Laravel in the Enterprise

"Laravel and the Enterprise" was a talk to convince folks that Laravel could hang in the enterprise space.

This talk, "Laravel *in* the Enterprise", is about *how to do that.* Code, process, communication, and organization tips from someone who's interacted with dozens of enterprise software projects using Laravel.

Transcript

1. PRESENTED BY
   Matt Stauffer
   @stauffermatt
   IN THE
   LARAVEL
   

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2. Laravel and the Enterprise
   
   
   Laravel Live UK 2018
   

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3. Laravel in the Enterprise
   
   
   Laravel US 2023
   

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4. “Type a quote here.”
   

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5. Why this talk?
   

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8. en•ter•prise
   
   
   [en-tər-prīz ]
   

   noun
   🤷
   

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9. Started with Wikipedia…
   

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10. “[Enterprise software…] is computer
    software used to satisfy the needs of an
    organization rather than individual users.”
    WIKIPEDIA
    

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11. “[Enterprise software is…] a collection of
    computer programs with common business
    applications, tools for modeling how the entire
    organization works, and development tools for
    building applications unique to the organization”
    WIKIPEDIA
    

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12. “According to Martin Fowler, ‘[a]bout
    the display, manipulation, and storage of
    large amounts of often complex data
    and the support or automation of
    business processes with that data.’”
    WIKIPEDIA
    

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13. Then asked on Twitter…
    

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14. J.T. GRIMES
    I don't think you can find consensus on what
    "enterprise" means, which means your
    audience will spend an hour arguing "but
    that's not enterprise!" instead of learning.
    

    

    Here there be elephpant-shaped dragons.
    @JT_GRIMES
    

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15. JOHN CORRY
    [You know it’s enterprise if] we spend
    more time in meetings than we do
    building things.
    @JPCORRY
    

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16. MATT JOHNSON
    “Enterprise” is just code for “I have no idea
    what I’m doing on a project this big, please
    take this money and give me a 1-800
    number to call when $#!7 goes south”.
    @MATTJOHNSONSTL
    

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17. • What is enterprise?
    
    
    • Aside: Is Laravel enterprise-ready?
    
    
    • Key considerations for enterprise:
    
    
    • Code
    
    
    • Process
    
    
    • Summary
    Agenda
    

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18. What is enterprise,
    really?
    

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19. Factors in enterprise projects/teams
    Team size Customer
    base size
    Legal and
    compliance
    constraints
    Dev team size
    

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20. Factors in enterprise projects/teams
    Complication of
    operations /
    deployments
    Distance to
    other teams
    (legal, QA,
    product, etc.)
    Length of
    projects
    Pain if
    of
    fl
    ine
    

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21. Factors in enterprise projects/teams
    Legal and
    compliance
    constraints
    Customer
    base size
    Dev team size
    Team size
    LARGE LARGE LOTS
    LARGE
    

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22. Complication of
    operations /
    deployments
    Factors in enterprise projects/teams
    Length of
    projects
    Distance to other
    teams (legal, QA,
    product, etc.)
    Pain if
    of
    fl
    ine
    LOTS GREAT LOTS
    LONG
    

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23. Is Laravel enterprise-ready?
    1
    

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24. Yep.
    https://speakerdeck.com/mattstauffer/
    laravel-and-the-enterprise
    

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25. Moving on…
    

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26. Code considerations
    
    
    for the enterprise
    2
    

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27. PAUSE
    

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28. The biggest threat to
    enterprise Laravel apps is
    leadership who thinks all
    enterprise apps need
    {{ BUZZWORD }}
    

    without knowing why.
    

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29. RESUME
    

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30. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • You’ve probably heard me talk about YAGNI before:
    You Aren’t Gonna Need It
    
    
    • Enterprise means more need for structure…
    

    therefore more risk of over-engineering
    
    
    • Enterprise means more people who know what you
    “should” do but don’t actually know why.
    

    

    As always, don’t do anything unless it’s actually
    clear why you’re doing it.
    YAGNI
    

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31. ANTHONY CLARK
    “It’s a lot easier to make simple things
    complex than it is to make complex
    things simple."
    DEVELOPER AT TIGHTEN
    CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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32. IT’S
    
    
    KONSTANTIN
    
    
    AGAIN
    CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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33. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUxJObxTUs
    CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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34. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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35. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • YAGNI doesn’t mean “don’t plan”…
    
    
    • Rather, invest your time and e
    ff
    ort wisely.
    
