Weekly tech - May 19th of 2025

Doom and its internal architecture, a language for managing ledgers, Docker and its build checks, FrankenPHP scaling up and The Simpsons in our Slack – ready?

Hello everyone, hope you’re all doing well!

New week, new routine – just like always. We’re sticking with the usual topics (except for machine learning this week, we’re taking a break) like PHP which is back with a surprise, and a few surprises on the culture front.

Anyway, enough said, let’s get started?

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Common knowledge

So, we’re kicking things off with a deep dive into general knowledge – specifically, a look back at how IdSoftware used idTech 8 (their own engine) to build Doom: The Dark Ages (seriously, if you can get your hands on it, you have to play it!). The implementation details are seriously worth checking out, especially after the GTA VI trailer blew everyone away. Also, a quick technical note on latency and its buddies.

• What is AIOps?

• Latency and throughput, a reminder

• Coding should be a vibe, always was

• A deep dive into Apache Iceberg internals

• How Id Software built Id Tech 8 for Doom The Dark Ages - Youtube

• Edit is now open source

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Database

Now we’re shifting gears to the database side, to check out Ledger – a ‘language/platform’ for fintechs (thanks, Devoxx, for the introduction!). Also worth noting the use of materialized views to optimize your queries within your microservices architecture.

• Aerospike, a distributed NoSQL database

• Ledger, a programmable open-source ledger for fintechs

• Querying microservices using materialized views

• RisingWave, a streaming database built on top of Postgres

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Cloud computing

Let’s jump back to the cloud – there are some new developments with Docker (including build checks!), and also, an API that allows you to convert text to sound directly through your browsers (yes, you read that right!). And then there’s Fast – a language similar to Make (another replacement, apparently!).

• Bats-core, a bash automated testing system

• Docker configuration can be defined thanks to declarative configuration files

• Docker can define build checks

• Could browsers be used to transform text to speech? Yes

• How Anyshift is using Koyeb to handle real-time queries accros millions of nodes

• Fast, an automation script language

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PHP

On the PHP side, I've encountered an extension for interacting with CUDA (which is essential!), and also, the release of FrankenPHP 1.6 – with autoscale support – a real favorite!

• PHP-Cuda, an extension to interact with Cuda

• FrankenPHP 1.6 is out and is shipped with threads autoscaling

• Laravel has now a memoize driver for caching values

• Defining AI agents that can use MCP servers using Neuron AI

• A PHP obfuscator built on top of Python

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Tools

Final detour with Fury – a framework (not supported on PHP) that allows you to optimize serialization, and Homer – everyone knows it – enabling you to track your GitLab MRs from Slack (I’m not sure if this is essential, but…).

• Fury, a cross-language serialization framework powered by JIT and zero copy

• Homer, a Slack bot to help managing Gitlab merge requests

So, for this week’s rundown, don’t hesitate to leave a comment/like – you’re starting to get the hang of it! On my end, I’ll see you again next week for a new roundup.

In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend and a great week ahead.

See you Friday.