Back from Vacation

July 11, 2022

Aaron and Colleen are both back from vacation with a lot of updates to share.

Refine: https://hammerstone.dev/refine/laravel/docs/main
Torchlight: https://torchlight.dev
Aaron: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Colleen: https://twitter.com/leenyburger
Learn more →

Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:00
Hello, Colleen.
Colleen
00:00:01 – 00:00:01
Hello, Aaron.
Aaron
00:00:02 – 00:00:06
We have very much to discuss because I think it's been, like, 3 weeks.
Colleen
00:00:06 – 00:00:08
Oh, it yeah. I think so.
Aaron
00:00:09 – 00:00:16
Because you were on vacation for a week, then I was on vacation the very next week. So maybe I think it has been 3 weeks total.
Colleen
00:00:16 – 00:00:18
Yeah. Quite a while.
Aaron
00:00:18 – 00:00:38
So a lot has happened. We've got a whole list here. At the top, I wanna start with some Tuple stuff. I know that you were on vacation, but we launched our first big marketing experiment that I was kind of in charge of, which was the open source, send an open source developer on vacation.
Colleen
00:00:38 – 00:00:39
I saw that.
Aaron
00:00:40 – 00:00:44
Yeah. It went great. Oh, that's awesome. Amazing. Yeah.
Aaron
00:00:44 – 00:01:00
I was so I was so just relieved that it went so well, because I spent a ton of time working on, like, the social share images so that on Twitter, everyone would get their own card based on who they voted for.
Colleen
00:01:00 – 00:01:05
Can you explain that to me? Because I was on vacation, and I didn't really follow all of that. What happened?
Aaron
00:01:05 – 00:01:17
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the the whole the whole deal is, like, you come to our site and you either nominate or vote for an open source developer to go on vacation. Right?
Aaron
00:01:17 – 00:01:34
So you'd come to the site and say, like, I'm gonna vote for, Taylor Otwell, Adam Wadden, and somebody else. And then when you click, like, tweet so then, you know, we do this confirmation that says, great. Your votes have been counted. Do you wanna share it? Click this button to tweet it.
Aaron
00:01:34 – 00:02:08
When you click that button, the social share image on Twitter includes the people that you voted for. Yeah. So, like, on the card itself, it'll say, I just voted for Taylor and Adam to go on vacation. Like, you should go vote for somebody. And so if you scroll through like, if you open Twitter and search tuple.app, and then just go to the live tab so you see them all, and you just scroll through, you'll see just 100 and 100 of tweets with every card is, like, distinct based on who they voted for.
Aaron
00:02:08 – 00:02:08
Wow.
Colleen
00:02:09 – 00:02:11
Yeah. That is cool.
Aaron
00:02:11 – 00:02:13
Pretty pretty cool.
Colleen
00:02:13 – 00:02:14
How'd you do that?
Aaron
00:02:14 – 00:02:18
So it's like a it's like a native Twitter campaign almost.
Colleen
00:02:19 – 00:02:19
Right.
Aaron
00:02:20 – 00:02:40
Yeah. I did it with Netlify, actually. So the images are generated on a Netlify, like, serverless function. Mhmm. And then through some magic, like, edge functions, we inject a little bit of code into the HTML, that changes the OG image based on like a, like a unique identifier.
Aaron
00:02:41 – 00:02:50
So all the links. Yeah. All the links point to the same page. But every image is is different based on who you voted. So pretty great.
Aaron
00:02:50 – 00:02:59
I was pretty thrilled. I was pretty thrilled with how it went. It kind of took over Twitter for like 2 or 3 days. And, yeah, it was great. Ben was thrilled.
Aaron
00:02:59 – 00:03:14
Everyone on the team was thrilled. We still have a lot of still have a lot of, like, work to do there because we still have to, you know, actually send the people on vacation, which is gonna be a lot of logistics work. But the the super fun part went really well. So I'm pumped about that.
Colleen
00:03:14 – 00:03:15
Nicely done.
Aaron
00:03:15 – 00:03:31
Very well. Thanks. Feels good. Feels good to have my first, like, big public thing go really well. Especially after, like, I don't know, 2 months of, like, working behind the scenes on stuff and to finally be like, no, no, no, really Look.
Aaron
00:03:31 – 00:03:43
This works. That felt really good. So that was great. In other triple news, this is also good news. It's gonna sound like it's not, but it's also very good news.
Aaron
00:03:43 – 00:03:58
I'm now halftime at Tuple. Yay. So yeah. So, I've been feeling for a while, like, you know, work working at Tuple. I was responsible for, like, all of the marketing.
Aaron
00:03:59 – 00:04:23
And, you know, the original job application or job posting was, like, come do, like, developer y stuff that also happens to be marketing. And I was like, yeah. That sounds great. And then it kinda just, like, happens that everything marketing related got shifted over to me. And so I was doing all of this, like, standard marketing work that I'm just not that good at.
Aaron
00:04:23 – 00:04:45
And I'd like more importantly, I don't wanna take my career towards standard marketing. And there, there are people who are really, really good at that stuff. And so I, I, you know, I've been talking to Ben all along and he's just incredibly like, gracious and helpful in this whole process. He was always asking, like, how are you feeling? Like, what are you working on?
Aaron
00:04:45 – 00:05:20
Do you enjoy it? And it finally got to the point where it's like, you know, I'm doing a ton of pure marketing work that I don't feel like I'm that good at and I don't wanna spend my career doing. And I think Tuple would be better served if you had, like, a pure marketer, like, a head of marketing that was doing all of this stuff. And so we, you know, we talked about it over the course of many weeks and decided, like, yeah, I think I I think I, Aaron, should be doing more of the develop the pure developer stuff, and someone else should be doing the pure marketing stuff. And so we decided, great.
Aaron
00:05:20 – 00:05:46
Let's, like, let's keep the band together, but I don't think that's a full time job. And so I'm gonna just, like, just do the developer marketing stuff for them and just, like, half time. So kinda worked out great for everybody. Because I think Tubal really does need, somebody that's more marketing than I am. But I really like working with them and I love this kind of stuff that I'm doing.
Aaron
00:05:46 – 00:05:48
So I think it's gonna work out great.
Colleen
00:05:48 – 00:05:53
Aaron, this is the dream. Right? Yeah. It's a dream. Yeah.