    
    • Focus on e
    ff
    ort that keeps your developers
    productive and
    fl
    exible
    YAGNI (CONTINUED)
    

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36. KENT BECK
    “Software design is not about
    minimizing design complexity, but
    rather spending our complexity budget
    where it can do the most good.”
    CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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37. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
    Page Title
    

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38. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    YAGNI: Scale edition
    • There’s no one magical tool for scaling!
    
    
    • Match the needs as they arise; extract DB, add caching, etc.
    
    
    • Use all the caches (CDN, Varnish/HTTP cache, database
    caches, etc.) and have smart caching/key/rotation
    strategies
    
    
    • Make it *very* easy to spin up a new instance of your app
    

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39. A few other tips…
    

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40. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Lean on Laravel’s established conventions
    
    
    • Bene
    fi
    t:
    
    
    • Requires less decisions
    
    
    • Plays nicer with future tools
    
    
    • Allows you to onboard new devs more easily
    
    
    • Requires less documentation
    Stick to conventions
    

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41. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    

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42. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Decide your conventions
    
    
    • Automate linting and
    fi
    xing
    
    
    • Document everything (especially startup)
    Set a standard
    

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43. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Test that your code works
    
    
    • Test that your code works with the other systems it
    touches
    Test more than just your code
    

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44. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
    Page Title
    

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45. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Run those tests often
    
    
    • Run those tests automatically
    Test more than just your code
    

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46. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Make the time between “I wrote the code” and “the
    code is in production” as short as possible
    
    
    • If possible, deploy on every push (CD)
    
    
    • The less frequently you ship code, the more
    traumatic it will be each time
    
    
    • https://charity.wtf/2018/08/19/shipping-software-
    should-not-be-scary/
    Deploy often
    

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47. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Bugs and performance issues aren’t bad; they’re signs
    from the app that we can now have a guided refactor
    
    
    • Plenty of tools to identify (debug bar, bug tracking
    services, etc.)
    
    
    • Plenty of solutions to consider (cache, queued jobs,
    microservices, etc.
    
    
    • “Fail fast,
    fi
    x fast”
    When things go wrong…
    

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48. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Build your own thin abstraction in front of any
    external services (*even if* they have an SDK)
    
    
    • Abstractions we own are:
    
    
    • easier to standardize
    
    
    • easier to test
    
    
    • easier to swap depending on the environment
    
    
    • easier to update to use a di
    ff
    erent backing service
    Working with external services
    

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49. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Build local seeders! Preferably in di
    ff
    erent states
    
    
    • “Take good care of your local seeds.”
    

    - Tony Messias
    
    
    • At very least, build a local database state and load
    that .SQL
    fi
    le in your seeders
    Local seeds
    

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50. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    2
    • Microservices and APIs should meet real needs.
    
    
    • You build bad microservices if you don’t need
    them yet, bad APIs if you don’t need them yet.
    
    
    • https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-majestic-monolith-
    can-become-the-citadel/
    
    
    • API-
    fi
    rst is overrated 🔥
    Microservices and API-first
    

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51. Process considerations
    
    
    for the enterprise
    3
    

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53. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    3
    Why?
    • More developers; more new developers; more
    developers from other stacks; more junior developers
    
    
    How?
    • Conventions, documentation, IDE-friendliness
    
    
    • Bin scripts for setup; pre-packaged local dev
    environments
    
    
    • Good tests and seeds
    Make onboarding easy
    

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54. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    3
    Sprint cycles
    and lower-case
    “a” agile
    ⚙
    

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55. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    3
    Tech debt
    management
    strategy
    🎯
    

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56. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE
    3
    Hiring and
    contractors
    📃
    

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57. Conclusions
    

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58. Enterprise apps are just apps
    

    where everything that can be hard is hard.
    

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59. The best practices for writing
    Laravel in the enterprise
    
    
    Are the same as the best practices
    for writing Laravel anywhere else.
    

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60. Learn more
    enterpriselaravel.com
    Need help?
    tighten.com
    

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