Sandi Metz delivers a talk on code smells and refactoring, focusing on practical techniques to improve code quality. She explains how to identify code smells, apply appropriate refactorings, and use dependency injection to make code more testable. The talk emphasizes the importance of making incremental improvements and understanding classic Object-Oriented programming principles.

The speaker presents a practical guide to understanding and implementing design patterns in Laravel applications. Starting with a story about a junior developer struggling with the Gang of Four design patterns book, he demonstrates how to make patterns more accessible by showing real-world implementations of the Adapter, Strategy, and Factory patterns using Laravel examples. The talk focuses on practical refactoring techniques and how to properly structure code using these patterns.

The speaker discusses how to write more declarative code in Laravel by refactoring common patterns found in controller actions. Using examples shared on Twitter as inspiration, he demonstrates how to transform verbose, imperative code into cleaner, more declarative alternatives using Laravel's built-in features like form requests, policies, mutators, and real-time facades. The talk focuses on practical refactoring techniques to reduce branching logic and improve code readability.

Tim McDonald discusses how to make Laravel Eloquent collections more expressive and maintainable. He explores how collections can be extended to better reflect domain language, reduce code duplication, and improve readability. The talk covers moving logic from models to custom collections, sharing filtering APIs between collections and scopes, and rethinking what Eloquent really means as a complete system rather than just models.