Aaron Francis

Ian & Aaron discuss the dangers of reading documentation, the "long slow SaaS ramp of death", something that Aaron called "so freaking stupid", and more. Sponsored by LaraJobs. Sent questions or feedback to mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com

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Transcript

Ian

00:00:00 – 00:00:00

Hello?

Aaron

00:00:01 – 00:00:03

Hello, Ian. How are we doing today?

Ian

00:00:03 – 00:00:04

What's going on?

Aaron

00:00:04 – 00:00:10

Not a whole lot. I know we have, we finally have some mailbag. We should just address that right at the top.

Ian

00:00:11 – 00:00:17

Mailbag. So exciting. Yeah. So we have a email. Jump right into it.

Ian

00:00:17 – 00:00:22

From Joel Clermont. I assume that's how he says it. It's always fun to say people's names on

Aaron

00:00:22 – 00:00:23

I would say Claremont.

Ian

00:00:23 – 00:00:25

Claremont. Maybe it's Joel Claremont.

Aaron

00:00:25 – 00:00:26

Would say.

Ian

00:00:26 – 00:00:31

Alright. Joel Claremont. He can follow-up with more Yeah. Bag of how to say his name.

Aaron

00:00:31 – 00:00:35

It's, infinite mailbags if we just pronounce people's names wrong every time.

Ian

00:00:35 – 00:00:48

Exactly. That's good content. Alright. So he had a question. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but the the summary of it is basically that he has a podcast for devs, you know, and which we do too.

Ian

00:00:49 – 00:01:09

And he's, you know, been doing it for a few years. It's called No Compromises. And he's just basically wondering how to kind of increase the subscriber growth. And I think just in general, this kind of applies even beyond podcast, but, like, audience growth in general. Sounds like it kinda does the regular stuff now, post on social media and, some SEO stuff.

Ian

00:01:09 – 00:01:24

So, yeah. I don't know. What do you think about that? I know we've talked a little bit about kind of marketing and things like that in general, and audience growth. But what are your thoughts on kinda specifics around how things you might try?

Aaron

00:01:24 – 00:01:53

Yeah. So some of the things, like, some of the things we're doing for this podcast, like, we take this video and we put it on on YouTube. And I think that's a good, like, that's a good distribution strategy, but I don't think that's like a native YouTube strategy. I think the trick is people that already know us and want to listen or watch the podcast could go to YouTube and do that, but I don't think we're gaining much, like, in terms of net subscribers by putting it on YouTube. I feel like that's kind of the hard part with podcasts.

Aaron

00:01:53 – 00:02:30

You know, I've done a few now, and it feels like you just have to bring your audience to the podcast instead of using the podcast to grow your audience. I think if it were, like, I don't know. If it were, like, a more general generally applicable podcast, like a, you know, murder or crime podcast or something, like, then you can pick up new audience members. But I feel like with these dev podcasts, it's kinda hard to, like, break out of, you know, the iTunes new and noteworthy category or something. And so the all the stuff that Joel says he's doing, you know, put it on social media newsletter, that kind of stuff.

Aaron

00:02:30 – 00:02:45

I feel like that's that's what you have to do. You just have to talk about it in all the other places that you're at and people that are in your audience will listen. I don't know if that's like is that like a downer take that podcasts aren't gonna grow your audience? Is that bad? What do you think?

Ian

00:02:46 – 00:02:55

I don't know. I I'm a little torn. I sort of think, I I definitely agree early on. So he's, like, 3 years into it. So it's definitely beyond kind of early on.

Ian

00:02:55 – 00:03:22

But, like, you're bringing your audience in and but, you know, so just in that, I do think there's actually huge value there because it does, like you know, those are kinda like your hardcore audience. Right? It's like the people who follow you on Twitter, fine. Like, you know, there's thousands of them in our cases, and they follow us, and that's fine. But then the group that then follows us here and spends an hour with us, right, like, that's a group that's really very interested in what we have to say and things like that.

Ian

00:03:22 – 00:03:46

And so I think there's a lot of value in having that relationship with the kind of hardcore group that is interested in what you're doing. But, yeah, it is definitely a little bit harder, I think, in dev to break out wider. Certainly, you're not likely to ever be featured, you know, by Apple or something like that. But, I mean, there are podcasts that do do it. I do think you kinda have to hook maybe a little bit to something.

Ian

00:03:47 – 00:04:07

So, like, whether it's you know, in our world, like, we kinda hook what what new stuff in Laravel, we'll probably talk about that. And every time that happens, you know, we'll grow a little bit potentially there. Or, like, you see, like, obviously, Apple Podcasters. There's a lot of those. And every time Apple does something, then they grow a little bit because people are interested in the new iPhone or whatever.

Ian

00:04:07 – 00:04:27

So I do think there is a little bit of some strategies there of, like, the topics you cover and how that can maybe help. But, yeah. A lot of it is just kind of grinding away. Definitely in my previous podcast, it was like pretty slow and steady type thing, but not huge. I do the one thing about YouTube that's kinda nice is you get an actual subscriber account, which is sort of cool.

Ian

00:04:27 – 00:04:38

Even if I agree, it's not going to, like the algo is probably not going to push your podcast Mhmm. Super far and wide. But, and then you do get things like clips that you can share on social media and stuff. So I think

Aaron

00:04:38 – 00:04:38

this is a really

Ian

00:04:38 – 00:04:58

sort of interesting, gives you another thing to do on social media other than just say, hey. We have podcast. It's like, no. Like, throughout the week, you can drop a few clips of the video, and that's kinda cool. And we've definitely had people pick up the videos and make their own clips from it and share when we where we talked about them, for example, or things like that.

Ian

00:04:58 – 00:05:03

So give some other people a way to share it a bit. So here's

Aaron

00:05:03 – 00:05:13

the principle here's the principle I wanna I wanna run by you. Podcasts are for deepening audience connection and not broaden broadening your audience. How does that strike you?

Ian

00:05:13 – 00:05:18

Yeah. I think that's, like, true for the majority of them. Yeah.

Aaron

00:05:19 – 00:05:29

And here's a bit of trivia. Did you know a long time ago, like 2016 maybe, I had a podcast called The Music Makers podcast, which had nothing to do with music.

Ian

00:05:29 – 00:05:31

Okay. Wow. I didn't even know about this one.

Aaron

00:05:31 – 00:05:41

Yes. It was basically I would find articles that I liked and found, like, inspirational, and I would read the article for the first part of the

Ian

00:05:41 – 00:05:41

podcast and then talk about application to my life in the second part

Aaron

00:05:41 – 00:05:55

of the podcast. And iTunes. Like, they iTunes reached out to me, sent me an email, and was like, hey. Cool. Send us all of your assets.

Aaron

00:05:55 – 00:06:05

We wanna put you in, like, the new and noteworthy. We're gonna do a little banner for you in the iTunes store, and it was it was a big deal. Yeah. It was very, very cool.

Ian

00:06:05 – 00:06:05

Cool.

Aaron

00:06:05 – 00:06:15

It was nondev. Like, it was super nondev, but it was it was a fun podcast, and I did, I think, 50 episodes solo of that. Yeah. There you go.

Ian

00:06:15 – 00:06:19

And how how did that go? Did that how did that impact the podcast? So when you got featured on New and Noteworthy.

Aaron

00:06:20 – 00:06:26

I don't remember exact numbers, but it was, like, it was a big it was a big step change

Ian

00:06:26 – 00:06:27

It helped. For sure.

Aaron

00:06:27 – 00:06:38

Yeah. And it definitely helped. You know, back then, I didn't have any audience at all. So it was just, like, friends and family, and this just took it to a whole new level, which was cool. It was

Ian

00:06:38 – 00:06:46

a long time ago. You never know if they happen. This is all part of the putting yourself out there. Right? You put yourself out there, which I think that's also, like, the other benefit of podcast.

Ian

00:06:46 – 00:07:06

I've definitely found over the years that they're just, like yeah. It's obviously just another way to put yourself out there. Never know who might pick it up. A lot of times, it's only you know, a break comes from just one person learnings about what you're doing or whatever. And so, you don't necessarily need, you know, a 100000 listeners to make it very valuable potentially.

Ian

00:07:07 – 00:07:15

So, yeah, that's just like putting it out there, you know, you talking about your stuff and what you're doing practicing that. So there are these other advantages to it for sure.

