Northeast PHP 2018

Software Engineering can be extremely difficult and maddening. But it doesn't have to be. We will explore leveraging various principles to make Software Engineering fun again. We'll make a case for "Better Code" fueling "Faster Development".

Toward building our case, we will explore 5 areas:

* Bad Code vs Agility - What it means to be "Agile" and the impact of Bad Code on Agility.
* Better Code: Enablers - Enabling Concepts for Better Code such as TDD, Clean Code and Patterns, with an eye toward adapting them to various programming paradigms such as Functional and OOP.
* Empowering OOP - If OOP is to be chosen as a paradigm, we'll explore what it means to play to the strengths of this paradigm.
* Web Application Architectures: When building Web Applications, we'll explore various architectures that may hinder or promote a sustainable business fueled by better code.
* TDD: Better Fuels Faster - Leveraging preceding topics, we'll put it all together in describing a workflow leveraging test-driven development for shipping better products ... faster, and having fun doing it.

The end of this talk will showcase code examples of a real-world Kata for building the service layer of a "Ride Hailing Application". It will also link to recorded Kata videos, as well as a "clean slate" branch in my git repository to follow along.

Having made this case, we'll conclude with the positive impact this workflow will have on a team's ability to ship new products and new features at a sustained pace, with high levels of predictability.

While PHP, Symfony and Doctrine are used for code examples, concepts in this talk are applicable to all PHP frameworks and environments, as well as other programming languages such as Java, PHP and C#.