Benjamin Crozat's blog posts

PHP 8.6 is in beta and scheduled for November 19, 2026.

The New Debug Bar is my cleaner Laravel debugger, with a built-in MCP server that lets coding agents inspect the same saved requests as the browser interface.

See the latest stable PHP release, the current PHP 8.6 testing build, and the active and security support dates for PHP 8.2 through 8.5.

Learn PHP date format patterns with date() and DateTimeImmutable::format(), including escaping, timestamps, time zones, and copy-ready examples.

Use PHP trim() to clean input, remove edge characters, and understand why hidden whitespace or Unicode spaces can survive.

Learn GPT-5.4 mini step by step by sending your first API request and building a structured workflow for coding-friendly, high-volume tasks.

Learn GPT-5.4 nano step by step by sending your first API request and building a fast routing workflow for high-volume tasks.

Learn how to install Laravel Debugbar in a modern Laravel app, keep it local-only, and use it to catch slow or duplicate queries without leaking debug data in production.

Learn how to use Blade components in Laravel with layouts, props, and slots so your templates stay reusable instead of turning into copy-paste markup.

Learn how Laravel hasManyThrough works with one concrete example, including the relationship definition, custom keys, and when it is a better fit than manual joins.

Learn how to generate PDFs in Laravel with barryvdh/laravel-dompdf, including installation, a practical invoice example, downloads, streams, images, and the rendering limits to watch for.

Learn when to use Laravel seeders, when to use factories, and how to generate realistic sample data for local development and tests without making your database messy.

Learn how to write Laravel subqueries with practical examples for addSelect(), where subqueries, and joinSub() in Eloquent and the query builder.

Learn how to use Redis in Laravel with practical setup steps and examples for cache, queues, sessions, rate limiting, and direct Redis commands.

Learn how Laravel pivot tables work with a practical many-to-many example, including the migration, belongsToMany(), extra pivot fields, attach(), sync(), and updateExistingPivot().

Use PHP isset() to check whether a variable or array key exists and is not null, and understand when empty(), ??

Use PHP substr() to extract part of a string, understand negative offsets and lengths, and know when mb_substr() is the safer choice.

Check whether a PHP string contains a value with str_contains(), use strpos() safely on older PHP versions, and handle case sensitivity without false positives.

Decode JSON in PHP with json_decode(), choose arrays vs objects, catch errors with JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR, and avoid null, depth, and bigint surprises.

Use PHP implode() to join array values into strings, choose the right separator, handle associative arrays, and avoid the edge cases that trip people up.

Remodex is a local-first iPhone companion for Codex that pairs through a QR code and keeps the real runtime on your Mac.

Looking for the best analytics tools or analytics software?

A simple mental model for AI coding agents: put repo-wide rules in AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, and move specialized workflows into reusable skills.

Learn what AGENTS.md is, why it helps coding agents, what to put in it, and how to share one instruction file across Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code.

Learn GPT Image step by step by generating images, editing one of them, and seeing the real results from OpenAI’s latest image model.

Learn GPT Realtime step by step by creating a realtime session, opening a live WebSocket connection, and getting your first low-latency reply.

Learn GPT Audio step by step by generating a spoken reply, saving the WAV file, and using the returned transcript in your app.

Learn GPT-5 nano step by step by sending your first API request and building a fast classification workflow for high-volume tasks.

Learn GPT-5 mini step by step by sending your first API request and building a structured support workflow at a lower cost than full GPT-5.

Learn GPT-5.4 step by step by sending your first API request, building a structured workflow, and using the new phase-aware output model.

Learn GPT-5.2 step by step by sending your first API request and building a support triage workflow with structured JSON.

Learn GPT-5.1 step by step by sending your first API request and building a support triage workflow with structured JSON.

Learn how to use GPT-5.3 Chat in the API, what it can and cannot do, and how to build a small structured-output workflow with it.

Install Alpine.js in any project with a CDN or a package manager, then verify it works with a tiny component.

Vite 8 shipped on March 12, 2026, and Tailwind merged @tailwindcss/vite support the same day.

Laravel MCP is still not for every app, but more SaaS products now expose governed AI actions through MCP.

Inertia.js v3 entered beta on March 5, 2026.

Laravel Cloud now lets new users start with $5 in credits and no credit card.

Laravel 12.54.0 adds PostgreSQL tsvector columns, BinaryFileResponse test assertions, Model::withoutRelation(), and several queue and validation fixes.

Is PHP dead?

Is PHP dead?

Partial function application in PHP 8.6 explained in plain language, with simple real examples for JSON responses, logging, DB connections, and jobs.

Stop using firstOrCreate blindly.

Merge and rebase with Git confused me for a long time.

Handpicked 2025 Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals for developers: hosting, Laravel tools, SEO, Mac apps & more.

Learn how to set up the Laravel failover queue driver so you don’t lose jobs when Redis, SQS, or another queue goes down.

You can’t rely on label:focus.

Learn how to use CSS lh and rlh units for spacing that scales with text, plus examples, Tailwind tips, and full browser support.

Pest 4 lands with first-class browser testing (Playwright-powered), smoke & visual regression checks, test sharding, faster type coverage, and small but handy CLI/arch tweaks.

Deploy Laravel to Sevalla in minutes.