This month we are joined by two speakers! First up is Derick Rethans. Who better to talk about "what's new in PHP 7.4" than the release manager himself.

"During this presentation, we are going to look at the new features that have been introduced in PHP 7.4. Join me to have a look at how the type system is strengthened with typed properties and co- and contra-variance of methods, what changes to operator precedence are, and which new features, such as pre-loading classes, are going to be introduced.

At the end you will have a good understanding about all the new and exciting features in the PHP 7.4 release."

Derick has done a lot for the PHP community, most famously for authoring Xdebug, and I for one am very much looking forward to welcoming him - I hope you all will too.

Next up is Federico Razzoli, Database Consultant, to talk about "How MySQL can boost (or kill) your PHP application".

"The database is typically the most critical part of a system. It is responsible for storing data, guaranteeing consistency, and retrieving desired information.
And it is very tempting to just hope that this will magically happen, without the need of thinking about what the DBMS needs to do.
Unfortunately, in practice, when an application is slow the culprit is the database.
This talk is about how to make your MySQL queries fast, how to design proper indexes, how to trade-off reliability for performance (or the other way around), and how to take advantage of some useful MySQL features."

Pub!

After the talks, time permitting, we'll have some discussion and drinks at the venue and then possibly move on to a local watering hole.

Refreshments & sponsors

Refreshments (drinks and snacks) will be provided courtesy of our sponsors Haybrook IT (https://haybrook.co.uk/). Thanks to Haybrook and our other sponsors Invitial (https://www.invitial.com/) for their support, and to OCFI for use of the venue.

Venue access

You will be able to access OCFI's main reception from 7:10pm. Access to The Pod is via key fob. Please wait in the reception area and someone will accompany you upstairs.

Please note that a key fob is required to exit the building before 9pm and after 9:30pm; if you leave after this time then you will need to be accompanied to reception by someone with a key fob.

Code of Conduct

Please note that this meet-up is covered by our code of conduct (https://github.com/phpoxford/code-of-conduct/blob/master/code-of-conduct.md). We request that all attendees abide by the code of conduct at all times. Thank you!