Aaron
00:05:53 – 00:05:54
It really is.
Colleen
00:05:54 – 00:05:55
I mean, this is perfect.
Aaron
00:05:55 – 00:06:23
It is perfect. And, you know, Ben and I talked about Hammerstone, and I I've told him from the very beginning, it's, you know, at some point, I would like to be on my own. And so he's known that all along. And, like, I just think there's a really great opportunity here for me to do a bunch of stuff publicly, and build cool stuff for Tuple. And then in the other half of that time, build cool stuff, for Hammerstone.
Aaron
00:06:23 – 00:06:48
And, like, it's not, you know, in a weird way, if I I wanna talk about Lyricon after. But, like, if I speak at Lyricon, that's, like, good for 2 people too. You know, if I you know, I'm going to this conference in Amsterdam for a PHP thing, and if I go there and speak about PHP, like, that's good for 2 people too. And so I feel like this is the best of best of both both worlds thing. So I'm I'm super pumped.
Colleen
00:06:48 – 00:06:55
Yeah. This seems like the perfect setup. Totally agree. Best of both worlds. You have a part time job to provide you a stable income.
Aaron
00:06:56 – 00:06:56
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:06:56 – 00:07:02
And then you have the rest of your time to really dive in and do a lot of the hammer stone stuff you've been wanting to do.
Aaron
00:07:02 – 00:07:37
Totally. And I think one of the things that I've, like, as I was doing a lot of this tubal work and, like, talking through everything along the way with Ben, one of the things that I realized was, like, I want to be doing more of the, like, the hardcore technical stuff. And that's, that's like one of the things that I found interesting was, you know, Ben was offering me the ability to grow into the head of marketing. Like, he was like, you can do this. And if if you want, if you want to do it, I will help you get there.
Aaron
00:07:37 – 00:08:01
And you will end up with a team of marketers underneath you, and you will be the boss, which, like, incredibly flattering, very kind, but I realized that's not, like, that's not where I wanna end up. Like, I don't wanna end up as the head of marketing. I want to get more and more. So, yeah, I I think that's been a good realization for me. So, yeah, that's that's the big breaking news.
Colleen
00:08:01 – 00:08:04
That's amazing news. I'm so happy for you.
Aaron
00:08:04 – 00:08:05
Yeah. Thanks.
Colleen
00:08:05 – 00:08:06
It's gonna be great.
Aaron
00:08:06 – 00:08:14
Yeah. I think so. So, I guess this is the big announcement. I mean, I haven't said anything on Twitter. Surprise.
Aaron
00:08:16 – 00:08:40
But yeah. So I think, you know, obviously, I'll need to make up the money, you know, because now I'm half time at 2 pole. Right. Hopefully, that will all come from Hammerstone eventually. But in the meantime, I'm also taking on a few, like, I really wanna focus on Laravel performance, including database and application side both.
Aaron
00:08:40 – 00:08:56
And so I'm taking on a few Laravel performance consulting engagements. So Awesome. If anybody out there needs help with their performance in their Laravel app, let me Nice. So enough about me. What's going on over there?
Aaron
00:08:56 – 00:08:57
How was your vacation?
Colleen
00:08:57 – 00:09:09
Oh, it was so good. So I'm a lifelong east coaster, so I have never been to Lake Tahoe. But if you live in California, like, everyone out here has been there before, it is stunning. I mean, it was just Yeah. It was amazing.
Colleen
00:09:09 – 00:09:19
It's like a lake perfectly clear, like, 50 feet down with, like, snow capped mountains in the background. It was really nice.
Aaron
00:09:19 – 00:09:19
We had
Aaron
00:09:19 – 00:09:21
a great time. Great. Good.
Colleen
00:09:21 – 00:09:36
Now I know why people, like, go to the mountains to, like, feel creative. Right? Like, you just get out of your environment, and you're like, I really wanted to work. I'm not gonna lie. I was, like, wow, I'm feeling so inspired and creative out here in the mountains.
Aaron
00:09:36 – 00:09:38
Yeah. So did you come back full of ideas?
Colleen
00:09:38 – 00:09:46
I did come back full of ideas. So it was great. It was it was really relaxing. I'm glad we did it. We had a wonderful time.
Colleen
00:09:46 – 00:09:47
Oh, I have a story.
Aaron
00:09:47 – 00:09:48
Tell me.
Colleen
00:09:48 – 00:10:09
So we are in an Airbnb, and we we went with some of our friends. So there was actually, 2 other families that we met up there. So they 4, 8, 11 kids total. Yeah. We did not all stay together, which I think is the key to vacationing with friends is, stay in your own house.
Colleen
00:10:09 – 00:10:23
But we're in this suburban neighborhood. We have an Airbnb, and in your, like, check-in documents, there's a whole page about bears. But you're like, nah. I gotta really have to worry about bears.
Aaron
00:10:23 – 00:10:24
Gonna happen to me. Yeah.
Colleen
00:10:24 – 00:10:33
It's not gonna happen to me. I am not kidding. We come home from the grocery store. We're in a neighborhood. It is the middle of the day.
Colleen
00:10:34 – 00:10:46
Pull into the driveway. And my friend's car, which is parked right next to us in the driveway, look over and there is a bear that has broken the window of their truck in their car.
Aaron
00:10:47 – 00:10:51
What? I know. It broke the window? Oh, jeez.
Colleen
00:10:51 – 00:11:04
It was crazy. It was yeah. And then we're in the car, and it's like the bear's right there. And the first thought is, like, if the bear can break that window, the bear could probably break this window. Anyway, it was a lot of excitement.
Aaron
00:11:04 – 00:11:08
Jeez. That's terrifying. I've never heard a story of a bear breaking into a car.
Colleen
00:11:08 – 00:11:11
I gotta send you a picture. Like, it it was
Aaron
00:11:11 – 00:11:11
Yeah. Please do.
Colleen
00:11:11 – 00:11:27
Wild. And they claim so that the the people who the friends that own the car, they have, like, little kids. So they didn't leave any food in the car, but, you know, you got, like, pretzels and Goldfish in the car seat and all that stuff. So we assumed that Bear smelled that stuff, but broke the window, butt hanging out
Aaron
00:11:27 – 00:11:30
of the car. It was it was wild. Terrifying.
