
    - Just use the Factory
    - Additional extensions for bigger payloads
    - something inbetween…
    - just pass the $loop around
    - Start running
    - keeps running forever
    - unless stopped or done
    54
    Implementors
    - Reactor pattern (hence the name)
    - wait for stream resources to become
    - readable
    - writable
    - start timers
    - once
    - periodic
    

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55. Promises
    - Placeholder for a single future result
    - Possible states:
    - pending
    - fulfilled (successfully resolved)
    - rejected (Exception occured)
    55
    

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56. Promises
    - Placeholder for a single future result
    - Possible states:
    - pending
    - fulfilled (successfully resolved)
    - rejected (Exception occured)
    - no more imperative code flow
    $a = doA(); $b = doB(); process($a, $b);
    56
    

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57. Promises
    - Placeholder for a single future result
    - Possible states:
    - pending
    - fulfilled (successfully resolved)
    - rejected (Exception occured)
    - no more imperative code flow
    $a = doA(); $b = doB(); process($a, $b);
    - instead (tell, don’t ask)
    $a->then($fulfilled = null, $rejected = null);
    $a->then(‘process’, ‘var_dump’);
    57
    

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58. Streams
    - Process large strings in chunks as they happen (think downloads)
    - Types
    - Readable (e.g. STDIN pipe)
    - Writable (e.g. STDOUT pipe)
    - Duplex (e.g. TCP/IP connection)
    58
    

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59. Streams
    - Process large strings in chunks as they happen (think downloads)
    - Types
    - Readable (e.g. STDIN pipe)
    - Writable (e.g. STDOUT pipe)
    - Duplex (e.g. TCP/IP connection)
    - interfaces, events and listeners:
    $dest->write(‘hello’);
    $source->on(‘data’, function ($data) { var_dump($data); });
    $source->on(‘close’, function () { echo ‘stream closed’; });
    $source->pipe($gunzip)->pipe($badwords)->pipe($dest);
    59
    

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60. Avoid blocking!
    - The loop must not be blocked
    60
    

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61. Avoid blocking!
    - The loop must not be blocked
    - Many functions / lib assume blocking by default
    - Anything >1ms should be reconsidered
    61
    

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62. Avoid blocking!
    - The loop must not be blocked
    - Many functions / lib assume blocking by default
    - Anything >1ms should be reconsidered
    - Alternatives
    - Single result: Promises
    - Evented: Streams
    62
    

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63. Avoid blocking!
    - The loop must not be blocked
    - Many functions / lib assume blocking by default
    - Anything >1ms should be reconsidered
    - Alternatives
    - Single result: Promises
    - Evented: Streams
    - Need a blocking function?
    - Fork off!
    - Use IPC
    63
    

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64. Avoid blocking!
    - The loop must not be blocked
    - Many functions / lib assume blocking by default
    - Anything >1ms should be reconsidered
    - Alternatives
    - Single result: Promises
    - Evented: Streams
    - Need a blocking function?
    - Fork off!
    - Use IPC
    64
    These should be avoided:
    - PDO, mysql etc.
    - file system access
    - network access
    - third-party APIs
    

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65. Examples and demo time!
    65
    

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66. Socket server
    66
    react/socket
    - THE canonical chat example
    - broadcast all incoming msgs
    

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67. Socket server
    67
    react/socket
    - THE canonical chat example
    - broadcast all incoming msgs
    - run example server
    - connect via telnet:
    $ telnet IP 8000
    

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68. HTTP client
    68
    clue/buzz-react
    - Simple HTTP requests
    - inspired by kriswallsmith/buzz
    - PSR-7 compatible
    

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69. HTTP client
    69
    clue/buzz-react
    - Simple HTTP requests
    - inspired by kriswallsmith/buzz
    - PSR-7 compatible
    - Promises and Streams
    - It’s fast…
    

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70. HTTP client
    70
    clue/buzz-react
    - Simple HTTP requests
    - inspired by kriswallsmith/buzz
    - PSR-7 compatible
    - Promises and Streams
    - It’s fast…
    - benchmarks in following slides about
    clue/docker-react
    

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71. Packagist API
    clue/packagist-api-react
    - get information about any
    Composer package
    - simple, Promise-based
    - lightweight wrapper between
    - KnpLabs/packagist-api
    - clue/buzz-react
    71
    

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72. Packagist API
    clue/packagist-api-react
    - get information about any
    Composer package
    - simple, Promise-based
    - lightweight wrapper between
    - KnpLabs/packagist-api
    - clue/buzz-react
    72
    - see its examples
    $ php examples/search.php
    

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73. Docker client
    clue/docker-react
    - Run apps in isolated containers
    - “build, ship and run, anywhere”
    - Controlled through HTTP API
    - Promises and Streams
    73
    

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74. Docker client
    clue/docker-react
    - Run apps in isolated containers
    - “build, ship and run, anywhere”
    - Controlled through HTTP API
    - Promises and Streams
    74
    - see its promise examples
    $ php examples/info.php
    - see its streaming examples
    $ php examples/benchmark-exec.php
    - throughput during talk:
    ~ 720 MiB/s, Docker maxed out, PHP not
    

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75. HTTP server
    react/http
    - Pure PHP, with
    no additional webserver
    - Under active development
    75
    