Aaron

00:07:15 – 00:07:15

Yeah.

Ian

00:07:15 – 00:07:30

What do you think? One thing he did say, is that they do it every 2 weeks. And I sort of feel like that's not the best way to go about a podcast, in terms of if you want if you really wanna grow it. I kinda feel like you need The Weekly. I think there's, like, that element of people just wanna be in a groove with you.

Ian

00:07:30 – 00:07:30

Yeah.

Aaron

00:07:31 – 00:07:49

And he said 10 to 15 minutes every 2 weeks, and that's not enough for me. Right. If you did if you did an hour every 2 weeks, that's that's better. But I think if you if you're gonna do 10 to 15 minutes, I would I would do it weekly for sure. I Yeah.

Aaron

00:07:49 – 00:08:04

Because I think part of it I I feel like part of the benefit of a podcast is, like, getting to know the personalities of the people. Right. And if you keep it to 10 to 15 minutes, you're probably just focused strictly on the content and you do it every 2 weeks. And it's like,

Ian

00:08:05 – 00:08:06

I don't really feel like I care

Aaron

00:08:06 – 00:08:07

for these guys.

Ian

00:08:07 – 00:08:14

And the upside of if it is if if you like that 15 minute format, then I mean, just record 2 at once. Right? Like, I would just be

Aaron

00:08:14 – 00:08:14

recording 2

Ian

00:08:14 – 00:08:26

at once and then, you know, whatever. You have the second 15 minute chunk for the next week and then you just have your weekly, episode. It's not really that much more work. You're still doing, like, half an hour a week. So plus a little editing.

Ian

00:08:28 – 00:08:35

Alright. Cool. Well, that was cool. I like the mailbag. So, don't forget you can mail us at, oh, of course.

Ian

00:08:35 – 00:08:36

Now it's hidden.

Aaron

00:08:36 – 00:08:37

Well, set some work.

Ian

00:08:37 – 00:08:40

Podcast@gmail.com. So send in your feedbacks.

Aaron

00:08:41 – 00:09:01

The other feedback that I have gotten privately a bunch is on the segment and and the inflation. We got I got a lot I got a lot of people I got a lot of people messaging me about that one. And there were there were some good nuances. There were some good nuances about, like, group chats. Are are tap backs appropriate in a group chat?

Aaron

00:09:01 – 00:09:25

Because if everyone responds with a you know, individual text, is that too much? I thought that was that was viable. The other one was, the scale being relative, but internally consistent. So, like, maybe your scale is different, but you're internally consistent, so you kinda have to learn, you know, each person's scale, which I I I buy. I find that.

Aaron

00:09:25 – 00:09:32

That's fair. It doesn't have to be absolute. And then and then the final one is the LOL, the LOL verifier.

Ian

00:09:32 – 00:09:33

Did you

Aaron

00:09:33 – 00:09:34

watch this video?

Ian

00:09:34 – 00:09:35

Yeah. That was really funny.

Aaron

00:09:35 – 00:10:00

So funny. So, we got a a tweet that is, like, it's a funny video. It's like a, basically like a gag video, but it's a real thing where a guy makes a little device that verifies if you laughed out loud before LOL, and it'll, like, stamp it with verified laugh out loud. I like that. So

Ian

00:10:00 – 00:10:00

That's so cool.

Aaron

00:10:00 – 00:10:13

I found that I found that to be very, very funny. So lots of lots of good feedback. I think Joel, Joe Mazzalotti sent us that one. Lots of good feedback on the the, segment of the show.

Ian

00:10:13 – 00:10:22

You never know what's gonna strike people's fancies. This is why we gotta cover all the topics. We can't be just in one one silent game. Yeah. No.

Ian

00:10:22 – 00:10:29

I think that yeah. That would definitely a lot of people out there talking about that. I think, Yeah. I don't know. I'm still torn in the top pack.

Ian

00:10:29 – 00:10:42

I mean, I occasionally do use them in a group and when I do use them is in a group setting, like, mostly with my family, actually. So I can get behind that. Internally consistent, I can also mostly get behind.

Aaron

00:10:42 – 00:10:47

I have also I have also been told, Ian, I got an inside I got I got a leak.

Ian

00:10:47 – 00:10:49

Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Aaron

00:10:49 – 00:10:52

That told me that you're the king of the ambiguous

Ian

00:10:53 – 00:10:54

h p h.

Aaron

00:10:56 – 00:11:04

I was told that I was told that you do that a lot, and it's it is inscrutable. Nobody nobody understands what it means.

Ian

00:11:04 – 00:11:22

I know. This is, the this used to be quite a thing when Taylor worked at Eutherscape, and Eric. They they would get quite flustered by the, the HE or the HEH, and we're not sure what to make of that. Yeah. I do I do like to put the HEH in there.

Ian

00:11:22 – 00:11:38

I don't do it as much anymore. I feel like I've gotten more consistent on the, HAAS scale in recent years. But, but, yeah, I would say the h e h was kind of my my like a single equivalent. But it did yeah. They used to be they used to be more of a thing, and

Aaron

00:11:38 – 00:11:38

Yeah.

Ian

00:11:39 – 00:11:42

They are not this your sources are are correct.

Aaron

00:11:42 – 00:11:49

Well, some people are still scarred because I got the DM that was like, Ian didn't even mention his ambiguous, and I was like, what?

Ian

00:11:50 – 00:11:57

We we all have, secrets in our closet. We all have podcasts in different areas. I mean, you know, I can't say I'm over perfect.

Aaron

00:11:57 – 00:12:05

Against Ian. DM me, and I will happily bring it up on the show. So all whistleblowers will be kept anonymous.

Ian

00:12:05 – 00:12:09

I love it. I love it. Yes. All the secrets could come out here on the pod.

Aaron

00:12:09 – 00:12:10

That's right.

Ian

00:12:11 – 00:12:20

Yeah. I did. You know, because there is that element of, like yeah. It's like the single hot. I don't know where I got even the the but yeah.

Ian

00:12:20 – 00:12:24

But I I was the my it was my sort of shorthand,

Aaron

00:12:24 – 00:12:35

I mean acknowledgement. Yeah. The is like the sound of a single exhale, like Yeah. Shoulder raise drop. Like like, that

Ian

00:12:36 – 00:12:36

is that

Aaron

00:12:36 – 00:12:41

is versus So I get it. But, yeah, ambiguous in text.

Ian

00:12:42 – 00:12:47

I like it. Yeah. We got we got informants on the podcast now. We have I know. It's great.

Ian

00:12:48 – 00:13:03

It's a whole the this sort of, network effects here are happening. Alright. So what do we got here on do we wanna cover next? Do you wanna cover some of your news, or do you wanna cover some of the Laravel stuff?

Aaron

00:13:03 – 00:13:14

We we can go we can go anywhere. We gotta talk about we gotta talk about a little bit of Laravel stuff this week. There's there's some there's some drama, but we can go to anyone that you want. So you you lead the way.

Ian

00:13:14 – 00:13:22

Well, let's do Laravel stuff together. So why don't we cover your news first, and then we'll jump into, some Laravel stuff?

Aaron

00:13:22 – 00:13:40

K. So shall we start with, the big breaking news? Hello, query, as we know it, is dead. RIP. So So this is the SaaS thing that I've been working on with Colleen and used to be called Hammerstone, then we pivoted to HelloQuery.

Aaron

00:13:40 – 00:14:03

And then it's it's, it's over for me at least. There's you know, Colleen might carry on this particular product, or she might carry on with a slightly different version of this product or or whatever. But for me, it is it is finished. I am I am done working on a SaaS product for now. So

Ian

00:14:05 – 00:14:21

yeah. Well, I guess so, what led you to this decision? I did I know you've done a podcast. You don't have to go through fully in-depth because you and Colleen did do a podcast that kinda covered the details, I think. But maybe you could just give us a little summary of kinda what your thinking was there and

Aaron

00:14:21 – 00:14:34

Yeah. I was burnt out on that particular idea slash project. So we've been working on it for forever. Yeah. I think that's one of the things is we've been working on it for too long.

