Talks

As a seasoned conference speaker, I've shared my insights on AI-assisted coding, code quality, testing and static analysis at events around the world. I aim for my talks to be informative and engaging, leaving audiences with practical takeaways they can apply immediately to their work.

Your Database Is a Gold Mine. Let AI Dig Safely.

Let anyone in the business ask questions of your database in plain English, using an MCP server with read only access that hides PII.

New Will be given Feb 2027

Rector Beyond Upgrades: Still Essential in the Age of AI

AI coding agents haven't made Rector redundant. Ask an agent to write a Rector rule and the change is made the same way everywhere, every time.

New Will be given Feb 2027

AI Writes Code. Guardrails Keep It Honest.

AI assisted coding needs deterministic guardrails. Turn every issue you find in generated code into a check the agent has to fix.

Given 2 times, most recently Jun 2026

Custom PHPStan Rules: Automate Standards and Save Time

PHPStan increases code quality and reduces bugs. Learn how custom rules amplify these benefits.

Given 4 times, most recently May 2026

PHP Generics Today (almost)

Many PHP developers would love generics. We might have to wait a while until they come along. This article shows how existing tools can give us the power of generics now (almost).

Given 10 times, most recently Aug 2026

Elevating Legacy

This talks through how to do upgrade legacy codebases.

Given 3 times, most recently Apr 2025

AssertTrue(isDecoupled("my tests"))

It's good practice to write decoupled code. That good practice should include minimising the coupling between your test code and the code under test. This talk examines why this is important and how to achieve it.

Given 7 times, most recently Oct 2025

AI Assisted Coding

What I learnt from my first three months of AI assisted coding with Claude, covering a plan-first workflow, layers of safety nets and the prompts that proved most useful.

Given once, May 2026