https://phpsw.uk/ Bristol's free PHP meetup. Talks, pizza & pub, every second Wednesday. en-gb https://phpsw.uk/events/2027-01-how-to-videos-that-make-themselves https://phpsw.uk/events/2027-01-how-to-videos-that-make-themselves <p><strong>Wednesday 13 January 2027, 6.30pm</strong> · Temple Studios, Lower Approach Road</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/how-to-videos-that-make-themselves">How-to videos that make themselves: AI-planned, Playwright-recorded demos of your Laravel app</a></h3><p>Damilola Ogunsakin</p><p>It&#039;s about laravel-video-demos, an open source package I&#039;m building. The short version:</p><p>1. You describe a flow in a sentence. 2. An AI model (Claude by default, or OpenAI, Gemini or a local model) reads your routes and code and writes a step-by-step plan. 3. Playwright records the plan in a real browser with a cursor, captions and title cards. 4. ffmpeg encodes desktop, tablet and mobile MP4s from one plan. 5. Plans are saved, so one command re-records every video after a redesign at no AI cost.</p><p>I&#039;ll run it live and dig into the harder parts: self-repairing plans when a step fails, keeping AI spend under a set limit, and redacting secrets before any code reaches the model. It&#039;s a package deep dive with plenty of general PHP and tooling in it, not a Laravel-only talk.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/your-database-is-a-gold-mine-let-ai-dig-safely">Your Database Is a Gold Mine. Let AI Dig Safely.</a></h3><p>Dave Liddament</p><p>Imagine anyone in the business asking questions of the database like they&#039;re talking to a person. No SQL. No ticket. No waiting for a developer.</p><p>We built it: an MCP with read only DB access that hid PII. Every client who has tried it is hooked.</p><p>But AI also finds fool&#039;s gold. I&#039;ll show how to build one, how to stop confident wrong answers (well, most of them), and how to turn the best questions into trusted reports.</p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-11-php-sw-lightning-talks https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-11-php-sw-lightning-talks <p><strong>Wednesday 11 November 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · Temple Studios, Lower Approach Road</p><p>For our final meetup of the year we will be doing lightning talks.</p><p>Talks are about 10 minutes, on anything from an AI tool you use to PHP and its wider ecosystem. Message the organisers on Meetup to get on the schedule.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/no-server-required-running-php-in-your-browser-with-webassembly">No Server Required: Running PHP in Your Browser with WebAssembly</a></h3><p>Rich Hurst</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/amp">AMP</a></h3><p>Dan Harrin</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/317102755/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-10-jj-another-way-to-git https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-10-jj-another-way-to-git <p><strong>Wednesday 14 October 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · DeskLodge House, Redcliffe Way</p><p>In October we have Oliver Davies.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/jj-another-way-to-git">jj: another way to Git</a></h3><p>Oliver Davies</p><p>Git is a powerful tool, but some everyday workflows take more effort than they should.</p><p>Rewriting history, splitting commits and recovering from mistakes usually means juggling the staging area, stashes and detached HEADs.</p><p>jj (Jujutsu) is a version control system that offers another way to work, backed by the same Git repositories and forges you already use.</p><p>You&#039;ll see how to work without branches, reshape commits, and undo anything.</p><p>Each idea is compared with its Git equivalent, so you&#039;ll know where your existing knowledge still applies.</p><p>You&#039;ll learn how jj can make version control easier, without leaving Git behind.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/316696277/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-09-raising-the-profile-of-php https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-09-raising-the-profile-of-php <p><strong>Wednesday 9 September 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · Temple Studios, Lower Approach Road</p><p>We have two speakers for September: Mike Page is giving his talk &quot;Raising the profile of PHP today&quot;. And Ade will be presenting &quot;Vibing with Pikachu&quot;. They&#039;ll be pizzas and post talk drinks too. See you there!</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/raising-the-profile-of-php-today">Raising the profile of PHP today</a></h3><p>Mike Page</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/vibing-with-pikachu">Vibing with Pikachu</a></h3><p>Adrian Groves</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/316259196/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-07-lightning-talks-night https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-07-lightning-talks-night <p><strong>Wednesday 8 July 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · Temple Studios, Lower Approach Road</p><p>We have two speakers for July.