Aaron

00:14:34 – 00:14:52

And we went through these twists and turns of, like, we're basically just doing consulting for the big client, And then it was like, okay. We're we've dropped consulting, and then we try to sell this thing as a standalone. And it's like, not really finding product market fit. Nobody wants it. Let's pivot.

Aaron

00:14:53 – 00:15:16

And by the time, it was like, okay. We're we've done all of this, and let's pivot and rebuild a completely new product. And it got to the point where it was like, I'm about to we're about to, like, relaunch this thing, and I'm out of steam on this idea. And we're approaching the starting line, and I don't I'm not excited. Like, I'm not excited about what comes next.

Aaron

00:15:16 – 00:15:26

So Yeah. You know, in in some regards, it's like you approach the starting line, and you finally finished building, and now you get to go do the fun stuff. Like, I did not feel that at all. Right.

Ian

00:15:26 – 00:15:27

Oh, no.

Aaron

00:15:27 – 00:15:29

Now we get to go do the hard stuff.

Ian

00:15:30 – 00:15:30

Yeah.

Aaron

00:15:32 – 00:16:03

And I think I have, like, simultaneously kind of realized what is appropriate for this time in my life and what is appropriate for the next, you know, 2 months from now of my life. And SaaS, like, structurally doesn't fit quite as well as content does because content can be finished. Like, you can do it, and it can be done. And SaaS is a lot a lot more demanding. Plus, it's not even off the ground yet, so it's gonna be doubly demanding.

Aaron

00:16:03 – 00:16:20

Like, if I could enter maintenance mode on a SaaS product, that's one thing. But still, like, fixing initial bugs and fielding initial requests on a SaaS product while I'm you know, have 4 kids. When we started this thing, Colleen and I had 0 kids. Right. And I'm about to have 4.

Aaron

00:16:21 – 00:16:25

And it hasn't been that long. You know? It's only been, like, 2 or 3 years. So

Ian

00:16:26 – 00:16:30

Yeah. No. I think that makes sense. I mean, I mean, I mean, I know. Obviously, we've talked about it.

Ian

00:16:30 – 00:16:56

Everybody always says this about you that you have such an incredible amount of things going on. So I think, narrowing down the focus a little bit certainly makes sense. And, obviously, a 100% right, of course, that just getting to the starting line when you're sort of get the shippable version of the product. I mean, I think there's I was at this talk. It's one of the most famous talks ever, I think, about SaaS called the long slow SaaS rampant death, by Gail Goodman.

Ian

00:16:56 – 00:17:23

And definitely a talk everybody should go check out, if you're gonna do SaaS. But I don't you know, this is, like, years ago now, but I still think not much has really changed with the basics of it, which is that, you know, when you start, it's gonna be really slow because ultimately the whole deal with SaaS is to accumulate those dollars over many years. And so when you get those first customers who pay you $200 a month or $300 a month or $99 a month, like, it's obviously not a lot of money until you get that to compound and so on. So Yep. Yeah.

Ian

00:17:23 – 00:17:28

So and you and that's a Hello query is a high level difficulty.

Aaron

00:17:28 – 00:17:29

Yes.

Ian

00:17:29 – 00:17:35

SaaS, I would say. Extremely. That was gonna require a lot of enterprise sales and all those

Aaron

00:17:35 – 00:17:36

kinds of things. Organizations.

Ian

00:17:37 – 00:17:42

Yeah. It's gonna be a lot of technical. This isn't, like, the kind of status you throw up there, and it's like, oh, it pretty much runs itself.

Aaron

00:17:42 – 00:17:42

Like, yeah,

Ian

00:17:42 – 00:17:48

there's some bug fixes or whatever. Like, this was gonna be deep in the house of other people's architecture.

Aaron

00:17:48 – 00:17:52

To people's databases directly. Like yeah.

Ian

00:17:52 – 00:18:02

Through security protocols and everything else. Yeah. So, it's gonna be a lot going on there, performance stuff and everything else. So Totally. A really hard problem.

Ian

00:18:03 – 00:18:21

So, yeah, I think it makes total sense. And I think it's really good on your part to recognize that, you know, and before you know, it's it's even leaving her at least in a reasonable spot here too of, like, she can continue and so on if she wants. And so, you're not, like, yeah, 6 months in and there are paying customers.

Aaron

00:18:21 – 00:18:26

Right. And I'm the one who built it, then I'm like, see you. Good luck. Yeah. I know.

Ian

00:18:27 – 00:18:31

So, yeah. So I think that that that makes sense. So okay. Well

Aaron

00:18:31 – 00:18:36

And this this lines up with with my galaxy quadrant theory.

Ian

00:18:36 – 00:18:37

Which you're talking about. Yeah.

Aaron

00:18:37 – 00:19:25

Yeah. So this also, like, I I feel like I've got a lot of of good things going right now, and many of them are pointed in the same direction, except for toiling away in private on a SaaS product. Right? And so that's one that's another thing that I have trying to been like, trying to be thoughtful about recently is what are the efforts and how many of those efforts can I point directionally in a similar way? And so, like, when, you know, when Colleen and I were having these talks about Hello Query, that's the time when the video stuff that I've been doing both for PlanetScale and for my personal YouTube and for screencasting, that's when all of that really started to, like, take off.

Aaron

00:19:25 – 00:19:57

And I started to think, wait. Maybe maybe my best and highest use of time is on video content or content in general instead of SaaS. Like, we've talked a number of times on this show about how many other people are better programmers than I am. Like, Boris and Jason are just they just do stuff better. And I kind of realized, wait, maybe maybe I should do the thing that only I can do seemingly, which is be me on video.

Aaron

00:19:57 – 00:20:29

Right. And so, like, trying to point all of the vectors the same way, and the SaaS was basically pointed the opposite direction. And so, like, the, you know, the float the audio enhancing app on Flowtone, screencasting, my personal YouTube, planet scale YouTube, all of that goes one direction. And this is the galaxy quadrant theory that I kind of operate by, but I've never named, but it's a great name. The galaxy

Ian

00:20:29 – 00:20:37

quadrant theory. I feel like there's a whole I know. World of content to be created and brand to be built around the galaxy quadrant.

Aaron

00:20:37 – 00:20:54

Yes. I do. I I love that. Yeah. So the galaxy quadrant theory, I was having a hands on screencasting call with Simon Hamp, who's a Laravel community member, and was basically explaining, like, my theory of projects.

Aaron

00:20:54 – 00:21:29

And it's like it's a theory of projects, but it's also a theory of preserving and increasing optionality and optimizing for success even if I don't know what the final outcome looks like. And what I was telling him was basically, like, I am pointed in this direction, and right now that direction is like content video. I'm pointed in that direction. I don't know exactly, you know, which star I'm aiming for, but I know that I'm going to this part of the sky. Like, I'm I'm pointed to this quadrant of the galaxy.

Aaron

00:21:29 – 00:22:06

I don't know exactly what the final monetizable outcome or career defining outcome is, But I feel like good things are happening on this route, and so I'm gonna point as many vectors towards that route as possible. And along the way, I may make adjustments and may decide, like, I gotta steer off this way a little bit. But in terms of what is the single thing that I'm optimizing for, I don't really know. I just know that I'm headed in that direction, and it's it seems to be going well. And so I'm gonna continue to go that way, and we'll find out, you know, we'll find out along the way.

Aaron

00:22:07 – 00:22:08

Yeah.

Ian

00:22:08 – 00:22:40

And I think I mean, even, like, a step back from that, I almost feel like the galaxy quadrant idea of, like, you sort of started with not simultaneously, but this sort of an even wider quadrant of, like, Laravel stuff almost. Because the camera stone was, like, Laravel plugins, components and what doesn't. And now it's like, okay. The content stuff is the stuff that's really, like, taking off. And, so then you net write the quadrant.

Ian

00:22:40 – 00:22:56

Like you narrow it down into that. I'd like the quadrant becomes another quadrant. Right? So now that quadrant is gonna be which parts of the content world work best and things like that. So, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, and I really do like that visualization of it.

Ian

00:22:56 – 00:23:41

I think that's really good. Especially now that especially, yeah, nowadays, we're, like, it's there are these different avenues to take. And if you're not of the mindset of, like, SaaS or bust and you're open to other paths, then, that's a it's especially good there because, you know, yeah, to build the SaaS kind of requires a lot of kind of full on effort, and it's hard to have other things going really. But content is definitely different and or you could do, like you got consulting plus content or whatever. There's all different things you could be doing, but or, like, one off products and things like that, where, yeah, you could maybe do a couple at once and start to see what shakes out.

