You'll face a unique set of problems while building larger-than-average applications. In this course, I'll share our thought process and solutions. This way, you'll be able to solve the problems unique to your team and project.

Join me as I start building a Laravel project from scratch. I'm sure you can pick up some new techniques, regardless of the size of projects you're working on.

Brent Roose, author

What's inside?

The knowledge in this course is built from the years of experience our team has building large, robust applications.

WE'LL COVER…

Domain oriented Laravel

Most principles in this course are based on best practices in domain driven design, and hexagonal architectures. These proven principles will be our guide throughout building large Laravel applications. Some of the theoretical topics we'll cover include:

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  •  The basic idea of domain groups explained
• •  Practically applying DDD and hexagonal architecture principles in Laravel projects
• •  When to use domains, and when to stick to Laravel's default structure
• •  Thinking of "data" and "functionality" as two first-class citizens of your codebase
• •  The state pattern to model complex, state-specific, flows
• •  The difference between application and domain code
• •  Writing robust code by using types and static analysis

In practice

We're nothing with only theory if we can't apply it in practice. This course focuses highly on combining the two: in each episode we'll do live coding, and build a project from the ground up:

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  •  Keeping model classes small and clean
• •  Structuring complex queries
• •  Passing data around in a structured way using Data Transfer Objects
• •  How to make code reusable by using actions
• •  Improving code clarity by using meaningful names
• •  Keep controllers light by using view models
• •  Adding behaviour to collections
• •  Testing actions, DTOs and model-related classes
• •  Using enhanced test factories to seed data for every scenario
• •  Using PhpStorm's refactoring tools to manage classes and namespaces
• •  Scaffold different types of classes using PhpStorm templates

For everyone

While the main focus of this course lies on larger projects, there are many principles in it that you can apply today, in your own projects, even when they aren't large at all. We've used many of these principles ourselves, also in our smaller projects:

• Data transfer objects always have a significant impact, regardless of project size
• Whatever type of project, you will be dealing with controllers, so view models will improve your workflow
• Actions are a structured solution for code that would otherwise end up spread across the project
• Even the smallest MVC app also deals with querying models, understanding Laravel's query builders will be an asset
• Most principles in this course can be cherry-picked by you to solve your problems. Nothing is set in stone: there are no hard rules, only guidelines
  
  About the author

Brent has been working almost exclusively on large web applications for the past few years now. In addition, he has taught himself topics like DDD and event sourcing.

Doing so, he applied much of the theoretical knowledge to modern day Laravel projects; a method that has paid of: most modern-day Spatie projects follow these practices.

Besides his work at Spatie, Brent is also very active in the PHP community, most notably with his blog where he writes about programming, PHP and the web in general.