Jason McCreary

This talk explores testing in Laravel with a focus on facades and test doubles. The speaker explains Martin Fowler's test double definitions (dummies, fakes, stubs, spies, and mocks) and demonstrates how to effectively use Laravel's built-in fakes for testing mail, events, jobs, and HTTP requests. The presentation emphasizes practical approaches to testing, showing how to avoid common pitfalls and achieve genuine confidence in tests rather than false confidence from incomplete assertions.

The talk focuses on lesser-known but powerful Laravel features that analysis of Laravel Shift data suggests are underutilized. The speaker, Jase McCreary (creator of Laravel Shift), demonstrates various Laravel features including model casting, authorization gates, signed URLs, and helper methods that can make code more expressive and maintainable while reducing custom implementation code.

Jason McCreary presents 10 tips for creating maintainable Laravel applications based on his experience with Shift and 20 years of programming. He covers topics ranging from staying current with Laravel versions to proper testing practices, emphasizing code readability and framework conventions. The talk focuses on practical approaches to improve application maintainability through proper structure, dependency management, and adherence to Laravel's design patterns.

Jason McCreary (JMac) presents data and insights gathered from Laravel Shift, an automated Laravel upgrade service that has processed over 8,400 Laravel projects. He analyzes common patterns, anti-patterns, and feature usage across Laravel applications, providing recommendations for better code organization, validation handling, event usage, and framework feature adoption.

A comprehensive talk about Git by Jason McCreary covering essential Git commands, workflows, and productivity tips. The presentation focused on helping developers move beyond basic Git usage to become more proficient with advanced features like interactive rebasing, cherry-picking, and Git reflog. The speaker emphasized the importance of understanding Git commands rather than relying on GUIs or aliases.

A talk about YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It) principle in Laravel development. The speaker discusses how to avoid over-engineering by only implementing features when they're actually needed, while maintaining balance between simplicity and necessary complexity. He covers the stages of adopting YAGNI, from initial resistance through to confidence, and provides practical examples of when to apply or not apply YAGNI in Laravel applications.