About Labrador

Ever since I got into PHP I have enjoyed writing my own framework... at least as much as one can enjoy this type of thing. I started writing my first custom framework, named SprayFire, nearly 10 years ago. The experience of that first framework taught me a lot about PHP and how common frameworks do the things that they do. This experience has even been helpful in languages other than PHP and I wouldn't change having went through it.

However, the end result of SprayFire wasn't as modular as I wanted it to be and did not include some of the ideas and concepts I learned as I matured as a software engineer. So, I started rewriting SprayFire in a more modular architecture. Labrador 1.x and 2.x were the beginnings of this modularization effort. Though I was happy with where Labrador was it didn't feel like the framework was doing anything special or different enough to warrant its existence.

Then I discovered Amp, a PHP library that makes working with asynchronous code easy and fun. I immediately dived into the ecosystem and knew that I had to refactor Labrador to be an asynchronous framework written on top of Amp. After a long, winding road Labrador 3.x is my vision for how to architect asynchronous PHP applications with clean, well-tested code.

Labrador gets its name from my dog, Nick, that I started caring for right around the time I started this project. Much like Nick, Labrador is meant to be friendly, easy-going, and a joy to be around!