Colleen
00:11:30 – 00:11:45
It was wild. Like and I had the baby not the babies, but I had, like, the little kids with me, 3 little kids, like, 5 and under, and we're gonna go for a walk with popsicles. And I was like, I don't know if I can protect 3 kids from a bear at once.
Aaron
00:11:45 – 00:11:49
Nope. Maybe we should I don't know if you can protect 1 kid from a bear, Colleen.
Colleen
00:11:51 – 00:11:52
So that was wild.
Aaron
00:11:52 – 00:11:53
Bears are pretty strong.
Colleen
00:11:55 – 00:12:00
That was pretty wild. I I don't know that I've ever been that close to a bear in my life.
Aaron
00:12:00 – 00:12:02
Yeah. Definitely not.
Colleen
00:12:02 – 00:12:07
A lot. That was that was a that was a crazy day. How was the beach? What beach did you go to? Like
Aaron
00:12:07 – 00:12:10
Beach was great. We went to some beach in Florida
Colleen
00:12:11 – 00:12:11
Oh, you flew?
Aaron
00:12:11 – 00:12:14
With my wife's family. We flew with the twins.
Colleen
00:12:14 – 00:12:15
With the babies.
Aaron
00:12:15 – 00:12:23
Yeah. With the babies. It is hard work vacationing with kids. Oh, yeah. It is it's hard, man.
Aaron
00:12:23 – 00:12:33
We had a ton of fun. Yeah. But, you know, we've done this trip before with no kids, and boy howdy, it is a lot, lot harder with kids.
Colleen
00:12:33 – 00:12:34
Yeah.
Aaron
00:12:34 – 00:12:52
I mean, the naps, the eating all the time, kids just eat like 6 times a day. And then the sunscreen and the sand and the sun on a baby. Yeah. Like, what is this worth it? So it was fun, but, yeah, it was, it's hard work.
Colleen
00:12:52 – 00:12:57
Yeah. I remember those days, especially when they're little, like, oh, it's a lot.
Aaron
00:12:57 – 00:12:58
Yeah. Of hustle. It's a
Colleen
00:12:58 – 00:13:03
lot of hustle. We we like to distinguish between vacations and family trips.
Aaron
00:13:03 – 00:13:06
Yes. This was a family trip Right. For sure.
Colleen
00:13:06 – 00:13:07
Family trip.
Aaron
00:13:07 – 00:13:16
So while I was there, this is quick. While I was there, I launched version 1 of single store for Laravel.
Colleen
00:13:17 – 00:13:17
Congratulations.
Aaron
00:13:18 – 00:13:29
Thank you. So I I tagged it. I mean, I had launched we'd release it a while back, but I finally tagged version 1. So that went super well. So I'm thrilled with that.
Aaron
00:13:29 – 00:13:42
Wrote a quick start blog post for them, put it on their site. So that's one of the long running things I've been working on, and 1.0 is out the door. Congrats. Yeah. Thanks.
Aaron
00:13:42 – 00:13:51
Feeling feeling good about that. And then, one other thing I wanna talk about is my new YouTube studio.
Colleen
00:13:51 – 00:13:54
Oh, yes. Tell me. Tell me about this.
Aaron
00:13:54 – 00:14:36
I think we had talked about maybe last time making more videos, like live streaming and making videos for refine and basically just being more public. And now now that I have the time, I've set up, like, a full on YouTube studio in here. And so the plan is I'm gonna, like, start doing live streaming stuff that I already needed to do, like building the demo site for Hammerstone, that kind of stuff. But just do it live. And then I will also do I will also start doing some Laravel YouTube videos, because I think there's just, there's just a lot of opportunity there.
Aaron
00:14:36 – 00:14:59
I mean, it I I watched a whole bunch of videos on Laravel on YouTube, and there are some, like, there are some really good ones, but I S I just think there's so many topics that aren't covered, and aren't covered well, that it would be something that I could, I could tackle. So got a couple of like soft boxes. I got a real DSLR camera. Yeah. I'm all set up.
Aaron
00:14:59 – 00:15:01
I'm ready to go. I'm ready to start recording.
Colleen
00:15:01 – 00:15:04
Wait. I wanna hear more about your setup. So is this a new camera?
Aaron
00:15:04 – 00:15:23
This is a new camera. So this is a Canon M50 camera. So it's a DSLR that's hooked into, the Elgato 4 k Cam Link. So it's like HDMI straight out of the camera into the computer. Then on either side, I've got these big light
Aaron
00:15:24 – 00:15:25
boxes. And
Aaron
00:15:25 – 00:15:32
then in front of me, I have a ring light. So if I turn off if I turn off these light boxes, you can see it gets a lot
Colleen
00:15:32 – 00:15:36
Oh, wow. The difference is quite Yeah. Extreme. Yeah.
Aaron
00:15:36 – 00:15:41
That's kinda what you would expect on a on a call. And then if I turn them back on, it looks like I'm a YouTuber.
Colleen
00:15:41 – 00:15:42
It does.
Aaron
00:15:42 – 00:15:43
It's weird. Right?
Colleen
00:15:43 – 00:15:45
Yeah. It's super weird.
Aaron
00:15:45 – 00:15:59
And then I have a light behind me, pointed down at my head that kind of fills, like, fills the background a little bit, and then a ring light right in front of me that, like, fills me a little more. Yeah.
Colleen
00:15:59 – 00:16:02
Where do you put the ring light on top of your monitor?
Aaron
00:16:02 – 00:16:07
It's hooked. It's mounted on the desk, and it has a pole that stands up, and it's behind the monitor.
Colleen
00:16:07 – 00:16:09
So you really put some effort into this.
Aaron
00:16:09 – 00:16:23
Oh yeah, I did. Yeah. I really did. I thought this is something, I mean, one it's fun, but 2, like, I feel like, how do I say this nicely? I feel like a lot of the videos on YouTube developer videos are just kind of thrown together.
Colleen
00:16:23 – 00:16:23
Right.
Aaron
00:16:24 – 00:16:45
And if you go watch, like, I don't know, personal finance or, you know, marketing videos or any of these other niches on YouTube, they're like really well done and really sharp. And I thought, what? I could do some of that. Like, I'm not going to become a expert video maker, but I could step it up a little bit.