Aaron

00:23:41 – 00:24:12

Yep. I'm a big I'm a big believer in the notion that, like, motion begets more motion. And so as long as you're in motion, you can kinda, like it's easier to, you know, change where you're headed. The downside of that is it sometimes looks frenetic and embarrassing to, like, change direction, and that's, you know, that's just, like, shut it publicly saying I'm stopping this project I've been working on for years. Not super fun.

Aaron

00:24:13 – 00:24:36

Yeah. But way, way, way better to do that than to stand still and wait for what is the perfect idea, which will never be the perfect idea. So being being in motion, I feel like even if the direction is not fully known or is maybe incorrect for now, being in motion is better than just, like, standing around waiting.

Ian

00:24:37 – 00:25:09

Yeah. For sure. And I think also, like you said, like, making those hard decisions is super important. And I think, like, you could take the wrong lesson from it, which I think most people are kind of inclined to do, which is like, oh, I shouldn't do things in public because then, like, if it doesn't happen or it goes poorly or whatever, then, you know, I'll be embarrassed or it'll hurt the business in some way or whatever. But, you know, I think rare exceptions aside, that's almost never true because it's just like there's so many other benefits to being out there and talking about things.

Ian

00:25:09 – 00:25:16

And, so yeah. So an inspiration here of getting out there and trying things and sometimes

Aaron

00:25:17 – 00:25:22

They don't all work, but sometimes you'll find sometimes you'll find some that do, and that's the whole point.

Ian

00:25:22 – 00:25:32

And persistence. I mean, I was just randomly, jeez. What was it? I was searching for some Laravel thing with, like, the morphing system Yeah. For the day.

Ian

00:25:33 – 00:25:41

And I and I randomly am on, like, Laravel News, like, came up first in the Google search. And, like, you wrote this article. I did. Yeah. And I was like, wait a minute.

Ian

00:25:41 – 00:25:43

He's everywhere. I can't I can't escape him.

Aaron

00:25:43 – 00:25:47

Listen. I've been toiling in the salt mines for many, many years.

Ian

00:25:47 – 00:25:48

Yes. You've been

Aaron

00:25:48 – 00:25:50

My digital detritus is everywhere. Yeah.

Ian

00:25:51 – 00:25:58

Yeah. But, I mean, that's the thing. Right? It always just seems like, oh, this person, like, they're just shooting up and that you know, where'd they come from? But it's like, no.

Ian

00:25:58 – 00:26:01

Actually, they've been plugging away at it

Aaron

00:26:01 – 00:26:04

for years. Plugging away, man. Plugging away.

Ian

00:26:04 – 00:26:23

Trying the different angles, seeing how to make it work. And sometimes it's like one thing helps you a little bit, and then it, you know, it stops working and then but it builds you up to a certain level, and then, you know, use that as the next jumping point, jumping point, jumping point, onto the next thing. So alright. Well, that's a good update there. Definitely the Galaxy quadrant here.

Aaron

00:26:23 – 00:26:25

I gotta flush that out. That's good.

Ian

00:26:25 – 00:26:29

You really do. That's something that needs, like, a big article or, like, a video. Maybe that's a video.

Aaron

00:26:30 – 00:26:30

Maybe that is.

Ian

00:26:30 – 00:26:32

That would be a cool video. We love a name. Realizations.

Aaron

00:26:32 – 00:26:35

You know, with a name, you gotta have a name. And I love the name.

Ian

00:26:35 – 00:26:46

Have the name is, like, 90%. Like, I can't do anything till I have the name. So, like, I feel like you've got the name, and it makes a lot of sense, and it fits really nice, and it's like space. We can't go wrong with, like, space. Everybody loves space.

Aaron

00:26:46 – 00:26:47

Everybody loves space.

Ian

00:26:47 – 00:26:52

Exactly. So So I feel like there's definitely something. Yeah. It's also very visual. Mhmm.

Ian

00:26:52 – 00:26:54

Yeah. I think that'd make a great video.

Aaron

00:26:55 – 00:26:59

Alright. I got I got a I got a noodle on this because that's a Yeah. You can't pass up that name. Copyright, by

Ian

00:26:59 – 00:27:00

the way.

Aaron

00:27:00 – 00:27:04

I just copyrighted it. That's how copyright works. So anyone listening, let's copyright it now.

Ian

00:27:04 – 00:27:11

I like it. A book. Alright. Podcasts, the whole thing. Alright.

Ian

00:27:11 – 00:27:15

So Laravel stuff. So we got Taylor returning to the podcast ring. We gotta touch on

Aaron

00:27:15 – 00:27:17

I know. The return of the king.

Ian

00:27:17 – 00:27:21

Return of the king. Unbelievable. Podcast.

Aaron

00:27:21 – 00:27:27

So do we know if it's a season thing? Because I know that Matt's Laravel podcast has been seasonal. So is this the season of Taylor?

Ian

00:27:27 – 00:27:43

You know, I should have checked with him, but I I don't think that's what Matt was calling it. Like, they were saying that and I think even Taylor's tweet said something like that. Like, he'll be on the next season or something like that. It's like I think it is a season. But I don't know how many episodes he normally does.

Ian

00:27:43 – 00:27:45

I can't recall if it's, like, 12 or

Aaron

00:27:45 – 00:27:46

something

Ian

00:27:46 – 00:27:46

like that.

Aaron

00:27:46 – 00:27:47

It's something like that.

Ian

00:27:47 – 00:28:03

So I guess we'll see. But I guess if they, you know, are kind of really hit a groove that they might keep going, who knows? Or maybe they'll just stick with the season. But, yeah, it's good to have him back. I think Taylor has, like, such a good audio voice.

Ian

00:28:03 – 00:28:03

Always He does.

Aaron

00:28:04 – 00:28:04

With him

Ian

00:28:04 – 00:28:13

on audio. Yeah. And, yeah. The first episode, I listened to it, and they did keep it pretty pretty all Laravel business. So I'm hoping they'd

Aaron

00:28:13 – 00:28:14

open up

Ian

00:28:14 – 00:28:15

open up next time with some

Aaron

00:28:15 – 00:28:26

spicy kids. They kept it on the straight and narrow until I feel like at the end, they talked about final classes, and he Right. Was like, this is stupid or something like that.

Ian

00:28:26 – 00:28:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:28:27 – 00:28:33

That's what I wanna hear. Like, I know what folio is. I know what vault is. Tell me stuff you think is stupid. That's what I wanna hear.

Ian

00:28:34 – 00:28:38

That's what I want. Taylor's got excellent taste, so I wanna know what he thinks is stupid or not stupid.

Aaron

00:28:39 – 00:28:39

Yeah.

Ian

00:28:40 – 00:28:49

For sure. So definitely go check out the new Laravel podcast season. We got Matt and Taylor on there, and that's gonna be it's gonna be really good.

Aaron

00:28:49 – 00:29:02

And while you're there, give them 3 star review and give us a 5 star review. So, yeah, just so we keep it you know, give us the relative advantage. You can listen to them, but don't let it don't let it go to their head.

Ian

00:29:02 – 00:29:04

They've gotta earn their way up a little bit.

Aaron

00:29:04 – 00:29:07

That's right. Who is this new guy, Taylor? Come on. Give me a break.

Ian

00:29:07 – 00:29:12

His take on Laravel? Come on. This is the spot for Laravel takes.

Aaron

00:29:12 – 00:29:12

Oh. Crazy.

Ian

00:29:14 – 00:29:16

Alright. So we wanna do final? What do you think about that?

Aaron

00:29:16 – 00:29:27

Do it. Yeah. This is this is I got a lot of thoughts on this. I'll I'll set I'll set I'll set the scene, and then you go thoughts, and then I'll I'll go thoughts. So Right.

Aaron

00:29:28 – 00:29:38

Here's the deal. There's been a lot of discussion in the PHP community. I I think the Laravel community I I'm not a part of the PHP community. I'm part of the whole community.

Ian

00:29:38 – 00:29:39

I don't know what's going on.

