Hello

I'm exited.

That's what I said in my previous mail as well, didn't I? Well, today I'm exited because I want to announce a pretty big thing: I'm writing a new book!

Where to start?

I've been planning this project for quite a while now, more than a year, probably. Though, if you're a longtime subscriber of this newsletter you already know that 2023 has been… interesting for me, to say the least. We welcomed our third child into our lives in February, went to live with my inlaws in June because of home renovations that should have taken a month, and went back home by the end of September (a month… right).

There just wasn't any room to sit down and focus on writing. But things are changing now. We're back home, Alina (our 9-month-old daughter) is doing great and finally finding a rhythm, and I feel like that focus is coming back to me.

So here I am! I've scheduled a large portion of vacation in December, which is time dedicated to write this next book.

You probably want to know what it is about? It's a book for PHP developers all around, not just Laravel. It's a book that doesn't try to give an answer to a problem, but rather teach a mindset and insight that will help developers in the long run. It's called Beyond CRUD, and is exactly about that: how to build and maintain PHP applications that are more than CRUD apps.

Now, what better way to introduce you to the concept than to share the (work in progress) preface chapter with you?

Time flies.

When I wrote the first iteration of this book, it was a series of posts on my blog. I started with the idea of "Domain oriented Laravel" and worked my way through some of the patterns I had learned up until that point. This was four years ago.

Along the way, I was given the opportunity to convert that series of posts into a book for the company I worked at, Spatie. This is what I would call the second iteration. We're a couple of years later, I'm now a Developer Advocate for PHP at JetBrains, and it's time for an update. The third iteration.

This time, I want to take another approach. I don't want to provide you with a solution, ready to copy. I want to show you the multitude of approaches and intricacies when it comes to backend web development, and teach you how to pick the right one.

That's the ultimate goal of this book: to teach you a mindset.

My main source of inspiration was a cookbook — believe it or not. I've been looking into a healthier diet, and noticed how this cookbook was a huge motivator for me. I could browse through it whenever I felt I lacked inspiration to eat healthy, and every time I found a recipe that motivated me to move on. I didn't even need to follow the recipe step-by-step: just knowing about a certain dish was enough to continue my road to eating healthy.

That's what I want this book to be: a cookbook full of recipes that inspire. You might not like every one of them, but you can be sure you'll find some things that match your taste.

Before the analogy leads us too far, let's make it clear: this book is a collection of patterns and lessons for web developers that will inspire you.

I will use Laravel along the way, but this isn't a book about Laravel anymore. I'm relying on the biggest framework in the PHP world as my playing ground and classroom, but you can apply the lessons of this book in any kind of project — whatever suits you best. As long as you can read PHP — or any similar language — this book, is for you.

Time flies. So let's begin.

So, I'd love to hear your preliminary thoughts! You can hit reply on this email and let me know :)

If you want to stay up-to-date about the development of this book, you can head over to beyond-crud.com and leave your name and email address there (or you can let me know by replying here, that's fine as well).

I hope to talk to you soon, I'll definitely give some updates during December :)

Brent