Colleen
00:16:45 – 00:16:48
I like it. So does the new camera do the blurred background?
Aaron
00:16:48 – 00:17:04
Yeah. So the new camera, I have a a I got a new lens for it Okay. That makes the background blurry. So it's a really low f stop, I think is how you say it. And so it's focused, like, whatever it focuses on.
Aaron
00:17:05 – 00:17:09
Everything else is super out of focus. Isn't that crazy?
Colleen
00:17:09 – 00:17:10
That is crazy.
Aaron
00:17:11 – 00:17:19
Yeah. So it's like, that's just all straight out of the camera. So there's no, like, AI processing or whatever. So it doesn't ever get wonky or anything.
Colleen
00:17:19 – 00:17:22
How much did how much did the whole setup cost ish?
Aaron
00:17:22 – 00:17:28
A lot of money, Connie. Money? It it cost it cost a lot of money. Yeah. I think the camera was, like, 5 or $600.
Aaron
00:17:29 – 00:17:30
Wow.
Aaron
00:17:30 – 00:17:32
Oh, yeah. It's a it's a Canon ID.
Aaron
00:17:32 – 00:17:42
It's like a it's a Canon camera. I mean, it's a DSLR camera. Wow. Wow. And the lens was a couple hundred as well, and then all the lights and everything.
Aaron
00:17:42 – 00:17:43
Yeah. It's expensive. Yeah.
Colleen
00:17:43 – 00:17:47
No. You look very crisp. Like, it's it's it's good.
Aaron
00:17:47 – 00:17:48
Feel very crisp.
Colleen
00:17:48 – 00:17:52
Yeah. It's good. Wow. That's exciting. Oh, man.
Colleen
00:17:52 – 00:17:53
Yeah. That'll be fun.
Aaron
00:17:53 – 00:18:11
So look forward to many, many YouTube videos, hopefully, as I as I, recoup that cost over over the tens of cents I will make off of YouTube. Alright. Let's talk, what do you wanna talk about? Rails? Wanna talk about your call that you had?
Colleen
00:18:11 – 00:18:16
Well, let's talk about the Laravel sale first because that also happened while I was on vacation.
Aaron
00:18:16 – 00:18:18
That happened while I was on vacation too.
Aaron
00:18:18 – 00:18:19
Oh, fun.
Aaron
00:18:19 – 00:18:36
Yeah. So there's a guy in Laravel that I'm friends with boss man, Chris, and he's been waiting for react to be ready. And, you know, it's all open source since he's, I guess, been watching it or heard heard us talk about it on the podcast or something. And it was like, hey. What if I just buy it?
Aaron
00:18:36 – 00:18:45
And he bought it. He just he just bought the back end because he heard React was ready and then sent me an email. I was like, hey. I can't figure out how to get it set up. And I was like, wait.
Aaron
00:18:45 – 00:19:04
Did you already buy it? And he had, and so I sent him an email back that was like, here's usually I would try to get on call with you to help you with this, but since you already bought it, which is amazing. Thank you. Here's, you know, how I would do it. And then I said, let's get on a call and I can walk you through even more of it.
Aaron
00:19:05 – 00:19:22
And I haven't heard back from yet. So either he got it set up and is thrilled or he's moved on to something else. So I'll reach out to him again. But yeah, he just like heard the react one was ready and bought the PHP one and did it all himself, which is pretty great.
Colleen
00:19:22 – 00:19:24
That's amazing. Love it.
Aaron
00:19:24 – 00:19:39
Yeah. I know. So made another sale, which is good. And I need to I need to finish I need to polish up some of the React stuff. Dave has gotten some more stuff done there, including browser tests, which is gonna be really nice.
Aaron
00:19:40 – 00:19:44
So, yeah, React is ready. It's all it's all ready. We made a sale.
Colleen
00:19:45 – 00:20:01
Yay. That's wonderful news. So I had a call yesterday with, an analytics company that is very interested. Analytics companies are tough because they have such complicated requirements when they look at segmenting their user base.
Aaron
00:20:01 – 00:20:02
Right.
Colleen
00:20:02 – 00:20:09
And it was in Dutch, by the way. Did I share that part? So You did not. I mean, they spoke English perfectly, but, like
Aaron
00:20:09 – 00:20:10
Good. Yeah. Yeah.
Colleen
00:20:10 – 00:20:10
Yeah. No. No.
Aaron
00:20:10 – 00:20:11
The interface was all good.
Colleen
00:20:11 – 00:20:19
Able to communicate. No problem. But, it was kind of funny because they were trying to show me what they had. Not in English. So Yeah.
Colleen
00:20:20 – 00:20:47
That was that was an added fun layer. And so I think it went really well. They, they seemed really excited about it. Something they're very interested in. They, their CTO wanted to kinda put together a few more specific questions about the tech because what they're doing now is they're doing the same thing our client is doing where they're pulling a list of IDs from one query and putting it into another query.
Colleen
00:20:47 – 00:20:51
So we do that for our client because it's actually 2 different databases.
Aaron
00:20:51 – 00:20:52
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:20:52 – 00:20:55
But they do that because they said it's faster.
Aaron
00:20:55 – 00:20:57
Quizzical look on my face.
Colleen
00:20:57 – 00:21:30
So that was an interesting, I thought that was an interesting assertion, but I think he has Mhmm. My understanding from our call was he has, like, a database person. So the next step with them is they're gonna send me some questions and, maybe sit down maybe we'll sit down with their database person to kind of more fully understand their needs. They're very interested in this concept of the nested inline filters, which is something we have talked about for a while, but is a big lift for us. So they're very interested in that.
Colleen
00:21:30 – 00:21:46
They think that would be great. I mean, you know, I think it's important to remember so this nested inline filter concept is this concept of you're on the contacts page and you want all contacts who have purchased products that meet a specific product filter.
Aaron
00:21:46 – 00:21:46
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:21:46 – 00:22:00
And you wanna build that out all on the same page. But I think in many of our use cases, like, I can make custom conditions or they can make custom conditions that meet a lot of their needs.
Aaron
00:22:00 – 00:22:01
I think so.
Colleen
00:22:01 – 00:22:01
Like, I don't I
Aaron
00:22:01 – 00:22:06
think that's true, and I think that's easier for them and easier for the end user.
