Symfony 4 & Symfony Flex - Core ideas, features and improvements

Since its release back in 2005, Symfony has been continuously evolving and improving. With every new version, the framework has pushed forward, helping us writing better code faster.
In this talk we will see the new features and improvements that Symfony 4 is going to introduce next November. We will learn the core ideas from this new version, understanding not only how to use it, but also what are the key assumptions and motivations behind.
Moreover, we will have a close look at the so-called “Symfony 4 secret weapon”: Symfony Flex. This Composer plugin has been created with the idea of cutting configuration times to the minimum. We will understand how it works and learn how to use it properly to boost our productivity.

Transcript

1. Symfony 4 & Symfony Flex Core ideas, features and improvements Victoria Quirante
2. I work at Limenius We build tailor-made projects with Symfony and React We have been working with Symfony since 2008 SF4 means a significant evolution Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com
3. SYMFONY 4 MOTIVATION What are the driving forces behind this new version https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/14411386334
4. SYMFONY 4 MOTIVATION Or why the hell do we have to change things again https://www.flickr.com/photos/mindaugasdanys/3766009204
5. «As a developer, I want to start small, without too many dependencies. But I also want to be able to grow my application as I see fit. From a micro-framework style app to a gigantic monolith. Your choice. The framework should not get in the way.» Fabien Potencier «Symfony Flex is all about making it simple and easy to create any Symfony applications, from the most simple micro-style project to the more complex ones with dozens of dependencies. It automates adding and removing bundles. It takes care of giving you sensible defaults. It helps discovering good bundles.» Fabien Potencier
6. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com SF 4 seems like the result of a SWOT analysis Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com S W O T Flexible Powerful Config time high Learning curve SF 2 Web development environment
7. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recent evolution of the web development environment Our favourite framework Some jQuery { { Back-end Front-end
8. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recent evolution of the web development environment Our favourite framework Some jQuery { { Back-end Front-end Backbone.js Ember.js Angular.js Gulp Grunt Vue.js Webpack React.js chats notifications immediate validations page reloads
9. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Our favourite framework Some jQuery Recent evolution of the web development environment { { Back-end Front-end Our favourite front-end framework Our favourite back-end framework API Backbone.js Ember.js Angular.js Gulp Grunt Vue.js Webpack React.js chats notifications immediate validations page reloads
10. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Our favourite framework Some jQuery Recent evolution of the web development environment { { Back-end Front-end Our favourite front-end framework Our favourite back-end framework API Our favourite front-end framework API
11. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Our favourite framework Some jQuery Recent evolution of the web development environment { { Back-end Front-end Our favourite front-end framework Our favourite back-end framework API Our favourite front-end framework API API API API API
12. Then, what is expected from a back-end framework nowadays?
13. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com - To be a great solution for APIs - To make easy to build some functionalities (admin panels, etc.) - To be efficient creating small apps and microservices - ... What is expected nowadays from a back-end framework? To take good care of the back-end
14. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com SF 4 seems like the result of a SWOT analysis S W O T Flexible Powerful Config times high Learning curve APIs everywhere Microservices needed Backends needed Drupal/Laravel Frontend revolution SF 2 Web development environment
15. In front of this, what things should we change?
16. SYMFONY 4 PHILOSOPHY https://www.flickr.com/photos/68532869@N08/16357411958
17. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony roadmap
18. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony 2 was two things 1. A full stack framework 1. A full stack framework 2. A set of independent components
19. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony 2 was two things 1. A full stack framework But “developing in Symfony 2” generally meant using the full framework
20. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Example: If you wanted to build a console app before You could start with the full FW and get many things you don’t need Or go for the components approach… and fight quite a bit
21. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony 2 VS Symfony 4 graphically SF 2 web app SF 2 API SF 2 microservice
22. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony 2 VS Symfony 4 graphically SF 2 web app SF 2 API SF 2 microservice SF 4 web app SF 4 API SF 4 microservice
23. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Working with SF 4 SF 4 web app SF 4 API SF 4 microservice SF 4
24. SF4 is not a new FW, it is a new mindset behind the same FW
25. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony 4 - Compose your application Make easy to create projects with lots or few dependencies For that, they wanted automate bundle installation/configuration
26. It is key that we can make our project grow or shrink very easily
27. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Working with SF 4 SF 4 web app SF 4 API SF 4 microservice SF 4 We need something to smooth out this transformations
28. SYMFONY FLEX What exactly is it
29. SF FLEX is not a version of SF, it is a tool to implement SF4’s philosophy
30. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Symfony Flex - Automation to the max It is a composer plugin that comes with Symfony 4 Moving towards zero configuration time It also “promotes” a curated list of official recipes
31. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Internals Modifies the behaviour of the require and update commands Allows Symfony to perform tasks before or after the Composer commands
32. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works composer require mailer It installs and enables SwiftmailerBundle
33. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works composer req mailer It installs and enables SwiftmailerBundle
34. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer
35. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Symfony Flex server Is there information about this package?
36. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Going for regular installation via Composer Nope Symfony Flex server
37. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Symfony Flex server
38. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Yes, sending recipe Cool, following recipe instructions! Symfony Flex server
39. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Yes, sending recipe Cool, following recipe instructions! Deciding which packages to install Symfony Flex server
40. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Asking Composer to install them Yes, sending recipe Cool, following recipe instructions! Deciding which packages to install Symfony Flex server
41. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com How it works Your application with Symfony Flex composer require mailer Is there information about this package? Asking Composer to install them Yes, sending recipe Cool, following recipe instructions! Deciding which packages to install Running any tasks required Symfony Flex server
42. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes Defined in a manifest.json file May contain other files or directories It ‘explains’ Symfony Flex what things need to be done
43. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes { "bundles": { "Symfony\\Bundle\\SwiftmailerBundle\\SwiftmailerBundle": ["all"] }, "copy-from-recipe": { "config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/" }, "env": { "MAILER_URL": "smtp://localhost:25?encryption=&auth_mode=" }, "aliases": ["mailer", "mail"] }
44. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes { "bundles": { "Symfony\\Bundle\\SwiftmailerBundle\\SwiftmailerBundle": ["all"] }, "copy-from-recipe": { "config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/" }, "env": { "MAILER_URL": "smtp://localhost:25?encryption=&auth_mode=" }, "aliases": ["mailer", "mail"] } Environments that this bundle has to enable automatically
45. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes { "bundles": { "Symfony\\Bundle\\SwiftmailerBundle\\SwiftmailerBundle": ["all"] }, "copy-from-recipe": { "config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/" }, "env": { "MAILER_URL": "smtp://localhost:25?encryption=&auth_mode=" }, "aliases": ["mailer", "mail"] } Files and directories that will be copied into your application
46. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes { "bundles": { "Symfony\\Bundle\\SwiftmailerBundle\\SwiftmailerBundle": ["all"] }, "copy-from-recipe": { "config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/" }, "env": { "MAILER_URL": "smtp://localhost:25?encryption=&auth_mode=" }, "aliases": ["mailer", "mail"] } New environment variables that will be added to your application
47. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Recipes List of alternative shorter names for the package { "bundles": { "Symfony\\Bundle\\SwiftmailerBundle\\SwiftmailerBundle": ["all"] }, "copy-from-recipe": { "config/": "%CONFIG_DIR%/" }, "env": { "MAILER_URL": "smtp://localhost:25?encryption=&auth_mode=" }, "aliases": ["mailer", "mail"] }
48. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Official and unofficial recipes Two repositories: core and contrib official repository (very) opinionated approval from SF core team Symfony Flex looks here aliases core community repository not opinionated - Symfony Flex may look here - contrib
49. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Creating a new Symfony app with Symfony Flex composer create-project symfony/skeleton my-project
50. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Creating a new Symfony app with Symfony Flex composer create-project symfony/skeleton my-project "require": { "php": "^7.0.8", "symfony/flex": "^1.0", "symfony/console": "^4.0", "symfony/framework-bundle": "^4.0", "symfony/lts": "^4@dev", "symfony/yaml": "^4.0" }, Downloads the Symfony skeleton (just one composer.json)
51. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Creating a new Symfony app with Symfony Flex composer create-project symfony/skeleton my-project "require": { "php": "^7.0.8", "symfony/flex": "^1.0", "symfony/console": "^4.0", "symfony/framework-bundle": "^4.0", "symfony/lts": "^4@dev", "symfony/yaml": "^4.0" }, Downloads the Symfony skeleton (just one composer.json) composer install symfony/flex is the first package installed And runs
52. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com May I avoid using Symfony Flex? Yes, you can install/configure things as you used to But Symfony Flex is the default way of doing things in Symfony 4
53. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com May I use Symfony Flex with an old project? Yes, but installing Symfony Flex is not enough You need to update the directory structure https://symfony.com/doc/master/setup/flex.html#upgrading-existing-applications-to-flex
