That takes tests that run fast and fail only when something is actually broken. I show your team how to write them: in training courses, in your own code and in reviews.
I started writing PHPUnit in 2000 and still develop it today. A new major version comes out every February.
I co-founded thePHP.cc, helped start the PHP Foundation and serve on its board. I have also represented the interests of Open Source at the European Commission.
In consulting and reviews, I work with teams on their own code. That is where it shows why tests are missing or why nobody trusts them.
About half of the teams I work with start with a training course, the other half with consulting and coaching on their own code. Which fits depends on what your team needs.
Every course is also available for your team alone, online or on site. Public dates are run by the thePHP.cc Academy, also as part of its education flat rate.
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A small e-commerce team had no tests for its code: the business logic lived in the framework, and everything talked to the database directly. We started by pinning down in tests what the code actually did; the team wrote them, I guided. Within a few weeks, a release no longer needed a day of manual checking.
I take on architecture, legacy modernisation and larger consulting projects together with Stefan Priebsch. The thePHP.cc website gives an overview.
Explore consulting & coachingFrom training courses and consulting projects
“Crucial for the further development of our business in the coming years”
“The energy in the workshops was incredibly impressive. The positive feedback from my team confirmed that the effort was a complete success.”
“Sebastian and Stefan have shown us how our developers can keep delivering business value without getting sidetracked by our legacy code, and they have set us on track to reach a lot more common grounds between all our development teams.”
“Sebastian helped us both through reviews of our codebase and through training for our team. New employees were able to transfer their skills to PHPUnit in no time.”
“We had the pleasure of working with Sebastian to train our teams. He did excellent work and we will certainly use his services again in the future.”
“Identified the weaknesses of the existing software with precision”
I write down what I learn from working on PHPUnit and with teams.
In April 2022, I spent two hours talking about mutation testing with Marco Pivetta and Stefan Priebsch. The recording recently resurfaced. What of it has survived four years?
Every PHP tool that prints to a terminal now has two readers, and most of us have only been writing for one of them.
Goodhart's Law states that a metric ceases to be a good metric as soon as it becomes a target. What this means for code coverage and why tools alone cannot solve the problem.
Material and recordings from conferences and events
LLM-based tools make it easy to go fast, and just as easy to go fast in the wrong direction. Teams do not move faster despite their quality controls. They move faster because they can trust them.
More information: Speed is a byproduct of trustDiscover the lessons and surprises from 25 years of developing PHPUnit.
More information: Past, Present, Future: The PHPUnit StoryTurning your tests into powerful, visual documentation of behavior for your event-based software.
More information: From Events to Insights: Testing and Documenting Event‑Based SoftwareYou can meet me next at these events
On and , I will be in Munich at the International PHP Conference. There I will give the presentations “Supply Chain Security in the PHP Ecosystem” and “Surviving and Thriving with PHPUnit 13”.
More information: International PHP Conference Arrange a meeting: International PHP ConferenceOn , I will be in Frankfurt am Main at the PIMCORE Community Dev Days. There I will give the presentation “Speed is a byproduct of trust”.
More information: PIMCORE Community Dev Days Arrange a meeting: PIMCORE Community Dev DaysIn the free 30-minute call, we work out whether a training course, consulting or a review fits your team.