Colleen
00:22:07 – 00:22:39
Yeah. Because the UI for this is gonna be tricky. You come in, you view a product, like, you get all those IDs on your event table, and I was able to build them a custom condition, which is all users that have viewed product with name whatever with whatever. But I think when they first thought of that, because you have that those 2 IDs, like, in the same clause, if you will, you think of it as a nested filter.
Aaron
00:22:39 – 00:22:39
Right.
Colleen
00:22:39 – 00:22:52
But it's really a custom condition. So so that's kinda what I'm thinking is, like, there are a lot of use cases. People are like, oh, nested filters. I'm like, I don't know that you really need that, that that's as high priority as you think it is. So it's Yeah.
Colleen
00:22:52 – 00:22:56
Deal's something I wanna do, but I don't think it's gonna be a deal breaker.
Aaron
00:22:56 – 00:23:01
Yeah. No. I think and you told them, great. We'll have that buy buy right now. Right?
Aaron
00:23:01 – 00:23:10
Perfect. Yeah. That I think that's the move. Because, I mean, if they need it or not is an open question. Could they get started without it?
Aaron
00:23:10 – 00:23:10
Absolutely.
Colleen
00:23:11 – 00:23:36
Here, I mean, my take on all of this, Aaron, and this is what I told these guys, and, we are small and scrappy, and this is for both of us, our number one priority. So we are going to do everything we can to make this work for you, and if it doesn't, we'll sort it out. Like, we aren't gonna sell you something you don't need, but we, I mean, we want every single customer to be incredibly happy.
Aaron
00:23:36 – 00:23:36
Yes.
Colleen
00:23:37 – 00:23:53
So we're all in to make sure that happens. And if for any reason you aren't, like, we'll we'll sort it out. But I really think that the huge benefit to working with us is we are super commit it's not a huge company. Right? We we are Right.
Colleen
00:23:53 – 00:23:57
You and I are 2 people who are super committed to making this work, so it's gonna work.
Aaron
00:23:57 – 00:24:01
Did you learn that from your sales YouTube videos? That was compelling.
Aaron
00:24:01 – 00:24:03
No. I didn't. I wasn't. That was good.
Aaron
00:24:03 – 00:24:06
Thank you. I'm I'm ready to buy. I think that was great.
Colleen
00:24:06 – 00:24:08
But it's also true. Right?
Aaron
00:24:08 – 00:24:10
Like I mean, of course. Yeah. That's the best part.
Colleen
00:24:11 – 00:24:15
No. I didn't. The sales YouTube videos were a little little slimier than that.
Aaron
00:24:15 – 00:24:18
Yeah. Well, that was good. I I applaud you. I like that line.
Colleen
00:24:19 – 00:24:25
So, I hope to hear back from them. I'll reach out with them. I mean, the last episode we did, what did you say? You said
Aaron
00:24:26 – 00:24:26
Follow-up or die?
Colleen
00:24:26 – 00:24:39
Follow-up or die. So I'll definitely add them to our list and, you know, follow-up with them and see if if it's a good fit. But, yeah, I'm excited. So I scheduled, I I scheduled the onboarding date with Ben, so that's, like, next week.
Aaron
00:24:39 – 00:24:41
Woah. I know. You told me
Colleen
00:24:41 – 00:24:43
to, so I did. Teammates.
Aaron
00:24:43 – 00:24:48
That's great. I love that. I love having power like that. That's great. That's so soon.
Colleen
00:24:49 – 00:25:16
I know. It's maybe the week after next, but it's, like, the next week or 2. I think the only thing we have to have before we put it on anyone's side is client side validations. Like, we just we've gotta have it. That is for me, I'm trying to I'm trying to, pick, like, one thing a week because what always happens to me is I think I can do all of these things, and software always takes longer than you think it's gonna take.
Colleen
00:25:16 – 00:25:28
Yeah. This is just life. We all know this is true, and we all continue to lie to ourselves about how long it's gonna take. And so this week, like, validations are my number one priority. Gotta get that solved.
Colleen
00:25:28 – 00:25:45
I was telling you before we before recorded that our contractor has done some great refactoring to use form objects, so, hopefully, that'll make this whole situation a little easier. The real struggle we're having with these client side validations is if we could just put the errors on the blueprint, it would, like, not be a problem.
Aaron
00:25:46 – 00:25:46
But I know.
Colleen
00:25:46 – 00:26:22
We're trying really hard not to do that because you really sold me with your the blueprint is the user's intent. So that's, like, the big push for me this week is we gotta get these validations because I'm onboarding Ben in, like, a week or 2, and, and that's really exciting. And, yeah, so so for on the rails side, I think a lot of the work right now, obviously, validations, and I have a list of, like, other tasks, but the a lot of it is gonna be this implementation. And I think, like, as we've talked about, like, as we start implementing it, what are the sticky points? Should we provide more wrappers around it?
Colleen
00:26:22 – 00:26:28
I think we're I think we're gonna end up providing an optional wrapper with an apply discard button, which is totally fine.
Aaron
00:26:28 – 00:26:29
I think that's great.
Colleen
00:26:29 – 00:27:02
And one more thing we need. What we real another thing we really need is we need what they have requested, which I think is a great idea, is, like, pills that essentially show you what filter you currently have applied. So we need you and I need to think about how we wanna do that. Because, for example, when I demo this, I dump the SQL so people can can know what we're looking at. So what's happening with our client engineers, and our client is big, they have 50 engineers, I think we've mentioned that, is they'll apply a filter.
Colleen
00:27:02 – 00:27:18
The user will come in and apply a filter or someone will be testing and they'll apply a filter, and then they won't remember they won't, like, know what they're looking at. We need to give them something, and and I almost think it's like I don't know. We need to think about it. They want something.
Aaron
00:27:18 – 00:27:23
I don't understand. Why can they not see the filter that they've applied? Because it's hidden in the popover?
Colleen
00:27:23 – 00:27:40
Right. Because you click filter, you say contact's name Colleen, apply, that window closes, and then all you see are contacts filtered by name equals Colleen, but you don't know that. Yeah. Okay. What they want is they want pills that would say name equals Colleen, and then you could x one out, and then it would clear.
Colleen
00:27:40 – 00:27:41
So
Aaron
00:27:41 – 00:27:42
Interesting.
