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Engineering,
taught &
leadership, practised.

I'm Steven — CTO at Digitonic, a PHP engineer since 2010 and a keen golfer with a terrible handicap. This is where I write it all down.

Read the latest About me

Order.php

// app/Domain/Trading
final class Order extends AggregateRoot
{
    public function place(Money $total)
    {
        $this->recordThat(new OrderPlaced(
            total: $total->amount(),
        ));

        return $this;
    }
}

● all tests passing PHPStan level 10 Laravel 13

Steven Richardson

CTO, Digitonic · Laravel Certified

HCP 18

The Irvine Golf Club

Shipped with —

…and a few friends I can't name.

THE WRITING

Latest from the journal

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FEATURED php

Redact Secrets from Stack Traces with PHP's #[\SensitiveParameter]

PHP prints every argument in a stack trace, so one thrown exception can dump a plaintext password into Sentry. One attribute fixes it.

July 30th, 2026 · 6 min read

php

Use Closures in Constant Expressions in PHP 8.5

PHP 8.5 finally lets a closure live inside a constant expression — attribute arguments, default values and class constants. The static, no-use restriction is where people trip.

July 29th, 2026 · 7 min

tailwind

Fix Mobile Full-Height Layouts with Tailwind v4 Dynamic Viewport Units

The 100vh mobile overflow bug has a real fix now. Here is how Tailwind v4's dynamic viewport units replace the old JavaScript hacks.

July 28th, 2026 · 7 min

/NOW

Currently shipping, reading, and thinking about.

See the full Now page

Building

A SaaS product on Laravel Cloud for Investor Relations teams.

Writing

A series of AI engineering articles.

Reading

"Life 3.0 - Being human in the age of artificial intellegence" by Max Tegmark.

Golfing

The Irvine Golf Club on Sundays, regardless of weather.

Engineering, taught & leadership, practised.