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76. HTTP server
    react/http
    - Pure PHP, with
    no additional webserver
    - Under active development
    - Lots of third-party integrations
    with traditional frameworks
    (symfony, slim, silex, PIMF etc.)
    76
    

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77. Server sent events
    clue/sse-react
    - Server sent events (SSE)
    - aka. EventSource (browser API)
    - Streaming events to browser
    - limited browser support
    77
    

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78. Server sent events
    clue/sse-react
    - Server sent events (SSE)
    - aka. EventSource (browser API)
    - Streaming events to browser
    - limited browser support
    78
    - see examples connecting to initial chat
    $ php examples/chat-server.php
    - open browser: http://localhost:8001/
    

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79. Websocket server
    cboden/ratchet
    - Async WebSocket server
    - bidirectional data flow between
    browser and server
    - better browser support
    79
    

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80. Redis client
    80
    clue/redis-react
    - Redis is a fast in-memory DB
    - very simple commands
    - very simple protocol
    - pipelined, Promise-based
    

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81. Redis client
    81
    clue/redis-react
    - Redis is a fast in-memory DB
    - very simple commands
    - very simple protocol
    - pipelined, Promise-based
    - see its examples
    $ php examples/incr.php
    

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82. Redis server
    82
    

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83. Redis server
    83
    - Official Redis is written in C
    

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84. Redis server
    84
    clue/php-redis-server
    - Official Redis is written in C
    - Reimplementation is pure PHP
    

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85. Redis server
    85
    clue/php-redis-server
    - Official Redis is written in C
    - Reimplementation is pure PHP
    - Very simple to add commands
    

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86. Redis server
    86
    clue/php-redis-server
    - Official Redis is written in C
    - Reimplementation is pure PHP
    - Very simple to add commands
    - How fast could PHP possibly be?
    Let’s see…
    

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87. Redis server
    87
    clue/php-redis-server
    - Official Redis is written in C
    - Reimplementation is pure PHP
    - Very simple to add commands
    - How fast could PHP possibly be?
    Let’s see…
    - see its bin
    $ php bin/redis-server.php
    - test via clue/redis-react
    - test via official redis CLI
    - run official redis benchmark during talk:
    - official server: ~90k OP/s
    - PHP server: ~50k OP/s
    

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88. UPnP
    clue/ssdp-react
    - Univeral Plug and Play (UPnP)
    - Simple Service Discovery
    Protocol (SSDP)
    - dicover UPnP-enabled devices
    - printers
    - routers
    - multi media devices
    88
    

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89. UPnP
    clue/ssdp-react
    - Univeral Plug and Play (UPnP)
    - Simple Service Discovery
    Protocol (SSDP)
    - dicover UPnP-enabled devices
    - printers
    - routers
    - multi media devices
    89
    - see its examples
    $ php examples/search.php
    

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90. Zenity
    clue/zenity-react
    - PHP desktop GUI applications
    - very simple, Promise-based
    90
    

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91. Zenity
    clue/zenity-react
    - PHP desktop GUI applications
    - very simple, Promise-based
    91
    - see its simple examples
    $ php examples/dialog.php
    - see its more realistic examples
    $ php examples/menu.php
    $ php examples/progress-*.php
    

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92. many, MANY more third-party projects:
    https://github.com/reactphp/react/wiki/Users
    92
    

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93. Conclusions
    93
    

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94. Conclusions
    94
    - React is a real deal and here to stay
    - React is stable and production ready
    - predictable releases
    - but possibly feature-incomplete (check open issues)
    

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95. Conclusions
    95
    - React is a real deal and here to stay
    - React is stable and production ready
    - predictable releases
    - but possibly feature-incomplete (check open issues)
    - React does not make your code faster magically
    

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96. Conclusions
    96
    - React is a real deal and here to stay
    - React is stable and production ready
    - predictable releases
    - but possibly feature-incomplete (check open issues)
    - React does not make your code faster magically
    - Consider using React whenever you’re having to wait
    - Consider using React whenever you’re accessing the network
    

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97. PHP is faster than you probably thought
    97
    

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98. Integration with traditional environments
    98
    integrating async into sync is easy
    

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99. Integration with traditional environments
    99
    integrating async into sync is easy
    - just run the loop until you’re done
    - see clue/block-react
    

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100. Integration with traditional environments
     100
     integrating async into sync is easy
     - just run the loop until you’re done
     - see clue/block-react
     integrating sync into async is hard
     

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101. Integration with traditional environments
     101
     integrating async into sync is easy
     - just run the loop until you’re done
     - see clue/block-react
     integrating sync into async is hard
     - often requires async rewrite
     - consider forking instead
     

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102. Need help? Want to help?
     - check each component’s README
     - check open issues
     102
     

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103. Need help? Want to help?
     - check each component’s README
     - check open issues
     - join #reactphp on irc.freenode.org
     - tweet @ReactPHP or #reactphp
     103
     

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104. Need help? Want to help?
     - check each component’s README
     - check open issues
     - join #reactphp on irc.freenode.org
     - tweet @ReactPHP or #reactphp
     - Talk to me
     104
     

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105. Need help? Want to help?
     - check each component’s README
     - check open issues
     - join #reactphp on irc.freenode.org
     - tweet @ReactPHP or #reactphp
     - Talk to me
     Did I mention I’m available?
     105
     

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106. // thank you!
     $loop->end();
     106
     http://lueck.tv/
     

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