Colleen
00:27:42 – 00:27:54
We can talk about that offline, but, that's a big that's a big thing they've been requesting, and I think it's a great idea. I don't know that it's something, like, we'd provide the UI for that. I feel like
Aaron
00:27:54 – 00:27:54
Right.
Colleen
00:27:55 – 00:28:04
I I I feel like we would just provide we just need to provide some kind of data structure to let I don't know. We'll think about it. We need to think of talk about that a lot.
Aaron
00:28:04 – 00:28:08
The blueprint. You're you're basically rendering the blueprint again
Colleen
00:28:08 – 00:28:08
Right.
Aaron
00:28:09 – 00:28:09
In a different
Colleen
00:28:09 – 00:28:09
form. In a
Aaron
00:28:09 – 00:28:33
different form. Which, I mean, I know that they're using Hotwire, but in our React and or Vue versions, you could do that. You could have the same blueprint in 2 different places rendered completely differently, one super inline and one with more chrome around it. So, I mean, that's doable. I just don't know how you would do it on in Hotwire.
Colleen
00:28:34 – 00:28:39
Yeah. We'll talk about it. I'm I'm sure we can sort it out. I mean, that's so that's kinda like a the next thing. That's right, though.
Colleen
00:28:39 – 00:28:52
We can just we'll sort that out. Yeah. So let's see. So validations this week, really wanna get that cleaned up, and then we have a couple little things. I've started thinking about how we wanna do, like, a demo site.
Colleen
00:28:52 – 00:28:57
You had mentioned are you gonna livestream a demo site for Galermo site? Yeah. Very cool.
Aaron
00:28:57 – 00:29:05
Yeah. I'll be honest. That makes me that makes me nervous. Like, just just the concept of live streaming stuff makes me nervous, but I think it's good. I think it'll be
Colleen
00:29:05 – 00:29:06
It'll be good.
Aaron
00:29:06 – 00:29:18
I think it'll be good, and I think it'll be, it's kinda like a forcing function too. Like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna dork around if I'm live streaming. I gotta get, like, I gotta get the stuff done. Right. So I think it'll be Are
Colleen
00:29:18 – 00:29:21
you gonna, like is that YouTube or Twitch or both?
Aaron
00:29:21 – 00:29:28
I'm gonna start on YouTube. I feel like Twitch is its own subculture that I don't really have time to learn right now.
Colleen
00:29:29 – 00:29:29
Okay.
Aaron
00:29:29 – 00:29:31
So I'm just gonna start on YouTube.
Colleen
00:29:31 – 00:29:36
Alright. So you have also on this list, Laracon Summer. What does that mean?
Aaron
00:29:36 – 00:29:39
Yeah. Laracon online is coming back again.
Colleen
00:29:39 – 00:29:40
Yay.
Aaron
00:29:40 – 00:29:53
Yeah. So they're doing summer edition, and I wanna I wanna submit a talk, and I don't know what to submit. So what should I do? I wanna do something like database slash performance related. But what should I do?
Colleen
00:29:54 – 00:30:00
I don't know. Can you take something from I mean, do you wanna do something like can you take something from one of your consulting engagements?
Aaron
00:30:01 – 00:30:02
Probably. Yeah.
Colleen
00:30:02 – 00:30:32
I mean, I really like the the talks where it's, like, solving this problem where the database is locking up, walking through the queries, or walking through the the app to figure out, like, in Rails, we have a lot of things that like, I guess, I don't obviously know that much about Laravel, but in layer in Rails, we have a lot of, like, common mistakes people make when because we don't think about performance until we have to. So designing for performance. Interesting. That's what it should be. Design for performance upfront.
Aaron
00:30:32 – 00:30:37
That is a pretty good title. I like that.
Colleen
00:30:37 – 00:30:37
I think that would be
Aaron
00:30:38 – 00:30:39
Well, that was easy.
Colleen
00:30:39 – 00:30:39
That was easy.
Aaron
00:30:40 – 00:30:43
I just gotta build a whole talk around it, but I think I can do that.
Colleen
00:30:43 – 00:30:47
I think you can do that. Totally do. Well, that's fun.
Aaron
00:30:47 – 00:30:53
Cool. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, might as well submit something. We'll see if, it gets chosen.
Colleen
00:30:54 – 00:30:59
Yeah. And your talk in where? Europe somewhere this fall?
Aaron
00:31:00 – 00:31:02
Yeah. Beld Antwerp.
Colleen
00:31:03 – 00:31:04
Okay. What's that one on?
Aaron
00:31:04 – 00:31:05
That's on Sidecar.
Colleen
00:31:06 – 00:31:07
Okay. Cool.
Aaron
00:31:07 – 00:31:07
Very nice.
Aaron
00:31:07 – 00:31:14
Yeah. I need to I need to prepare. I need to update that, but it's not, you know, I'm not creating it from scratch, so that'll be
Colleen
00:31:15 – 00:31:24
Okay. So when are we ready to, like, really start pushing on some of this Laravel marketing stuff? Like, we have a whole list of things
Aaron
00:31:24 – 00:31:26
that does that mean?
Colleen
00:31:26 – 00:31:47
That means hold on. I got a list. Emailing the Laracon list, reaching out to the Laravel news people, doing a product hunt launch. I think we should do all these things. I don't know that we need to do them right now, but where is your comfort level with supporting, like, a big push for the Laravel product?
Aaron
00:31:47 – 00:31:54
Pretty high. Okay. Let me think. So big push. What do we need?
Aaron
00:31:55 – 00:32:06
So I think it may be useful to divide that between what do we need on the marketing side and what do we need on the technical. I think on the technical side, we don't need anything.
Colleen
00:32:06 – 00:32:07
Okay.
Aaron
00:32:07 – 00:32:15
Like, on the technical side, we're we're totally ready. Save for front end documentation, which spans both technical and
Colleen
00:32:15 – 00:32:15
Okay.
Aaron
00:32:16 – 00:32:29
We do need some front end documentation, like how to use Vue and how to use React. So in that regard, I feel great. Totally ready. I think on the marketing side, we do need the demo site.
Colleen
00:32:29 – 00:32:30
I was just thinking, Matt.
