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PHP 8.5's URI Extension: Because parse_url() Has Been Lying to Us for 20 Years

PHP 8.5's new URI extension finally fixes 20 years of parse_url() problems.

Great Barr

Never Lose a Queue Job Again: Laravel 12.34's New Failover Driver

Laravel 12.34 dropped earlier this week with a feature that made me actually say "oh thank god" out loud: automatic queue failover.

Great Barr 9 Holes - 18/10/2025

PHP 8.5's array_first and array_last: Finally, Native Array Helpers We Can Use

Right, let's talk about something that's been bugging us for years. If you've been writing PHP for any length of time, you've probably written some variation of "get the first item from this array" more times than you'd care to admit. And if you're a Laravel developer like us, you've probably been spoilt by the Arr::first() and Arr::last() helpers that make this dead simple.

PHP 8.5's Pipe Operator: Finally, Readable Function Chains That Make Sense

Right, I'm going to be honest with you - when I first heard about PHP 8.5's pipe operator, my initial reaction was "oh great, another operator to remember." and I can't see me needing to use this. But after spending some time playing with it I've completely changed my tune. This little |> operator might just be the best quality-of-life improvement PHP has seen since constructor property promotion.

Laravel Pipelines The hidden Class We've been sleeping on

I'll be honest with you - we've been using Laravel for over a decade, and it's only the last year or so that we've properly discovered the Pipeline Class. I know, I know, it's been sitting there in the documentation this whole time, but somehow we just never gave it the attention it deserved.

The Laravel Community: Why Getting Involved Changed Everything for Us

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes Laravel special. Sure, the framework is brilliant. But if I'm being completely honest, it's not the code that keeps us coming back year after year.

Astbury Golf Day 2025

Great Barr - 9 holes - 23/9/2025

Statamic: The Missing CMS We Never Knew We Needed

As a Laravel development team thats been running for 11 years , we've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with content management systems. For the longest time, WordPress was our go-to solution whenever a project required CMS functionality. It was quick, familiar, and with plugins like Advanced Custom Fields, we could get clients up and running with a content management system that met their needs. But deep down, something never felt quite right about this approach.

Eleven Years of Jump24: Reflections on Building a Laravel Development Team

This week marks 11 years since we started Jump24, and if I'm being completely honest, I never thought we'd still be here. Not because I didn't believe in what we were doing, but because I genuinely had no idea what "here" would look like after more than a decade.