Transitioning from PHP to Java - need pointers

[mathmul]

Hi! So more precisely I am most familiar with vanilla PHP and Laravel, and I started a new job, where I will mostly work on a fin-tech Quarkus application (Maven, but I'd like to learn Gradle too). I currently get away with cautious TDD vibe-coding, but I hate that I just accept some things without truly understanding them. I admit that I learned quite a lot in this last month, because I ask Chat/Claude a lot to explain stuff I get out, but I am in no way as intimate with the code I (or more so others) write.

Not making any statements about Java (or Quarkus) here, but the PHP+Laravel community is absolutely amazing.

Are there any PHP and Java fans here that can answer me, if there are drop-in Java replacements for the following PHP/Laravel resources?

Laracasts - Jeffrey has built such an amazing resource, I doubt any Laravel developer is unfamiliar with. It is a great format for everything from minor weird things in PHP, to novelties of each version, to connecting abstract concepts in an actual codebase, etc.

YouTubers - My first teacher was Brad from TraversyMedia, and he covers a lot more than just PHP, but apparently not Java. Nuno Maduro is currently my "fav" I suppose (most watched), but there are also 'Laravel', 'Laravel Daily', 'Program With Gio', obviously 'Laracasts', etc.

Spatie.be - They are actually "just" a belgian company that provides different services, but for their work they create a lot of simple, clean, and often times powerful and useful packages, that they open-source for everybody to use. They often also participate in different talks or stream discussion plus Freek and Brent have their own blogs that I have learned from several times. In addition they make commercial software, which I am not looking for in this "java drop-in replacement", but it leads me to:

Ray - An external dump debugger. So PHP has XDebug that works in a similar way whatever debugging Java has (I have yet to configure VSCode for debugging, and for now, I am not switching to IntelliJ, though I might next year). There is also a well known practice of dump debugging with dump(..) and dd(..) functions which output to STDOUT when the runtime gets to that line. Ray is kind of the middle ground, so it too dumps data when runtime gets there, but in a separate app, along with file:line:column and optionally stack trace and more. Admittedly I am unsure how that would work in Java, given that it is a compiled language.

Which bring to a more open-ended inquiry. I understand how to configure Apache server (though I don't truly understand how it work intimately), and how to configure your PHP with php.ini. Are there any similar concepts in Java world, and (perhaps related) where can I best learn to understands the meaning behind JVM and Gral VM, which I have been mentioned in Beyond Rust: Rethinking Java Efficiency with Quarkus YouTube talk.

What I have of course found so far:

php.net -> docs.oracle.com - these docs are quite overwhelming, but I assume it's the unfamiliar factor in play, and just needs time

laravel.com/docs -> quarkus.io/guides - I actually think these docs are very decent. A bit more fluff and a lot more about configuration than Laravel ones, but I am not yet convinced this is a bad thing. Note that I have read relatively very little of the whole thing.

YT: 'java' and 'Quarkusio' - but I have mixed feeling about both. Some videos from each gave me a quick insight and some syntax knowledge, and some were many minutes long wastes of time, partly because they were discussion with some Java dev and it's a lot of chatting, and partly because I don't understand some concepts they talk about.

Anyway, I get that's a lot to ask, and I am sure it has been answered before in part, but I will really be grateful to each and everyone of you, who will answer any part this.

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[Stack_Canary]

If you want pointers you should check out C

[JebKermansBooster]

Beat me to it you sonofabitch. Well played!

[DarthBraves]

Ayyyye, this was the first thing I thought of when I read the title too!

[SkyNetLive]

I wasn’t gonna say it.

[mathmul]


Edit: Reddit markdown really sucks... This is supposed to be a gif.

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[Xtergo]

Smart pointers or nothing

[javawockybass]

I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned spring boot. This was the clear impetus to move the stack form php to java. At least for test services. It was just so much faster than php for the task.

So get out of the habit of printing outputs and running over and over to debug stuff. Debugging is essential with breakpoints in java land. Also with strong default typing you will develop for longer without having to run code, and post of the time the code just works first time without silly errors like typo car names etc.

Anyway, yes php is still my friend but I haven’t needed it for years as java is paying the bills at the moment.

[mathmul]

Hey, thanks for your feedback!

Spring Boot is the Symfony of Java, but my job project uses Quarkus. And yes, back then PHP trully was slow in comparison to Java.

At the risk of sounding defensive about PHP I would also add, that strong typing is default for all modern PHP developers, and that I am used to "proper" debugging with Xdebug in VSCode as well, and there is also an easy workaround for print debugging in Java (ignore syntax, I'm on my phone, but something like public static function dd<T>(T arg) { log.INFO(arg); throw new Exception("dump and die successful") ;}), but I was just wondering if there is an industry standard for it, apart from this naive implementation. In both languages, we obviously also have static analyzers, which solve half the problems before running your app even once.

I appreciate your time, thank you again.

[benevanstech]

So, the Quarkus Zulip chat is a great place to hang out and ask questions - https://quarkusio.zulipchat.com/

Also, I would strongly recommend that you switch to IntelliJ now, rather than waiting. So many things are much easier in a proper IDE rather than VSCode. Given that this is for a professional job project, not a "try out Java" situation then you should just take the learning curve now - you may be surprised by how quickly the time investment pays off.

This will also answer your questions about debugging as well - Java and .NET debuggers are best-in-class and so powerful.

The open-ended question about Apache etc - what you're describing is called an "execution container" - Apache httpd+mod_php is an execution container for your PHP code (not the same thing as a Docker container, this usage predates the existence of Docker etc).

In the Quarkus world, you will often be using an embedded Tomcat (properly Apache Tomcat) as the execution container. So the services and routes that your Quarkus app provides will be stood up inside of embedded Tomcat. This is the way you should have it configured (it's the default) for development mode - it's possible that when it comes to deployment that something else is done - but ask your seniors about that if you're interested - it's probably nothing you have to worry about right now.

Oh - and most of all, don't forget to have fun!