Aaron
00:32:30 – 00:32:50
Yep. Because I I and maybe this is, like, me being afraid or something, but I really don't wanna push super hard before we have the demo site there because I feel like that's been a pretty common refrain from people that we've tried to pitch it to. It's like, can I play with it? It's like, no. We can get on a call, and I can show you.
Aaron
00:32:50 – 00:32:59
And, like, I just wanna see the thing. So would we need anything else beyond that? I don't I I don't think so. What do you think? Am I missing something?
Colleen
00:32:59 – 00:33:11
I think the demo site's really important. And can I have a quick segue here? Okay. So this is a little embarrassing, but I think I told you I've started following Gary v on the Internet.
Aaron
00:33:11 – 00:33:13
Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Wow.
Colleen
00:33:13 – 00:33:14
And I know it's
Aaron
00:33:14 – 00:33:19
a lot I'm excited. I have no idea where this is going, but I know it's gonna be great. So please continue.
Colleen
00:33:20 – 00:33:41
So he had this post the other day, and it was this concept of time. And his argument was, as humans, our number one failing is we don't properly think of time. Like, we don't think of time in the proper context. And K. His point was he's 45, I think, so older than both of us, obviously.
Aaron
00:33:42 – 00:33:42
Obviously.
Colleen
00:33:43 – 00:33:51
But his point was so people in their twenties or people who are trying to do some like, they just kill themselves, and they think they have no time to do something
Aaron
00:33:56 – 00:33:56
of
Colleen
00:33:58 – 00:34:17
in that career. And so I feel like so, basically, like, the post the concept was, like, you have more time than you think you do, so use it wisely. Use it intelligently. Still push as appropriate, but be smart about it. So that made me think of us because we are in a sprint.
Colleen
00:34:18 – 00:34:29
Right? And I am happy to be in this sprint. That is where I want to be, but I feel like we are on the cusp of, like, something great. And everyone keeps telling us to move faster.
Aaron
00:34:29 – 00:34:30
They do.
Colleen
00:34:31 – 00:34:37
So everyone keeps telling us to move faster, but I think if we're not careful, we could bungle it.
Aaron
00:34:37 – 00:34:38
K. Tell me more.
Colleen
00:34:39 – 00:34:51
So for example this is a perfect example. Like, we could launch on Product Hunt Friday. Right? Like, or whatever. We could go really, really hard right now, but, like, I think these little things, like, yes.
Colleen
00:34:51 – 00:35:06
It's worth to wait 2 weeks to have a demo site. Same thing with Rails. Like, yes. It's worth to wait a month to have like, we've come so far and the product is so good. We gotta nail the landing.
Colleen
00:35:06 – 00:35:16
Like, we don't wanna bungle it now by pushing something out or doing a huge marketing push when we're, like, 98% done. That's what I mean.
Aaron
00:35:16 – 00:35:17
I fully agree with that.
Colleen
00:35:17 – 00:35:18
Okay. Cool.
Aaron
00:35:18 – 00:35:22
Yeah. I think there's a balance, of course, to be struck between waiting forever
Colleen
00:35:24 – 00:35:24
and
Aaron
00:35:24 – 00:35:40
launching soon, but I do think, I do think that the point that we're aiming for is not, asymptotic. Like, it's not forever moving away from us. They're, like, demo site. We just need to have It's
Colleen
00:35:40 – 00:35:40
a thing.
Aaron
00:35:40 – 00:35:41
The demo site.
Colleen
00:35:41 – 00:35:42
Right.
Aaron
00:35:42 – 00:35:54
And then we can we can start expending some of this marketing, energy. Yeah. That's really interesting. I it's funny you say that because I do feel like everyone's always saying, like, go faster. Just do it.
Aaron
00:35:54 – 00:36:09
Like, just release it right now. What's the worst that could happen? It's like, I mean, probably nothing bad, but it would be better, and I would feel better about it if we were, like, ready to launch when it was time to launch.
Colleen
00:36:10 – 00:36:19
Yeah. And I I think, absolutely, there's a balance, and, of course, that is excellent advice because we do need to launch something. I mean, we have. It's launched. Like, you can buy it now.
Aaron
00:36:19 – 00:36:20
Yeah.
Colleen
00:36:20 – 00:36:41
But I I I do think it's worth it. Like, here we are so close to being ready to do all these things. If it takes a couple more weeks to have a demo site, like, think that kind of stuff is worth it because, yeah, like I said, you don't wanna botch the landing. You've come this far. I I and I really feel like Hammerstone is just such a different product because it's so good.
Colleen
00:36:41 – 00:36:48
And I could say that because I have another product that I launched early. It's
Aaron
00:36:48 – 00:36:59
Yeah. I think, I I agree with that. And I think if there's any criticism, it's that the product is too good and the marketing is too anemic.
Colleen
00:36:59 – 00:37:00
Yeah.
Aaron
00:37:00 – 00:37:37
So I think that and and that's what we're trying to, you know, correct right now. It's like, let's let's get the marketing assets ready because you'll as you heard, I don't think there's anything technical that needs to be done. Like, on my side, I I I don't think any of the product needs to be touched, and it, you know, frankly, it hasn't been touched in a month or 2 because I don't think there's anything there. And so now it's like the thing that needs to be done is just these very basic marketing things, and then we can push for real. Which is not to say that we haven't been, you know, trying to do the 1 on 1 sales stuff.
Colleen
00:37:37 – 00:38:01
I think that's been going pretty well, by the way. Like, I feel I have so with the Rails founding customers, 2, 3, and I feel like that's been going pretty well, and I'm pretty happy with that because I still feel like, like I've said, we have some iterations with this stimulus, like, how much we wanna ship, what kind of wrappers we wanna ship with it. So I'm feeling pretty good about that.
Aaron
00:38:01 – 00:38:18
I agree. So I think we're in a good spot. I'm glad you don't feel the need to get it out today. I think we both we both have a sense of I think we both have the sense of urgency, and so we don't need to be pushing towards urgency because that's where we are
Colleen
00:38:18 – 00:38:19
Yeah.
Aaron
00:38:19 – 00:38:19
Already.
Colleen
00:38:20 – 00:38:24
Agree. So demo site, what's your what's your timeline on that?