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/meet-with-tech-building-the-platform-for-tech-communities">Meet with Tech: Building the platform for tech communities</a></h3><p>Tamas Erdelyi</p><p>A few months ago, after speaking with organisers and attendees alike, he started to work on a side project to shake up the tech community organising space a little. In his lightning talk he&#039;ll walk you through his project, some technical challenges behind it, and what&#039;s coming over the next few months.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/improving-code-quality-under-pressure">Improving Code Quality Under Pressure</a></h3><p>Chris Blunden</p><p>Got a problem project that everyone hates working on? Here are some strategies for how you can start to make it better while still shipping features.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/evaluating-pull-requests">Evaluating Pull Requests</a></h3><p>Dave Liddament</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/315398319/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-06-50-laravel-tips https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-06-50-laravel-tips <p><strong>Wednesday 10 June 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · DeskLodge House, Redcliffe Way</p><p>In June we have Liam Hammett sharing some of his favourite Laravel tips...</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/50-tips-for-any-laravel-application">50 Tips for Any Laravel Application</a></h3><p>Liam Hammett</p><p>Think you’ve seen every Laravel trick? Let’s find out. In this fast-paced live-coding session, we’ll review a Laravel codebase and uncover over a hundred practical tips. From smarter validation rules to hidden Eloquent gems, CI/CD improvements and lesser-known testing patterns. Each example is something you can apply immediately to make your code cleaner, faster and more maintainable.</p><p>Whether you’ve been writing Laravel for a week or a decade, you’ll have at least a dozen “wait – you can do that?!” moments.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/314816915/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-05-ai-lightning-talks https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-05-ai-lightning-talks <p><strong>Wednesday 13 May 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · Temple Studios, Lower Approach Road</p><p>For May we&#039;ll be having a Lightning Talks night. The theme - AI. We&#039;re also have a new venue sponsor Temple Studios (https://www.tcnuk.co.uk/temple-1852). Thanks to them for providing their venue to PHP-SW. AI... Love it? Hate it? What tricks have you found that actually work? Where has it confidently led you off a cliff? Has it changed how you write code, or just how you write apologies for code?</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/5-things-developers-should-understand-about-ai-coding">5 Things Developers Should Understand About AI Coding</a></h3><p>Tamas Erdelyi</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/making-ww2-war-diaries-accessible-to-everyone">Making WW2 War Diaries Accessible to Everyone</a></h3><p>Phil Mobbs</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/adventures-with-ai-assisted-coding">Adventures With AI Assisted Coding</a></h3><p>Dave Liddament</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/ai-agent-battle-royale">AI Agent Battle Royale</a></h3><p>Mike Karthauser</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/ai-philosophy">AI Philosophy</a></h3><p>Robin Hodson</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/314227208/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-04-laravel-mcp-and-architecture https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-04-laravel-mcp-and-architecture <p><strong>Wednesday 8 April 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · Signable, 3 Unity Street</p><p>In April Signable (https://www.signable.co.uk/) will be hosting. We&#039;ve got two fantastic talks.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/mcp-servers-in-laravel-how-to-trust-ai-with-your-service">MCP servers in Laravel - How to trust AI with your service</a></h3><p>Tom</p><p>Enable your service to connect with the agentic AI network through Laravel&#039;s new MCP server package, while still maintaining control over how AI utilises your service.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/microservices-and-monolithic-architectures-in-laravel">Microservices and Monolithic architectures in Laravel</a></h3><p>Joshua</p><p>Learn about the impact of microservices and Monolithic Architectures in Laravel</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/313804898/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-03-escaping-the-code-maze https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-03-escaping-the-code-maze <p><strong>Wednesday 11 March 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · The Golden Guinea, 19 Guinea Street</p><p>We return in March and we have Yannick giving his talk &quot;Escaping the Code Maze&quot;.