Xdebug Update: November 2020
Another monthly update where I explain what happened with Xdebug development in this past month. These will be published on the first Tuesday after the 5th of each month.
Patreon and GitHub supporters will get it earlier, on the first of each month.
I am currently looking for more funding, especially now some companies have dropped out, and that GitHub sponsors is no longer matching supporters.
You can become a patron or support me through GitHub Sponsors. I am currently 73% towards my $1,000 per month goal.
If you are leading a team or company, then it is also possible to support Xdebug through a subscription.
In November, I worked on Xdebug for about 72 hours, with funding being around 30 hours. I worked mostly on the following things:
Xdebug 3
The biggest thing this month is the release of Xdebug 3!
After about a year and a half after starting with this massive undertaking, it is finally ready. I released it the day before PHP 8 came out. Of course Xdebug 3 also supports PHP 8. It however drops support for PHP 7.1 as per the support policy.
As is custom with a x.0.0 release, a few bugs did occur. I am currently working at addressing then. I plan to release bug release versions weekly throughout December, as long as it makes sense to do so.
Xdebug 3 should be a lot faster, as it is a lot more clever on when it hooks into things it needs to do. That does come with changes as to how Xdebug needs to be configured. Xdebug 3's upgrade guide lists all the changes.
The https://xdebug.org web site now only contains Xdebug 3 documentation, with the old site archived at https://2.xdebug.org until the end of 2021.
I will be recording some videos about the ideas behind the changes, and how to use Xdebug 3. I am also playing with the idea of hosting "Office Hours" for an hour a week where users can drop-in with questions and problems. If that is something that you're interested in, please let me know.
Xdebug Cloud
I have been continuing to test Xdebug Cloud, and I am working with a few private alpha testers. They're putting the hosted Cloud service to its paces with the latest PhpStorm 2020.3 release candidate. As I suspected, the alpha testers found some minor issues which I will be addressing during December.
The web site for Xdebug Cloud does not have a design yet, but this is coming this month as well.
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.
Business Supporter Scheme and Funding
In November, two new supporters signed up.
Thank you Find My Electric and Edmonds Commerce!
If you, or your company, would also like to support Xdebug, head over to the support page!
Besides business support, I also maintain a Patreon page and a profile on GitHub sponsors.
Life Line
Updated an information and a bench
Created 2 benches
Created 4 picnic_tables, a bench, and a fitness_station; Updated a pub and a sport club
Created 2 benches and 2 waste_baskets; Updated 4 benches, a bus_stop, and a cafe; Confirmed a dentist
Created 3 waste_baskets, 2 main entrances, and a bench; Deleted a cycle_barrier, a bench, and a waste_basket
Created an information; Updated a waste_basket and a bench
Updated 2 waste_baskets and a bench
Created 3 benches
Created a waste_basket; Updated 2 benches and a tree
I walked 3.5km in 35m31s
Created a main entrance and a home entrance
Created an entrance
Updated a house building
Created an entrance
I walked 5.8km in 1h15m06s
I've just finished reading "A Cheese-Monger's Tour de France", by Ned Palmer.
Now I want to try many of those! 🧀
I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be speaking at the 23rd edition of #phpday, the international PHP conference in Italy, organised by @grusp.
I’ll be presenting a talk titled: "Better Debugging With Xdebug".
It's in Verona, Italy, on May 14-15th 2026.
You can use my speaker’s discount code "speaker_10OFF" for 10% off at https://www.phpday.it/tickets/?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=post-speaker
I walked 5.5km in 1h11m00s
I walked 1.1km in 9m37s
Merged pull request #1066
PHP 8.6: Changes to opcache optimisations wrt function arguments
I walked 10.5km in 1h49m54s
Fixed building type
Fixed addresses and building type
Updated a bus_stop, a waste_basket, and a bench


Shortlink
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