Aaron

00:29:39 – 00:30:16

Yeah. I don't know what's going on outside of Laravel. There's been a lot of discussion in the Laravel community about marking classes as final, meaning they can no longer be extended by anyone ever at any time. And the discussion is kind of hinged around, like, open source maintainers or open source authors want to mark classes as final so that those implementations aren't extended causing, like, causing future maintenance burdens because people extend it and then you change a protected method. And it's like, oh, I I was relying on that.

Aaron

00:30:17 – 00:30:53

So that is that is one camp. The other camp is just leave it any open source library should leave all their classes not final, and I, as the developer, will accept the risk that if I extend your class, I'm taking on a certain amount of of ownership here. And if you change a protected method, that's on me. And so that's kinda where the lines have come down, and, boy, have they come down hard. And so final classes, and you're you're going against the will of the open source maintainer, and you're restricting the freedom of the developer.

Aaron

00:30:53 – 00:31:01

And then then there's this unfinalized class, but let's just start with let's just start with that. So what what are your thoughts so far?

Ian

00:31:01 – 00:31:21

Well, first of all, just super big picture, there's this concept actually, when Taylor worked at Userscape, we used to talk about this all the time, which is, like, what we do and then real programmers. And so real programmers would be like, you're at NASA and you fire rockets. Right? You're sending stuff to the moon. You work at a military contractor.

Ian

00:31:21 – 00:31:32

You're firing missiles into something. Maybe you work on software for nuclear reactors, whatever. Like, this is real serious programming stuff. Right? And then there's, like, sort of the Internet programming and, like, SaaS apps.

Ian

00:31:32 – 00:31:36

And the thought that we're not serious, but at the same time, like, you know Stakes are

Aaron

00:31:36 – 00:31:37

not that high.

Ian

00:31:37 – 00:31:49

You know, it's not yeah. The stakes are are a little down a lot. And I already feel like even though this is not even that crazy of a thing, final, I already feel like we're getting into, like, this like, that's, like, real programmer stuff. Like, final. Like, I I don't care what you do.

Ian

00:31:49 – 00:31:58

Like so my main take is I I don't care. Like, if you wanna put final fine, like, obviously, it's your project. Right? If it's your open source thing and you wanna put final on everything, then I guess you'll do that. Right?

Ian

00:31:58 – 00:32:21

And so be it. I definitely prefer it to not be the case, because I think just the realities are that, like, sometimes you need to do stuff like that. And to ship the software to the customers, you need to do the thing. And, that's some you know, then you just end up, like, copying and pasting and hacking around some other way. Anyway, you know, there's other hacky ways you do it.

Ian

00:32:21 – 00:32:43

I haven't even looked into the unfinalized thing. Other than that, I saw it, and I assume it's doing some similar hackiness of some sort. And so, it's, you know, it's not like you can really prevent people from doing exactly. And I know, like, on on Taylor's podcast, they also had mentioned that he doesn't really buy it as a maintenance issue, and I would tend to agree. I'm definitely don't have a lot of huge open source projects.

Ian

00:32:43 – 00:32:55

But, yeah. I mean, if you use final and or if you if you extend a a class like that and hit a problem with a protected method or something, then that's

Aaron

00:32:55 – 00:32:56

fine. For you. Yeah.

Ian

00:32:56 – 00:33:17

Like, I mean, I'm not gonna fix that for you because you broke it yourself. And so I think that's kind of a reasonable take to have there. And if you're doing that, like, that's obviously an area you wanna have tests and things because you know you're taking an extra risk and that the underlying Yep. Code might change, and so you should be prepared for that. So, yeah, that's kind of my take.

Ian

00:33:17 – 00:33:20

I don't know. What what are your thoughts? I'm excited to hear what you're thinking.

Aaron

00:33:20 – 00:33:46

Ian, it is nonsense. This thing, this is so freaking stupid. I think it is the silliest thing in the world that's, like, I'm gonna mark these things final so that you don't accidentally do something that may be a little bit risky. Like, I'll I'll be the I'll be the arbiter of that. Like, let let me let me decide if I'm gonna do something that seems risky instead of making me jump through all of these hoops.

Aaron

00:33:46 – 00:34:03

Because here's here's part of the problem. They're, like, you should just use composition over inheritance. And I'm, like, 1, what are you talking about? What does that even mean? 22, if you don't leave them all of every appropriate hook to be able to do that, you're hosed.

Aaron

00:34:03 – 00:34:16

Like, you you say use composition over inheritance, but then your library doesn't expose everything I need to actually do that. And it's like, okay. I would love to, but you you didn't set it up right.

Ian

00:34:16 – 00:34:16

Right.

Aaron

00:34:16 – 00:34:31

And so that's frustrating to me. And then this whole, like, this whole notion of of open source maintenance, like, I don't I don't buy it. I I didn't buy it personally. And then when Taylor said, hey, I've never really had that problem. I was like, okay.

Aaron

00:34:31 – 00:35:10

This is a straw man then. Because if Taylor doesn't have that problem across literally thousands of classes, you you don't have that problem. And to the extent that you want to feel warm and fuzzy, I think there is like a final annotation that like makes the makes the, like, contract explicit between you and the implementer, you can say, like, this method is supposed to be final and is not, like, guaranteed backward compatibility, you know, non breaking stuff. Do that. Do that if you wanna, like, give a warning to people that they can't use your stuff.

Aaron

00:35:10 – 00:35:17

But if they want to, like, the warranty is void, which, by the way, there are no warranties in open source.

Ian

00:35:17 – 00:35:17

You can

Aaron

00:35:17 – 00:35:24

just close the issues. You can just say, no. You did something stupid here. Issue closed. And I don't know.

Aaron

00:35:24 – 00:35:31

This whole this whole thing seems so silly to me. The thing the place that I come down is who cares? Like

Ian

00:35:31 – 00:35:32

Right.

Aaron

00:35:32 – 00:36:31

How do you have so much energy to care about this? I've got so many other things that I care about. And so the the unfinalized thing, which is just just a master like, a master troll, basically, is somebody created a package that after you composer install, which is our package manager, after you install all all of your libraries, this package unfinalized will run a hook that goes through your entire vendor directory and removes all final class, like, annotations or or, declarations. And so then all of the final classes are now open for extension again. And it is just it's just weird, like, arms race, because now people are talking about, okay, well, in your open source library, you can say that your your library is not compatible with this unfinalized library, and then that the composer composer will say, ah, we can't install both of these things.

Aaron

00:36:31 – 00:36:35

And it's like, guys, who cares? Who cares? Nobody cares.

Ian

00:36:36 – 00:36:48

Or, like, a different license. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like you put your stuff out there in MIT license. It's like oh, I'm not Am

Aaron

00:36:48 – 00:36:49

I still

Ian

00:36:49 – 00:36:52

here? Well, this is really weird. Now I have your video, but not your audio. Okay.

Aaron

00:36:52 – 00:36:53

Uh-oh. Hello.

Ian

00:36:53 – 00:36:59

Alright. I'll start back over there. Where was I? This is

Aaron

00:36:59 – 00:37:00

really weird. MIT.

Ian

00:37:00 – 00:37:15

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or use a different license, because MIT, the whole point of it is is you can take the code and do whatever you want. So, like, I mean, to block this guy's package is totally insane because, like, that's the whole point of that license.

Ian

00:37:15 – 00:37:41

There are other licenses that impose different restrictions, but then, obviously, the trade off there is people probably won't use your package because, then they don't wanna deal with all those restrictions, which is kinda what's ended up happening. It's it's things that mostly sorted out to being MIT as kind of the de facto standard license. We have to have an episode on licenses one day. I got a lot of rants on licenses. But, anyway, yeah, the whole thing is kinda silly.

Ian

00:37:41 – 00:37:56

Again, like, if this is the method that controls the nuclear launch code, like, go ahead slap a file on that baby. But, yeah. I don't know. Like, some random open source thing that's gonna be used for some standard CRUD stuff. Like, I feel like it's okay.

Ian

00:37:56 – 00:37:59

Let people get in there. It'll be alright.

Aaron

00:37:59 – 00:38:03

Give them the sharp knives, and if they cut themselves, that's too bad.

Ian

00:38:03 – 00:38:04

Right.

Aaron

00:38:04 – 00:38:19

Yeah. And it's it's different. Open source open source versus, you know, in house proprietary stuff. Right? So if you're shipping open source, I feel like you can you you may think you know what's, like, the use cases.