54. WHAT HAS CHANGED Things we have to ‘relearn’ https://www.flickr.com/photos/vialbost/37167061631
55. Do you remember those never-ending discussions about one VS multiple bundle apps?
56. Guess what was the right answer…
57. «[...] We worked hard during the last few months to make sure that Symfony 4 can embrace bundle-less applications. So Symfony 4 will recommend and generate bundle-less applications.» Fabien Potencier
59. «[...] We worked hard during the last few months to make sure that Symfony 4 can embrace bundle-less applications. So Symfony 4 will recommend and generate bundle-less applications.» Fabien Potencier «No more bundle for your code, just use App\ as a namespace for any class under src/. It reduces the perceived complexity. It also makes your code feel more decoupled from Symfony.» Fabien Potencier
60. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Bundle-less applications Change in best practices No more one-bundle-application Now zero-bundle-application is recommended In practice, not difficult to get used to this
61. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Directory structure my-project/ ├── config/ │ ├── bundles.php │ ├── packages/ │ ├── routes.yaml │ └── services.yaml ├── public/ │ └── index.php ├── src/ │ ├── ... │ └── Kernel.php ├── templates/ └── vendor/ It may be a bit tricky at the beginning, but it is actually simpler
62. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com config/bundles.php File where installed bundles get referenced Symfony Flex is going to write here
63. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com config.yml -> packages/package-name.yaml Forget about the single long config file Now our configuration is splitted in different files One file per package/bundle and environment
64. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com parameters.yml -> Environment variables Now we have .env More standard way of managing settings # .env APP_ENV=dev APP_DEBUG=1 APP_SECRET=d5b7eb4ea25adca8c17bsdsc126831c DATABASE_URL="mysql://travolta:travolta@127.0.0.1:3306/travolta"#
65. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Unified web front controller No more app.php and app_dev.php Just one (public/index.php) Trickier to switch between them But it is considered a better practice # public/index.php $kernel = new Kernel($_SERVER['APP_ENV'] ?? 'dev', $_SERVER['APP_DEBUG'] ?? false);
66. WHAT IS NEW What new shiny things do we get? https://www.flickr.com/photos/blondinrikard/14419731227
67. Of course, Symfony Flex, but what else?
68. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Some key things already introduced in SF 3 - Automated configuration: - Autowiring - _defaults, _instanceof - Autoconfiguration - Further standardization: - PSR-4 based service discovery - PSR-11 containers - ... https://symfony.com/blog
69. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Many not too flashy but yet powerful additions - Improvements in: - Guard authentication - Forms - Injection of tag services - Console exceptions - Overriding templates - ... - Integration with Bootstrap 4 form theme - ... https://symfony.com/blog
70. AND, finally, just when we had lost almost all hope...
71. A great solution for the assets
72. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Webpack Encore It simplifies the integration of our Symfony project with Webpack Webpack is a great tool to process the assets Configuring Webpack is not easy But Webpack Encore solves that
73. DEMO TIME Let’s create a project with Symfony Flex https://www.flickr.com/photos/callmewhatever/30708918322
74. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Let’s create a project with Symfony Flex We are going to create a project with API Platform and EasyAdmin
75. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com API Platform
76. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com EasyAdmin
77. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com composer create-project symfony/skeleton apiadmin-project cd apiadmin-project composer req api composer req admin composer req webserver - Create Entity - Config database bin/console doctrine:schema:update - Tell API Platform and EasyAdmin about our Entity bin/console server:run Demo time Let’s do it
78. EVALUATING How good are these changes?
79. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Fair questions about SF 4 & SF Flex 1. Is it more difficult now to develop a ‘standard web project’? 2. Trying to make config extra simple… is it getting more obscure? 3. Are ‘official packages’ too promoted? Still early to know
80. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com The good It makes sense not to carry dependencies that you are not using The things we need to adapt to are not difficult Moving further towards standardization
81. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com The real good Trying to adapt to the upcoming challenges Webpack Encore Working together with the front-end, not fighting against it
82. BET 1: Let’s embrace the position of the back-end framework in the landscape, and try to adapt to our time BET 2: Let’s keep our Symfony as powerful and flexible, while trying to compete against more high-level-oriented solutions
83. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com Fears and hopes Great FW to create fully tailored-made apps SF It tries to gain ground on more high-level-oriented solutions It remains as good as always (or better) for that While making easier to build some “standard” stuff Optimistic outcome Pessimistic outcome It loses focus It loses love from traditional SF developers
84. FINAL THOUGHTS What to remember https://www.flickr.com/photos/dewalick/15842170328
85. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com To summarize S W O T Flexible Powerful Config times high Learning curve APIs everywhere Microservices needed Backends needed Drupal/Laravel Frontend revolution SF 2 Web development environment
86. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com To summarize S W O T Flexible Powerful Config times high Learning curve APIs everywhere Microservices needed Backends needed Drupal/Laravel Frontend revolution SF 2 Web development environment
87. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com To summarize S W O T Flexible Powerful Config times high Learning curve APIs everywhere Microservices needed Backends needed Drupal/Laravel Frontend revolution SF 2 Web development environment
88. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com To summarize S W O T Flexible Powerful Config times high Learning curve APIs everywhere Microservices needed Backends needed Drupal/Laravel Frontend revolution SF 2 Web development environment
89. Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com To summarize Clear answer to the current times Imho, the direction taken looks promising There may be some risks, but it depends on how will it evolve The community has, of course, a lot to say in this
90. Thanks! Victoria Quirante @vicqr victoria@limenius.com