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### Composer

[Composer](https://getcomposer.org/) is a dependency manager for PHP.

Just because you are not using a framework does not mean you will have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to do
something. With Composer, you can install third-party libraries for your application.

If you don't have Composer installed already, head over to the website and install it. You can find Composer packages
for your project on [Packagist](https://packagist.org/).

Create a new file in your project root folder called `composer.json`. This is the Composer configuration file that will
be used to configure your project and its dependencies. It must be valid JSON or Composer will fail.

Add the following content to the file:

```json
{
  "name": "lubian/no-framework",
  "require": {
    "php": "^8.1"
  },
  "autoload": {
    "psr-4": {
      "Lubian\\NoFramework\\": "src/"
    }
  },
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "lubiana",
      "email": "lubiana@hannover.ccc.de"
    }
  ]
}
```

In the autoload part you can see that I am using the `Lubian\NoFramework` namespace for the project. You can use
whatever fits your project there, but from now on I will always use the `Lubian\NoFramework` namespace in my examples.
Just replace it with your namespace in your own code.

I have also defined, that all my code and classes in the 'Lubian\NoFramework' namespace lives under the './src' folder.

As the Bootstrap.php file is placed in that directory we should
add the namespace to the File as well. Here is my current Bootstrap.php
as a reference:

```php
<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Lubian\NoFramework;

echo 'Hello World!';
```


Open a new console window and navigate into your project root folder. There run `composer update`.

Composer creates a `composer.lock` file that locks in your dependencies and a vendor directory. 

Committing the `composer.lock` file into version control is generally good practice for projects. It allows
continuation testing tools (such as [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.org/)) to run the tests against the exact same
versions of libraries that you're developing against. It also allows all people who are working on the project to use
the exact same version of libraries i.e. it eliminates a source of "works on my machine" problems.


That being said, [you don't want to put the actual source code of your dependencies in your git repository](https://getcomposer.org/doc/faqs/should-i-commit-the-dependencies-in-my-vendor-directory.md). So let's add a rule to our `.gitignore` file:

```
vendor/
```

Now you have successfully created an empty playground which you can use to set up your project.

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