Aaron

00:38:19 – 00:38:35

You have no idea how people are actually going to use it and the weird things they're gonna do. If you're if you're in house and you have, you know, a 100 developers and you need certain things to be final so that people don't do things that will hurt the business, fine. Do it. Great. I don't care.

Aaron

00:38:36 – 00:38:41

But, yeah, this is like I'm gonna I'm gonna protect the community from themselves because I am a magnanimous.

Ian

00:38:41 – 00:38:42

It's like,

Aaron

00:38:42 – 00:38:43

oh, come on.

Ian

00:38:43 – 00:38:49

Boo. In house is so different too because it's like you can go to the group that controls that code, and you can have the discussion and

Aaron

00:38:49 – 00:38:49

Yes.

Ian

00:38:50 – 00:39:06

You can do all those things and, you know, and somebody above all of you. Right? Some the CEO or whoever can make a decision and say, listen. We're gonna do this or we're not gonna do that, and there's business reasons to do it. And, obviously, it's a lot different than just an open source package that you're just putting out there for people to use.

Ian

00:39:06 – 00:39:25

I mean, literally according to the license, however they want. Like that is the purpose of of this open source project, is for people to use however they want. It's It's, like, right in there in the license agreement. So, yeah. I think, obviously, you know, you can final if you want, but I think it's not a lot of upside there most of the time.

Ian

00:39:26 – 00:39:26

No.

Aaron

00:39:26 – 00:39:39

Y'all, we got better stuff to do. Y'all gotta y'all gotta move on. We got chill. Yeah. We we we don't wanna, one, we don't wanna be the JavaScript community and just just devolve into infighting until we implode.

Aaron

00:39:40 – 00:39:49

And 2, there's just so much there's so much more interesting stuff to worry about. Like, let's just let's just mend these differences and just forget about it.

Ian

00:39:50 – 00:40:10

So you brought up a interesting thing here with, the PHP community, and I thought this maybe be interesting to touch on that for a second because, there's a couple different things there. It's like one is, like, there's just these different huge elements. Like, to me, PHP is kinda like what you said. Like, it's Laravel. Like, the Laravel community is the PHP community.

Ian

00:40:10 – 00:40:37

And then but, obviously, like, PHP is, like, 80% of the programming languages for the web or, you know, done in PHP. So obviously WordPress being a huge part of that, but other libraries and systems and stuff as well. I I think Facebook is still somewhat on PHP and things like that. So, there is this weird and then and then a little beefy with Cloudflare. And you know I love Cloudflare.

Aaron

00:40:37 – 00:40:38

I know you do.

Ian

00:40:38 – 00:40:40

But they're working trying

Aaron

00:40:40 – 00:40:44

to let balance here. So this is your, like, this is your faux outrage.

Ian

00:40:44 – 00:41:00

I should follow-up with this just to be sure I'm a 100% accurate here. But at least last time I checked, they have this this sort of, thing called Workers, which is kind of like Lambda or whatever. And, but it doesn't, like, run PHP natively. I think there's some, like,

Aaron

00:41:00 – 00:41:00

hacky way

Ian

00:41:00 – 00:41:10

to execute PHP in there, but you can't just natively run it. And but, of course, there's, like, JavaScript natively runs and Python and whatever. And a lot of the AI stuff too is Python. Yep. And it's like, what about PHP?

Ian

00:41:10 – 00:41:14

Everybody use like, literally, everybody knows PHP. Like, a 100% of web developers know PHP. And then

Aaron

00:41:15 – 00:41:15

I know.

Ian

00:41:15 – 00:41:27

You know, 80% of the Internet is actually run on PHP. And yet, PHP is always getting shafted on these, like, you know, modern systems. It's like, no. I know. PHP first class status.

Ian

00:41:27 – 00:41:34

But so I don't know. What's your take down PHP community versus Laravel community or as part of Laravel community and all that stuff?

Aaron

00:41:34 – 00:41:40

Well, my first take is yeah. Nobody takes us seriously, and I don't I don't get it. Right. I mean, it's just like No.

Ian

00:41:40 – 00:41:40

I don't care.

Aaron

00:41:40 – 00:41:51

What what's the deal with that? It's So it's so interesting. Even that video I did about PHP doesn't suck anymore when the primogen did a reaction video to it. Mhmm. He was, like, yeah.

Aaron

00:41:51 – 00:42:00

I I I haven't looked at PHP since 2012, and a lot of this is new to me, and it's pretty cool that PHP has all of this. I'm, like, yeah. Come on, man.

Ian

00:42:00 – 00:42:01

It's out there.

Aaron

00:42:01 – 00:42:33

Like, I don't think PHP is the greatest language in the world, but, boy, does it work. Like, it works great. It does what I need it to do, and it yeah. Anyway, PHP community, I don't know the first freaking thing about the PHP community, except that they used to moan about Laravel all the time. Like, I remember a day when when every every week or every couple times a week, there would be these long fights on Reddit about, like, facades.

Aaron

00:42:34 – 00:42:53

I just and I think that's back when that's, like, back when Laravel was still gaining, like, a foothold or gaining market share rather. And people were trying to people were trying to prevent that from happening. They were trying to tear it down. And I just don't see that much anymore. Yeah.

Aaron

00:42:53 – 00:43:29

And I feel like to some extent to some extent, Laravel has won. And I think for the Laravel community, any because Laravel is now the defacto and has 1 in, you know, the PHP community, I think anytime we spend, you know, mudslinging about whether facades are correct or anything, I think that's just that's that's losing. Like, it used to be a thing where, you know, Laravel was on equal footing with a few other things in in the PHP community. And from my point of view, that's just not the case anymore. And so we don't need, like, the battle is over.

Aaron

00:43:29 – 00:43:46

We don't need to fight. And so I don't know much about what goes on in the PHP community outside of Laravel. I think there are other communities. Like, obviously, there's the WordPress community, which is wholly distinct itself from the PHP community.

Ian

00:43:46 – 00:43:47

Yeah.

Aaron

00:43:47 – 00:44:03

And I think that is probably more the case that there are several large communities. But I don't know if, like, I really just don't know of any I am a native, like, raw PHP developer. I actually don't know any of them. Yeah.

Ian

00:44:03 – 00:44:09

It's not they I mean, they must be out there. Right? But there's they're mostly working on, like, legacy apps presumably and things like that. Mhmm. But yeah.

Ian

00:44:09 – 00:44:28

Because, obviously, who would start a new app and be like, I'm not gonna use any framework, whether that framework is, of course, Laravel or I mean, to me, like, WordPress is essentially a framework. Right? For sure. So whether using WordPress or Laravel or I guess maybe there's still a few other PHP I don't know if Zen framework's still around or what's going on with that.

Aaron

00:44:28 – 00:44:29

Still around?

Ian

00:44:29 – 00:44:50

Obviously, Symphony is still around for sure. So, you know, there are a few of those out there still, but, yeah, I don't know. It's sort of weird. And the the, like I just love the thing, to me, I like like about Laravel and why I think it did so well is just like that level like, facades is like a great example. It's just like just that little bit of nicety there.

Ian

00:44:50 – 00:44:56

It's just it's so nice and you could argue all you want about it, but it's so much nicer to write this in that episode would be cleaner.

Aaron

00:44:56 – 00:44:57

It's just so much nicer.

Ian

00:44:57 – 00:45:04

It kinda relates back even to what we talked about last week or a week before about, like, the the conference. And I remember going to these PHP conferences.

Aaron

00:45:05 – 00:45:05

Oh, yeah.

Ian

00:45:05 – 00:45:18

And they were always at the airport hotel. Yep. And they were always horrible. And it was just, like, a depressing place to be, and you're in this depressing conference room. And it's not it was not, like, it just was not a fun place to be and spend time.

Ian

00:45:18 – 00:45:23

And it's like, no. Laravel's like, no. We're gonna just level that up. Like, just a little bit. Like, it's just like yeah.

Ian

00:45:23 – 00:45:39

Maybe it's a $100 more ticket, right, than it would have been if you had it at the airport hotel. But that difference is like a humongous difference of the quality of the event and the good the time everybody has and all those things. And that's kinda how Laravel itself is. Right? It's like, well, you could use these other frameworks, but, you know, it's like, oh, there's these little

Aaron

00:45:39 – 00:45:40

side effects

Ian

00:45:40 – 00:45:41

and everything. Right? Yeah.

