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
2. Laravel and the Enterprise Laravel Live UK 2018
3. Laravel in the Enterprise Laravel US 2023
4. “Type a quote here.”
5. Why this talk?
8. en•ter•prise [en-tər-prīz ] 
 noun 🤷
9. Started with Wikipedia…
10. “[Enterprise software…] is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than individual users.” WIKIPEDIA
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
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
13. Then asked on Twitter…
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
15. JOHN CORRY [You know it’s enterprise if] we spend more time in meetings than we do building things. @JPCORRY
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
17. • What is enterprise? • Aside: Is Laravel enterprise-ready? • Key considerations for enterprise: • Code • Process • Summary Agenda
18. What is enterprise, really?
19. Factors in enterprise projects/teams Team size Customer base size Legal and compliance constraints Dev team size
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
21. Factors in enterprise projects/teams Legal and compliance constraints Customer base size Dev team size Team size LARGE LARGE LOTS LARGE
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
23. Is Laravel enterprise-ready? 1
24. Yep. https://speakerdeck.com/mattstauffer/ laravel-and-the-enterprise
25. Moving on…
26. Code considerations for the enterprise 2
27. PAUSE
28. The biggest threat to enterprise Laravel apps is leadership who thinks all enterprise apps need {{ BUZZWORD }} 
 without knowing why.
29. RESUME
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
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
32. IT’S KONSTANTIN AGAIN CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2
33. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUxJObxTUs CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2
34. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2
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)
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
37. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2 • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing Page Title
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
39. A few other tips…
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
41. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2
42. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2 • Decide your conventions • Automate linting and fi xing • Document everything (especially startup) Set a standard
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
44. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2 • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing Page Title
45. CODE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 2 • Run those tests often • Run those tests automatically Test more than just your code
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
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…
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
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
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
51. Process considerations for the enterprise 3
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
54. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 3 Sprint cycles and lower-case “a” agile ⚙
55. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 3 Tech debt management strategy 🎯
56. PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE 3 Hiring and contractors 📃
57. Conclusions
58. Enterprise apps are just apps 
 where everything that can be hard is hard.
59. The best practices for writing Laravel in the enterprise Are the same as the best practices for writing Laravel anywhere else.
60. Learn more enterpriselaravel.com Need help? tighten.com