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/escaping-the-code-maze">Escaping the Code Maze</a></h3><p>Yannick Chenot</p><p>Exploring a code base is like navigating a maze with a partial map. While some paths are correctly indicated, some are mislabelled or turn out to be dead ends. Take a childless class not marked as final, for instance – the keyword’s absence is like a sign pointing to a dark tunnel leading nowhere. How many such paths do we accidentally – or deliberately – leave open?</p><p>This presentation introduces the Closed-by-Default Principle, a reframing of existing principles focussed on keeping those paths shut, relieving the developer’s cognitive load in the process.</p><p>It is also an exploration of PHP’s evolution over time, each version introducing features to keep the maze as navigable as possible. We’ll also see how to leverage static analysis tools to automate the corresponding rules, giving developers the assurance that all paths lead somewhere.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/313587610/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-02-lightning-talks-night https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-02-lightning-talks-night <p><strong>Wednesday 11 February 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · DeskLodge House, Redcliffe Way</p><p>February&#039;s meetup is all about securing your API with Rob Allen. We will be at DeskLodge House (note this Redcliffe DeskLodge, not the one in the centre we used last time).</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/securing-your-api-the-owasp-top-10">Securing Your API: The OWASP Top 10</a></h3><p>Rob Allen</p><p>APIs are the foundation of our applications today and need to be secure. From broken authorisation and authentication to injection attacks, the OWASP API Security Top 10 identifies the most critical security issues facing APIs today. In this talk, we&#039;ll walk through the items on the list and explore these security flaws and look at how to prevent them. By the end of this session, you&#039;ll have a clear understanding of the most critical API security risks and be equipped with the knowledge to build more secure APIs.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/it-depends">It Depends</a></h3><p>Gary Hockin</p><p>As a consultant I&#039;m often asked absolute questions, &quot;Is $x better than $y?&quot;. The answer is nearly always &quot;It Depends&quot;.</p><p>Software development is a constant game of give and take. Every day we (consciously or not) make numerous decisions and trade-offs in order to get our code shipped. I&#039;ve found that making these tradeoffs front of mind when I&#039;m working means easier and better decisions.</p><p>Let&#039;s take a look at some of the more common decisions we make day-to-day and try and figure out what the compromises are. Hopefully you&#039;ll start looking at more decisions as tradeoffs, and make better choices yourself in future.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/313037705/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-01-nix-for-php-developers-and-everyone-else https://phpsw.uk/events/2026-01-nix-for-php-developers-and-everyone-else <p><strong>Wednesday 14 January 2026, 6.30pm</strong> · BaseKit, 4th Floor, The Pithay</p><p>A last minute change to Jan&#039;s meetup. Thanks to Oliver Davies (https://www.oliverdavies.uk/) jumping in at the last minute to speak. A big thank you to BaseKit (https://www.basekit.com/) for hosting at their office this month.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/nix-for-php-developers-and-everyone-else">Nix for PHP Developers (and everyone else)</a></h3><p>Oliver Davies</p><p>Nix (https://nixos.org/) 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.</p><p>In this talk, Oliver will explain what Nix is, show how to create development shells for PHP (and anything else) 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.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/312728273/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-12-phpsw-december-social-2025 https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-12-phpsw-december-social-2025 <p><strong>Wednesday 10 December 2025, 7.30pm</strong> · Small Bar, 31 King Street</p><p>It&#039;s been a great year! There&#039;s no speaking event this month, but we&#039;re meeting once more for drinks if there is enough interest. It&#039;s one more chance to talk about everything new to PHP in 2025, or anything else! Please go directly to the pub as there are no talks! This is just a small get-together with no fixed agenda so feel free to meet from 19:30 onwards; we will grab a table at Small Bar. PS you can now keep the conversation going with the PHP South West Discord Server! https://discord.gg/KJN3tbN7J</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/312165895/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-11-lightning-talks https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-11-lightning-talks <p><strong>Wednesday 12 November 2025, 6.30pm</strong> · DeskLodge Beacon Tower, Beacon Tower, Colston Street</p><p>For November we&#039;ll have one of our lightning talks night. We&#039;ll have talks from multiple speakers, they&#039;ll cover topics related to PHP and the wider PHP ecosystem.