Aaron

00:45:41 – 00:45:42

It's like, oh, Laravel's good.

Ian

00:45:42 – 00:45:51

So clean and like this this niceties and all every little corner has got, like, something for you in it. And, yeah. So

Aaron

00:45:51 – 00:46:06

Yeah. That one that one conference I described just being in a Hilton and being super depressing, that was a a PHP conference that I spoke at. It was just plain PHP, and it was like, oh, guys. Like, this this is not I don't wanna be here. Yep.

Aaron

00:46:06 – 00:46:11

Because it was, you know, in the ballroom, and it was real drab and depressing. And so

Ian

00:46:12 – 00:46:48

Yeah. I think a lot of them it's sort of interesting thing that's, you know, the Laravel community really benefits from is how Laravel Inc has been able to support it through, you know, primarily products and some big sponsorships and stuff too that they get from some of the partners. But definitely a lot of the, you know, the products that they have. And so, like, I remember paying for these PSP conferences at the Horrible Airport Hotel, you know, $1200 ticket, $1100 ticket because, you know, that person running that event has to actually make money. So they're like, we're gonna do it at the airport hotel, but I still need to actually make money, because it's, like, part of my income for the year or whatever.

Ian

00:46:48 – 00:47:19

And so, you know, so Laravel label it and actually, a lot of time, do it cheaper and nicer because there is this, sort of funding engine in the center, which is really useful and I think helps the community out in a lot of ways. Like, now, of course, he has he has a team, and, that just helps Laravel grow faster and, all these improve like, prompt and all these other little niceties that are you wouldn't otherwise do, but because there's people that do it. Now we get these nice things, which is so cool.

Aaron

00:47:20 – 00:47:24

Taylor is empire. He is magnanimous and gives us free gifts.

Ian

00:47:25 – 00:47:29

Oh, boy. Now you were wait. Did you finish that?

Aaron

00:47:29 – 00:47:30

No. No. No. No. No spoilers.

Aaron

00:47:30 – 00:47:38

Okay. Okay. I watched, I think, 2 episodes this weekend. So Alright. I think I'm into episode 5 or 6.

Aaron

00:47:39 – 00:47:50

Starting to pick up. Finally, like, finally, Empire is starting to, like, do stuff, and it's not just we're building libraries on other planets. And so, yeah, it's it's getting better.

Ian

00:47:50 – 00:48:02

Yeah. I I feel like the end of the second season was definitely the best chunk of it, across the 2 seasons. So we'll see. I guess the writing writing strike, I think, is done. So we're near done.

Ian

00:48:02 – 00:48:07

Yeah. So I guess we'll get some new TV shows at some point down the line here.

Aaron

00:48:07 – 00:48:08

Yeah. I hope so.

Ian

00:48:09 – 00:48:17

Alright. So, one more item on the official list here is you had this, tweet about reading the doc straight through. Oh, good tweet.

Aaron

00:48:17 – 00:48:18

Great tweet.

Ian

00:48:18 – 00:48:20

Yeah. I thought it was it was getting action. It was,

Aaron

00:48:21 – 00:48:32

I got a retweet from Swift on security. Do you know Swift on security? Yeah. So whenever you get a retweet from him or her, that's good. Yeah.

Aaron

00:48:32 – 00:48:50

That's a good day. Yeah. I just had this you know, I put out a a PlanetScale YouTube video recently, and part of the shtick at the beginning was, like, I was reading the docs and found this part, and which is true. I have, you know, I have good the good parts of the MySQL docs behind me.

Ian

00:48:50 – 00:48:50

Mhmm. And

Aaron

00:48:50 – 00:49:12

I was kinda reflecting on, like, I don't I don't have an engineering degree. I don't have a CS degree. And a lot of the way that I have, like, become successful is I just read a lot of programming books, and in many cases, the documentation. And nobody else does that. No nobody nobody reads anything.

Aaron

00:49:12 – 00:49:25

Nobody reads anything. No. And so I just packaged it up into a tweet saying, like, if you want, like, the easiest way to gain a relative advantage is to read the documentation straight through. Just read it. Yeah.

Aaron

00:49:25 – 00:49:36

Read it straight through like a book. Don't reference it. Read it straight through. Same goes for technical books, and give you superpowers because nobody ever does it. And that's the relative advantage thing.

Aaron

00:49:36 – 00:50:05

Like, it it it is an absolute level up in knowledge, but in terms of a relative advantage over your peers, it's huge because you understand. So, like, what reading the docs straight through gives you is a map of the noble universe. And it it, like, it tells you the breadth of everything, like, let's say, Laravel. It tells you the breadth of everything that is there. And here's the thing, you don't have to remember it all.

Aaron

00:50:05 – 00:50:25

But then that gives your brain that gives your brain a spot, a bucket to put things in the future. Yeah. Right? So you read the doc straight through. You retain 30% of it, but what you have retained is, like, this fibrous network structure of things that exist.

Aaron

00:50:25 – 00:50:40

And then when you see a tweet or you see, like, a hacker news or an article or something, you now have a slot to put that in because you have a structure of, like, oh, these are yeah. I remember, like, that's that kind of corner of this section of whatever.

Ian

00:50:40 – 00:50:41

Yep.

Aaron

00:50:41 – 00:51:06

And it also, like, helps you realize, like, the available offerings in terms of maybe methods or classes or functions or tips or tricks. Like, reading these chapter 8 of the MySQL docs is all about optimizations. And it's just like, there are so many things that the authors of of the product or the library are telling you that are good optimizations

Ian

00:51:06 – 00:51:07

that

Aaron

00:51:07 – 00:51:27

I would have never ever thought about. And here's the thing, would have never thought to look up because I don't know what optimizations I don't know, and that's the whole point. And so I feel like reading it gives you an and a breadth that then you can slot things in later and also exposes you to, like, oh, there's a method for that. Never knew that. I will just use that method from now on.

Ian

00:51:27 – 00:51:49

Right. Yeah. Totally agree. I think that's definitely how I did stuff, especially early on. But, yeah, even now, like, it's sort of like people try to get it somewhat through osmosis of, like, being just involved in the community and following all the right accounts and stuff, but there still isn't still not quite the same as digging down in there and reading through the docs fully.

Ian

00:51:49 – 00:52:06

And it's a lot like we talked about with accounting. Like, this is what I took from my accounting degree, and it's exactly what you're describing. It's like you sorta know that stuff exists in this area, whatever that area is. You don't remember the details at all, but you know you can go look up the details. So it's like by reading it straight through, it's like, yeah, you get that impression on your brain.

Ian

00:52:06 – 00:52:15

And so when you hit that problem, it's like, yeah, you don't remember the method or the system or whatever, but you know, oh, like, there is a solution for this out there. There. I recall reading something about

Aaron

00:52:15 – 00:52:16

this. Read something.

Ian

00:52:16 – 00:52:37

Yes. Then you can go dig around and just reference the material. But, yeah, if you hadn't actually read it to begin with, then you're not going to even know that, and you're gonna try to come up with your own crazy solution or just search off in a different direction rather than knowing that there is a proper solution with whatever system you're using there. So, yeah, I think that's a a great tip.

Aaron

00:52:38 – 00:52:48

The most unhinged response that I got to that was somebody telling me they said, this advice is insanely dangerous.

Ian

00:52:49 – 00:52:53

Okay. Insanely dangerous. Bizarre. Okay.

Aaron

00:52:53 – 00:53:04

And they went on they went on to, tell me that 99% of people put off their creative pursuits until they die. It's like, what?

Ian

00:53:04 – 00:53:06

What what are we talking about? Where I

Aaron

00:53:06 – 00:53:25

said read the docs, man. Right. And it was basically, he was trying to convince me that reading the docs is a form of procrastination from doing the things that you really want to be doing with your life. And I'm like, I don't know, man. I'm just saying if you work with if you work with Laravel, reading the Laravel docs is good.

Aaron

00:53:25 – 00:53:43

I told him I told him, I think this is the most milk toast take of all time. Like, if there's a manual reading manual good, like, so greg brained. But yeah. Wow. But once it gets outside of your circle, you start to get you start to get some some chaotic replies.