Aaron
00:38:24 – 00:38:45
I don't know. I mean, I think I could probably get that done, and I need to find a source for data. Like, I need to find a compelling source for data. I could use, like, the MySQL sample database. I could probably grab, like, a I think there's some open datasets for, like, like, movies, books, authors, that sort of stuff.
Aaron
00:38:46 – 00:39:01
So I need to find data. I need to make a new Laravel app, pull refine in. I I really don't think it'll take that long. Okay. And I guess we could host it on vapor, which is Laravel's thing, because the main site is already hosted on vapor.
Aaron
00:39:02 – 00:39:06
That may be that may be my, like, my thing for next week.
Colleen
00:39:06 – 00:39:07
Okay.
Aaron
00:39:07 – 00:39:23
Because there's a little bit of, like, bonus work around it and that I'm going to try to, like, learn how to stream along the way. Right. And so that adds, you know, 15%. But, yeah, I'll do I'll do that for next week. That'll be my thing for next week.
Colleen
00:39:23 – 00:39:24
Okay.
Aaron
00:39:24 – 00:39:29
Do you have strong opinions on anything about the demo site? I mean, it's gonna be pretty it's gonna be pretty basic.
Colleen
00:39:30 – 00:39:31
I think it should look good.
Aaron
00:39:32 – 00:39:37
Yeah. It'll look, you know, tailwindy, but it's not gonna be it's not gonna be much beyond, like, filtering.
Colleen
00:39:38 – 00:39:47
Yeah. That's fine. I think people are people you're gonna are you gonna set it up in such a way that people can, like, edit the filters and see what happens when they edit the filters? I think you're muted.
Aaron
00:39:48 – 00:39:51
Oh, you mean edit the, like, the PHP? Like, the filter itself?
Colleen
00:39:52 – 00:39:54
Oh, okay. No. It's fine.
Aaron
00:39:54 – 00:39:56
I wasn't. Should I?
Colleen
00:39:57 – 00:40:09
Not if it adds, you know, another week to your not to start. That was kinda what I've been thinking, though, is it would be pretty cool if people could see, like, how to edit filters and, like, actually build out new filters and things like that. Yeah.
Aaron
00:40:09 – 00:40:11
I mean, that would be extremely cool.
Colleen
00:40:13 – 00:40:17
But but but I think any demo site is good right now.
Aaron
00:40:18 – 00:40:36
I think that's a quagmire. Okay. I think live live editing, PHP files in a sandbox, and let me think about that. There may be some workarounds. I know that there's a I know that there are a few Laravel playgrounds online that could do that sort of thing, but that that may be a quagmire that's not worth it right now.
Colleen
00:40:36 – 00:40:39
Okay. Yeah. I I do not think it's worth it if it's gonna delay you.
Aaron
00:40:39 – 00:40:42
Okay. Then we'll say no because it would definitely delay me.
Colleen
00:40:42 – 00:40:49
Okay. Let's say no then. Yeah. Because I'd like to get that I think we would need to get that up and then we can start doing some of this marketing stuff, and that'll that'll be good.
Aaron
00:40:50 – 00:40:56
Cool idea, though. That'd be pretty awesome. Speaking of demo sites, are you are you planning on doing one?
Colleen
00:40:56 – 00:41:13
Yes. So I've been thinking about the demo site. I actually thought it's interesting. I'm glad we're talking about this because I can get bullet trains set up. You can open it with Gitpod, and I had thought it'd be cool to let people edit the filter so they could see how that works.
Colleen
00:41:13 – 00:41:40
And since bullet train is now open source, we could put our package in there and kind of what I had built for the workshop. I mean, that was the reason I spent so much time building that workshop is because I want to take essentially what I built for the workshop and turn it into, like, a demo playground. So with Gitpod, bullet train, a few things I need, I think, to make that better, data. That's a good call. Mhmm.
Colleen
00:41:41 – 00:42:00
And the UI is kinda you saw it. Like, I'm not really happy with the UI right now, and it's not our UI. It's the bullet train UI that sits on top of the filter. But, like, the filter button's in a weird place, and I only put it on one page. So my thought had actually been to do that first.
Aaron
00:42:00 – 00:42:01
That's just being
Colleen
00:42:01 – 00:42:05
The Gitpod the Gitpod bullet train integration first.
Aaron
00:42:05 – 00:42:08
Yeah. I think that sounds great. I mean, you're already so close.
Colleen
00:42:08 – 00:42:09
I'm so Right.
Aaron
00:42:09 – 00:42:10
Even better.
Colleen
00:42:10 – 00:42:28
It's so close to being done. So all I need to do is get it set up on a stand alone repo, host it, get some real data in there, and clean up the UI. And once we have validations, I think that's a playground at least. I think we also need a demo site, probably. Let's see how this plays out.
Colleen
00:42:28 – 00:42:35
But what you can do what I can do is I can okay. So I can have the demo site and then oh, this is it. This is just the
Aaron
00:42:35 – 00:42:36
Tell me.
Colleen
00:42:36 – 00:42:44
You have the demo site, and then you have a link to the repo that you can open with Gitpod that you can edit and play with.
Aaron
00:42:44 – 00:42:45
That sounds pretty good.
Colleen
00:42:45 – 00:42:46
That's the move. So I
Aaron
00:42:46 – 00:42:47
like that.
Colleen
00:42:47 – 00:42:59
Yeah. Just something like I feel like with demo sites, like, some kind of interesting data you were just talking about this. But Yeah. It'd be fun to have, like, something funny or something, like, just more entertaining than
Aaron
00:43:00 – 00:43:00
Right.
Colleen
00:43:00 – 00:43:01
Like, we should look at
Aaron
00:43:01 – 00:43:04
also has to have relationships and
Colleen
00:43:05 – 00:43:05
Right.
Aaron
00:43:05 – 00:43:09
Yeah. So There's there's plenty of open data sources we could use.
Colleen
00:43:09 – 00:43:16
Yeah. I think we should give that a sec. Let me well, you're gonna do yours first because you're gonna start working on it this week. So let me know what you decide on.
Aaron
00:43:16 – 00:43:17
Okay. But I
Colleen
00:43:17 – 00:43:21
think we can have a little fun there, and, and that could be cool.
Aaron
00:43:21 – 00:43:26
Yeah. I think that's gonna be cool. Anything else? Okay. We'll call it there.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos , and generally try really hard .

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical .