Xdebug Update: April 2024
I have not written an update like this for a while. I am sorry.
In the last months I have not spent a lot of time on Xdebug due to a set of other commitments.
Since my last update in November a few things have happened though.
Xdebug 3.3
I released Xdebug 3.3, and the patch releases 3.3.1 and 3.3.2.
Xdebug 3.3 brings a bunch of new features into Xdebug, such as flamegraphs.
The debugger has significant performance improvements in relation to breakpoints. And it can now also show the contents of ArrayIterator, SplDoublyLinkedList, SplPriorityQueue objects, and information about thrown exceptions.
A few bugs were present in 3.3.0, which have been addressed in 3.3.1 and 3.3.2. There is currently still an outstanding issue (or more than one), where Xdebug crashes. There are a lot of confusing reports about this, and I have not yet managed to reproduce any of them.
If you're running into a crash bug, please reach out to me.
There is also a new experimental feature: control sockets. These allow a client to instruct Xdebug to either initiate a debugging connection, or instigate a breakpoint out of band: i.e., when no debugging session is active. More about this in a later update.
Funding Platform
Last year, I made a prototype as part of a talk that I gave at NeosCon.io. In this talk I demonstrated native path mapping — configuring path mapping in/through Xdebug, without an IDE's assistance.
In collaboration with Robert from NEOS, and Luca from theAverageDev, we defined a project plan that explains all the necessary functionality and work.
Adding this to Xdebug is a huge effort, and therefore I decided to set up a way how projects like this could be funded.
There is now a dedicated Projects section linked from the home page, with a list of all the projects. The page itself lists a short description for each project.
For each project, there is a full description and a list of its generous contributors. The Native Xdebug path Mapping project is currently 85% funded. Once it is fully done, I will start the work to get this included in Xdebug 3.4. You could be part of this too!
Xdebug Videos
I have created several videos since November.
Two for Xdebug:
And several for writing PHP extensions, as part of a new series:
If you have any suggestions, feel free to reach out to me on Mastodon or via email.
Business Supporter Scheme and Funding
In the last month, no new business supporters signed up.
Besides business support, I also maintain a Patreon page, a profile on GitHub sponsors, as well as an OpenCollective organisation.
If you want to contribute to specific projects, you can find those on the Projects page.
Xdebug Cloud
Xdebug Cloud is the Proxy As A Service platform to allow for debugging in more scenarios, where it is hard, or impossible, to have Xdebug make a connection to the IDE. It is continuing to operate as Beta release.
Packages start at £49/month, and I have recently introduced a package for larger companies. This has a larger initial set of tokens, and discounted extra tokens.
If you want to be kept up to date with Xdebug Cloud, please sign up to the mailinglist, which I will use to send out an update not more than once a month.
Life Line
I've finished reading Children of Memory, the third book in the series.
Another interesting take on forms of intelligent life.
A fourth one is going to get released later this year.
Updated a post_box, a beauty shop, and a restaurant; Confirmed 2 clothes shops, 2 pet shops, and a restaurant
I walked 5.9km in 1h40m39s
Updated a bicycle_parking
Updated 2 waste_baskets
I walked 7.9km in 1h37m12s
Created 3 waste_baskets; Updated 3 bus_stops, 2 benches, and 2 waste_baskets
I walked 8.1km in 1h25m53s
I walked 1.2km in 9m31s
I walked 9.4km in 1h39m05s
Merge branch 'xdebug_3_5'
Merged pull request #1071
Fixed issue #2411: Native Path Mapping is not applied to the initial …
Created 2 waste_baskets; Updated 3 waste_baskets, 2 benches, and 2 other objects; Deleted a waste_basket
I walked 7.9km in 1h45m36s
RE: https://phpc.social/@phpc_tv/116274041642323081
Now that phpc.tv and phpc.social are part of the same umbrella, I've upped my yearly contributions to their Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/phpcommunity/projects/phpc-social
Merge branch 'xdebug_3_5'
Merged pull request #1070
I walked 7.2km in 1h10m26s
Fixed issue #2405: Handle minimum path in .xdebug directory discovery
I've published a new blog post: "Human Creations", on the difference in content generation by LLMs, and the creation of text, art and code by humans.
You can find it at https://derickrethans.nl/human-creations.html or at @blog
I walked 7.8km in 1h38m32s
RE: https://phpc.social/@afilina/116274024588235234
It's good to see that more and more people are realising that the Web can be for-good, without all the enshittification.
That's why I'm happy to see endeavours like phpc.tv springing up, and helping out where I can.
Taking back the control of how the Web is for people, by people, without big tech making it all shit.
Created a waste_basket; Updated 5 crossings and a bicycle_parking
I walked 10.7km in 2h35m10s


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