Aaron

00:53:43 – 00:53:47

And insanely dangerous was not one I thought I was gonna get. I'll be honest. Yeah.

Ian

00:53:47 – 00:54:02

I I would not have expected that take, I have to say. I mean, I get other takes, like, you might wanna say, oh, it's stupid because now we have AI and you don't want to just just tell AI your problem and it gives you the answer or whatever. Okay. Fine. But, like yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't see that at all.

Ian

00:54:02 – 00:54:16

Faye, it's it's helping you pursue your pursuit. Right? That's what I'm saying. If you know how to build what you're trying to build in a better way, you'll probably do a better job at it and are somewhat more likely to succeed. Yeah.

Ian

00:54:16 – 00:54:18

Do you have a what are your favorite docs to read?

Aaron

00:54:19 – 00:54:39

The Laravel docs are extremely well written. Love Laravel. And very, very perusable. Like, you could you can easily read those straight through. There are 2 chapters of the MySQL docs that I have found to be worth their weight in gold, and that's chapter 8, which is literally called, like, optimizations.

Aaron

00:54:39 – 00:54:56

And it's just, it's just, you know, 200 pages of things you can do to go faster. And then I think it's chapter 11, which is data types, and that's where you learn all the stuff that's like, well, time stamp only goes to 2038, so be careful. And it's like, oh, shoot. That's really good to know. Yep.

Aaron

00:54:56 – 00:55:25

So chapter 8 and chapter 11 of the MySQL docs. And then a lot beyond documentation, a lot of like technical books, even on even on stuff that, like, I feel like I already know, I'll pick up a technical book. And the thing is, I don't like, there will be entire chapters that I skip. So, like, when I'm reading the MySQL technical book, I don't read, like, replication and setting up your servers. And it's like, I'm just not ever gonna do that.

Aaron

00:55:25 – 00:55:50

Like, I'm gonna use I'm gonna use a hosted provider, namely PlanetScale, and I'm just not gonna worry about, like, how to wide tune the NODB buffer pool. And so I think a lot of the intimidation of reading technical books is, like, oh, I gotta read all this stupid stuff I don't know about. And it's, like, yeah, you can skip over parts of it. You really can. Like, if you know that there are sections that, like, you don't you don't have to worry about, then just skip it and read the good stuff.

Aaron

00:55:50 – 00:55:55

So, yeah. Do you have a do you have a a soft place in your heart for anyone's documentation?

Ian

00:55:56 – 00:56:25

I mean, I mean, I the Laravel docs is, like, why I got involved in Laravel, and that was even way back at the beginning. And, you know, there was just that craftsmanship there to them where you could read them as opposed to everybody else's docs, which are just, like, you know, bizarro land. You have no idea what's going on. I think definitely still a huge differentiator for most open source projects is just, like, spend that time in the docs. Just tenfold had mentioned this book once, and I I did I was surprised you had read it.

Ian

00:56:25 – 00:56:38

It's definitely one of the ones I had mentioned this book once, and I I did I was surprised you had read it. It's definitely one of the ones I love best. It was I don't even remember the act name, but it's like the original MySQL O'Reilly book. It's like Jamie Zwinski or something like that. Yeah.

Ian

00:56:39 – 00:56:49

It's an awesome book. Definitely what taught me MySQL, and that's when I read cover to cover because it was, like, written so well. It's like, oh, we can just read this. Like which is the nice part about book over pure docs because, like

Aaron

00:56:49 – 00:56:49

Sure.

Ian

00:56:49 – 00:57:08

The book has an editor. The book is, you know, usually gonna be somewhat more readable than the kind of coders who are slapping the other docs most of the time. So that is nice if you're targeting something that's big enough to have a dedicated book for it, then, that's a way to go, which I think is also like a lost thing. Thing. Right?

Ian

00:57:08 – 00:57:13

Like, who thinks about buying a programming book? Definitely not something I've thought about in a while, but at the

Aaron

00:57:13 – 00:57:15

same time These books

Ian

00:57:15 – 00:57:15

right here.

Aaron

00:57:15 – 00:57:18

There you go. These books right here. Yep. They're everywhere.

Ian

00:57:18 – 00:57:21

Get out there and buy those books. Buy Master offers Laravel book.

Aaron

00:57:21 – 00:57:22

That's right.

Ian

00:57:24 – 00:57:38

So, yeah, I think those things, but there was something else I was doing recently too. Oh, when I was in was single store. I basically did it. I did skip a few elements, but I read through a lot of it because it's like, yeah, this is, like, totally different.

Aaron

00:57:38 – 00:57:39

Totally different.

Ian

00:57:39 – 00:57:58

So I can't just hop into, you know, the one section I need. I need to know a little bit more about what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the most recent one where I read through a high percentage of the documentation, which also then gives you a nice feel for, like, like, I actually think their documentation isn't my favorite, which is like No.

Ian

00:57:58 – 00:58:17

Like, that's a little bit of a a bummer there and, like not. Yeah. A consideration for me at least of, like, that that the docs aren't as fully realized as I would like, in areas, which is just a good thing to know about projects too, I think. And so yeah. So but definitely agree.

Ian

00:58:17 – 00:58:27

Definitely don't think it sets you back. If anything, it's just, like, making the time for it when you have stuff going on. It's, like, can be difficult. But, but, yeah, I definitely think it's worth

Aaron

00:58:27 – 00:58:37

doing that. Would be Tailwind docs. Oh, yeah. Tailwind docs are extremely readable and extremely pretty and visual. Those would be a

Ian

00:58:37 – 00:59:01

good one. Great way to get in like, to learn, like, what modern CSS does. Like, yeah, whenever I go through there, I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, there's all this stuff that now they've made so nice for you, but also just you know it exists, and could be a useful 5 years ago, and now all the browsers

Aaron

00:59:01 – 00:59:11

support it. Exactly. Yeah. You could We can use it. For any enterprising inter individual out there, you could read through the Tailwind docs and come up with 100 tweets, and I Right.

Aaron

00:59:11 – 00:59:17

Guarantee you, like, 25 of them would just totally pop off because nobody else knows it's there.

Ian

00:59:17 – 00:59:20

Right. Nobody's going and doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:59:20 – 00:59:51

I think yeah. Certainly, also just, like, on the business side of things, I think there's like, if you're you know, I think I've talked to a 1000000 people who've been like, oh, I wanna do a SaaS or I wanna do a product or whatever, and I don't have my ideas or all my ideas are bad. Like, reading the docs seems like a great spot to me of, like, going in there and getting ideas for, like, both dev products, but even just like, hey. Is there some new capability a product has or an open source package has that, like, other solutions aren't utilizing? Maybe you can leverage that in some different way.

Ian

00:59:51 – 01:00:21

Like, just idea generation, it could be an interesting way to go about that too. So, yeah, and like you said, like, certainly for audience building and things like that, like, get in there and just, yeah, expose these interesting things that nobody else is talking about because nobody else is on, yeah, chapter 42 of whatever system. And, Internet's a big place. There's a lot of people out there who are needing information and interested in acquiring it. So Yep.

Ian

01:00:21 – 01:00:23

And who don't wanna read the docs.

Aaron

01:00:23 – 01:00:29

That's exactly right. That's why you get the relative advantage. That is exactly right.

Ian

01:00:29 – 01:00:29

Yep. Exactly.

Aaron

01:00:29 – 01:00:34

So stay tuned for more insanely dangerous ideas such as reading the docs.

Ian

01:00:35 – 01:00:40

Man, I almost feel like that should have been podcast titled material, insanely dangerous ideas. Like, that's

Aaron

01:00:41 – 01:00:43

we haven't we haven't titled it. We could still title it.

Ian

01:00:43 – 01:00:46

Yeah. We can do it. We might have to do that. Yeah. That's it.

Ian

01:00:46 – 01:01:02

I might be the one. I'm Alright. Well, another good ep. Thanks everybody for listening. If you, wanna get in touch with us, mostlytechnical.com, mostlytechpod on x, and mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com.

Ian

01:01:04 – 01:01:08

Send us some feedback. We'll cover it on the show. See you next week.

Aaron

01:01:08 – 01:01:10

Talk to you next week.

Galaxy Quadrant Theory

Transcript

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