PHP Performance Demystified: Internals, Profiling, and the Road to PHP 9 with Volker Dusch

Описание: Is PHP actually slow, or are we just measuring it wrong? We caught up with Volker, PHP 8.5 Release Manager and performance expert at Tideways, to preview his session, "PHP Performance Demystified," for the PHP UK Conference 2026.

In this interview, we dive into the "intuition" of performance. Volker explains why understanding the PHP virtual machine and OPCodes is the key to writing better code, and why reaching for a new language is often a "rewrite trap." We discuss how to move beyond simple wrappers to use low-level C-based tooling and profilers to find bottlenecks in production without changing your code.

We also get a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life of a PHP Release Manager, the community-driven nature of PHP (without corporate "overlords"), and why the road to PHP 9 is focused on making upgrades as painless as possible for the millions of sites running the web.

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00:00 Intro & Talk Overview: Measuring vs. Understanding
01:31 Moving to Low-Level Tooling and C-Level Approaches
02:12 Benchmarking: How PHP holds up against Python, Ruby, and JS
05:16 The "Rewrite Trap": Why changing languages isn't a silver bullet
06:29 Real-world Performance Wins and Debugging Horror Stories
10:23 Profiling Tools: Open Source vs. Commercial Insights
12:54 Data Privacy and Sanitisation in Performance Monitoring
16:03 Inside the PHP 8.5 Release Manager Role
18:55 How to Contribute: The RFC Process and the PHP Foundation
22:07 Future Outlook: Deciding between PHP 8.6 and PHP 9.0
24:51 Why PHP’s Independent Ecosystem is its Greatest Strength
27:06 Preparing for PHP 9: Ensuring a Painless Upgrade Path
28:57 How Frameworks (Symphony/Laravel) provide Core Feedback
34:36 Language Evolution: Removing Legacy Features and "Crazy" Syntax
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🎟️ See Volker live at PHP UK 2026!
📅 February 20th | London, 1 America Square
👉 Tickets Available Now: https://www.phpconference.co.uk/tickets