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/artificial-synthetic-intelligence">Artificial Synthetic Intelligence</a></h3><p>Robin Hodson</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/nix-and-php">Nix and PHP</a></h3><p>Oliver Davies</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/what-s-new-in-php-8-5">What&#039;s New in PHP 8.5?</a></h3><p>Tamas Erdelyi</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/building-your-own-mobile-phone">Building Your Own Mobile Phone</a></h3><p>Jon White</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/tips-for-agentic-development">Tips for Agentic Development</a></h3><p>Drew McLellan</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/writing-games-with-php">Writing Games With PHP</a></h3><p>Adrian Groves</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/311631258/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-10-scaling-writes-on-mysql https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-10-scaling-writes-on-mysql <p><strong>Wednesday 8 October 2025, 6.30pm</strong> · DeskLodge Beacon Tower, Beacon Tower, Colston Street</p><p>For October&#039;s meetup we have Graham Campbell who&#039;ll be giving his talk &quot;Scaling Writes on MySQL&quot;. We&#039;ll also be trying out a new venue (Desklodge at Beacon Tower). We also have new sponsor Pinnaca (https://www.pinnacaretail.com/). They supply a range of Retail Focused products to Extract, Transform &amp; Load disparate data sources into a single database optimised for reporting within Microsoft Powerbi.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/scaling-writes-on-mysql">Scaling Writes on MySQL</a></h3><p>Graham Campbell</p><p>As your PHP application grows, database performance can become a bottleneck. While adding read replicas, copies of your database that handle read-only queries, can help with scaling reads, they don’t solve issues with too many writes.</p><p>That’s where write-sharding comes in. This technique distributes data across multiple databases, reducing both the write load and the amount of data on each node. In this talk, we’ll break down what write-sharding is, when to use it, and how to implement it effectively in a PHP application.</p><p>If you’re looking to scale beyond read replicas and handle high write loads, this session will give you the tools to do it, and how I implemented this at SMS Marketing SaaS Voxie, allowing them to service large new customers sending more in two hours than every other customer combined in a week!</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/311266366/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-09-introduction-to-filament https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-09-introduction-to-filament <p><strong>Wednesday 10 September 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Runway East, 1 Victoria Street</p><p>We have another amazing speaker at PHP-SW in September - Dan Harrin the co-creator of Filament. Filament is An open source UI framework, built with Livewire to help you ship admin panels &amp; apps fast.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/introduction-to-filament">Introduction to Filament</a></h3><p>Dan Harrin</p><p>Filament is a server-driven UI framework for Laravel that helps developers build complex apps quickly. In this talk, you’ll get an overview of what Filament is, how it works, and why it’s become a go-to tool for thousands of Laravel developers building internal tools, admin panels, or full SaaS platforms.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/310581072/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-08-agentic-applications-with-symfony https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-08-agentic-applications-with-symfony <p><strong>Wednesday 13 August 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Runway East, 1 Victoria Street</p><p>We have an exclusive for you in August! You might have recently read about the Symfony AI Initiative (https://symfony.com/blog/kicking-off-the-symfony-ai-initiative). In August we have Christopher Hertel, one of the driving forces behind the initiative, speaking about it. This will be one of, possibly the first, talk anywhere in the world about it! This talk will be relevant even to those who don&#039;t use Symfony.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/agentic-applications-with-symfony">Agentic Applications with Symfony</a></h3><p>Christopher Hertel</p><p>A chat interface is by far not all that you could build with Symfony and Large Language Models. And agentic applications are the next level of integrating AI - not only in your code, but also in your business.</p><p>Let&#039;s have a look together on some basic concepts and hands-on examples of letting AI take over more responsibilities in a well-defined and automated manner.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/310008045/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-07-observing-your-php-application-with-opentelemetry https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-07-observing-your-php-application-with-opentelemetry <p><strong>Wednesday 9 July 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Runway East, 1 Victoria Street</p><p>For July we have Jess Smith telling us all about OpenTelemetry.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/observing-your-php-application-with-opentelemetry">Observing your PHP Application with OpenTelemetry</a></h3><p>Jess Smith</p><p>Observability is really popular right now, and using it properly can give you insights into your PHP applications, help you with tracking down problems and ensure your applications are working properly. However it can be difficult to know where to begin, what it actually involves and how to get started with it.</p><p>In this talk we&#039;ll find out what it is, why you need it and how you can use OpenTelemetry to easily get started using it.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/308531705/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-06-php-value-objects-and-you https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-06-php-value-objects-and-you <p><strong>Wednesday 11 June 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Runway East, 1 Victoria Street</p><p>Dan Leech is returning to PHP-SW in June to tell us all about value objects.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/php-value-objects-and-you">PHP, Value Objects and You 🫵</a></h3><p>Daniel Leech</p><p>Value Objects can be one of the most powerful tools in your modelling toolbox. They make code expressive, maintainable, deterministic and cohesive. Yet they are sometimes misunderstood and it’s often difficult for developers to realise where and how they can use them.</p><p>In this talk you will learn how to identify value objects in the wild, what their properties are and how to create your own!</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/308185798/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-05-beyond-requests-supercharging-api-monitoring-with-guzzle-middleware https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-05-beyond-requests-supercharging-api-monitoring-with-guzzle-middleware <p><strong>Wednesday 14 May 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Inside Travel Group, Electricity House, Quay Street</p><p>For May&#039;s PHPSW Liam will telling us all about Supercharging API monitoring, we&#039;ll also have a group discussion about something PHP related... NOTE: Change of venue: Inside Travel Group, Electricity House, Quay St, Bristol BS1 4TD.</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/beyond-requests-supercharging-api-monitoring-with-guzzle-middleware">Beyond Requests: Supercharging API Monitoring with Guzzle Middleware</a></h3><p>Liam Hammett</p><p>Handling millions of API calls in production can be overwhelming. Everyone uses Guzzle, but in this talk we&#039;ll deep dive into using its underutilised middleware for efficient API monitoring. We’ll dive into logging with Kibana, error enhancement with Sentry, tracing with OpenZipkin and Jaeger, and making use of Prometheus metrics with Grafana, Alertmanager and KEDA. Drawing from my experience building an application that makes millions of API calls each week, you&#039;ll leave with actionable insights to keep your microservices and third-party APIs stable under pressure.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/307466220/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p> https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-04-elevating-legacy https://phpsw.uk/events/2025-04-elevating-legacy <p><strong>Wednesday 9 April 2025, 6.45pm</strong> · Runway East, 1 Victoria Street</p><p>For April&#039;s PHPSW: Elevating Legacy, a talk by Dave Liddament. Discussion: What can we developers do to improve the reputation of PHP?</p> <h3><a href="https://phpsw.uk/talks/elevating-legacy">Elevating Legacy</a></h3><p>Dave Liddament</p><p>At some point of your career you&#039;ll probably end up working on a majorly outdated version of a framework and prehistoric version of PHP. After months of whinging to the management that it really is time to upgrade, your wish is granted! You&#039;ve got to take a creaking codebase to the future, or, at least the present. But how best to achieve this?</p><p>This talk tells the story of upgrading a Laravel 4 project to Laravel 9. I&#039;ll share the things we did well, and the lessons that we learnt along the way.</p><p>Regardless of framework and versions, this talk gives practical advice for planning and executing a major upgrade.</p><p><a href="https://www.meetup.com/php-sw/events/307064891/">RSVP on Meetup</a></p>