Teaching Databases, Writing PHP, and Independent Work with Aaron Francis

August 27, 2024

Today's episode is with database educator, PHP enthusiast, and all-around good guy Aaron Francis. Aaron is one of the best out there at delivering high-quality educational content. Somehow, he's managed to have three different video courses sell over $100k in wildly different fields -- a college corporate accounting class aide, video screencasting, and high-performance SQLite. In this episode, we talked about a lot of things, including: - Why (and when!) to use SQLite - What courses he's looking at next - How to stay sharp when doing educational content - His origin story as a programmer - Getting kids to be high agency - How PHP became classy. Links https://www.epicweb.dev/why-you-should-probably-be-using-sqlite https://highperformancesqlite.com/ Timestamps Intro 01:41 Why SQLite 03:31 When to use SQLite 09:14 SQLite Creators 14:20 Holy smokes 17:29 jsonb Indexing? 22:07 SQLite Course 23:54 Vendor Specific Courses? 26:17 Postgres Course Timing 30:26 Nights and Weekends 30:46 Getting into Databases 35:38 Going back to Programming 39:22 In 20 years 40:48 Kids 42:08 Making money is a skill? 47:52 Balancing Video Creation and Programming 50:43 Sustainable Business 54:23 Doing SaaS 56:13 Working for someone else 57:38 Secret Sauce for Video Content 58:34 PHP 01:05:56 Taylor and Laravel 01:13:31 Vue 01:18:39 Wrap-up 01:20:41
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Transcript

Alex
00:00:00 – 00:00:11
So you're you're on your own end doing a lot of video creation now. How do you keep up your programming skills when you're not full time, you know, digging in the muck anymore?
Aaron
00:00:12 – 00:00:23
Yeah. That's the risk, isn't it? Because then at some point your, your skills stay in 2024 and it becomes 2030 and you're out. It's over. Like, you've lost it.
Alex
00:00:23 – 00:00:37
The first thing you start with is SQLite and and high performance SQLite is is the the course that came out. For this course itself, I know you you released and there are, like, a couple chapters still yet to be released. Like, what are you what are you looking for for finishing that up timeline wise?
Aaron
00:00:37 – 00:00:48
Yeah. So I finished yesterday all the JSON stuff. So that that is done, and I'm finishing today all the full text stuff. So that'll be done. And then we'll be, like, we'll be done done.
Alex
00:00:48 – 00:00:51
Okay. So what's the timing for the the Postgres course?
Aaron
00:00:52 – 00:00:56
So it will be announced here on the show. This is the first time people are talking about it.
Alex
00:00:56 – 00:01:04
Let's go. Hey, folks. This is Alex, and I'm super excited because today we have Aaron Francis on the show. Aaron is awesome. He's probably my favorite educator out there.
Alex
00:01:04 – 00:01:19
Like, he's really good at just teaching in-depth stuff in the database world, which I care the most about, but also just like PHP. I'll watch his PHP video, just anything, he's teaching, I want to watch. So it's really great stuff. We talked a lot about, SQLite. We talked about databases.
Alex
00:01:20 – 00:01:32
We talked about raising kids and the, qualities we want to raise in them. How do you stay sharp when you're a creator? He taught me about the PHP ecosystem. Just a lot of great stuff here. And Aaron is, is like a really good hang and, and just a super nice guy.
Alex
00:01:32 – 00:01:42
So check it out. If there's anyone you wanna have on the show, if there's questions you have, feel free to reach out to me or Sean. But other than that, let's get to the show. Aaron, welcome to the show.
Aaron
00:01:43 – 00:01:45
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Alex
00:01:45 – 00:02:02
Yeah. Well, I'm excited to have you. I'm guessing most folks know who you are, but in case they don't, you know, I would just say, like, database Maven, like, top tier educator guy and just just all around good guy on Twitter. But, those are some high level stuff, I guess. Like, maybe introduce yourself to the to the audience here.
Aaron
00:02:02 – 00:02:04
Yeah. I like all around good guy. That's a good brand. I like that.
Alex
00:02:04 – 00:02:06
That's what you're aiming for.
Aaron
00:02:06 – 00:02:32
Yeah. So I think database educator is probably most pertinent to your audience here. Historically and continuing, actually, a Laravel developer, which is a PHP framework. And I'm I've been doing education for a while, but more in the past, you know, maybe 3 or 4 years, I've gotten much more heavily into database education. I still fancy myself as a developer.
Aaron
00:02:32 – 00:02:48
I just happen to really like teaching, and so I've done I've done a few, a few courses on databases and then just randomly, like, on, you know, screen casting and stuff like that. So I just I really enjoy making stuff, in and around the web development ecosystem.
Alex
00:02:49 – 00:02:56
Yep. Yep. Well, I imagine you have, like, the broadest range of video courses that anyone's ever had. You have, like like, accounting and screencasting.
Aaron
00:02:57 – 00:02:58
I know.
Alex
00:02:59 – 00:03:01
SQLite of of I guess yeah.
Aaron
00:03:01 – 00:03:12
A broad range is a nice way to say it. Totally chaotic is another way to say it, but yeah, I've got a course for sophomores at Texas a and M on introduction to financial accounting. So yeah, we're, we're all over the place.
Alex
00:03:12 – 00:03:39
That's that's incredible. So, yeah, I think, you know, I I've seen just like your star kind of take off over the last couple of years and it's been fun and it's, it's been cool this year. I think to see you be like, Hey, I'm going all in on, on education and especially like database education. And, it's been fun to watch that journey with, with your podcast, but like the first thing you start with is SQLite, and and high performance SQLite is is the the course that came out. First thing I gotta say, like, why SQLite?
Alex
00:03:39 – 00:03:41
What what, I guess, grabbed you there.
Aaron
00:03:42 – 00:04:13
Yeah. So being, you know, being a a PHP developer, I got my start with MySQL because that was kinda like that's all we did. It was it was LAMP stack, you know, I guess for me it was MAMP stack or, back in the day WAMP. So I've kinda done them all. And then, you know, I I've seen SQLite get a lot of attention in the past several years, and I had never really, explored it very much because I thought it was one thing, and it turns out it is it is not that thing.
Aaron
00:04:13 – 00:04:25
And what I thought it was was like, you know, baby's first database. That's kinda what I thought. Right? It was like, hey. This is this is the light version of one of the real things that you wanna use.
Aaron
00:04:26 – 00:04:35
And so I started seeing a lot of people talking about it and people that, you know, you and I both know, like, and trust, like Kent C. Dodds. It's like, oh, no. SQLite's great for everything. I'm like, really?
Aaron
00:04:36 – 00:05:09
So I investigated it and found out that there have been a lot of strides in the past several years to make it, production capable for web applications. You know, I think it's been production capable for, you know, hardware embedded stuff, that kind of stuff for a super long time, And it seemed like a lot of fun. And so I I, you know, I came out of a MySQL, company. And so once I came out of there, I was like, hey. Let me pick up my head and see what's going on out in the wide world.
Aaron
00:05:09 – 00:05:20
And SQLite caught my attention. And it's so it's so my SQL adjacent that the the jump was very easy. And so I spent, you know, a couple months reading and learning, and that's where the course came from.
Alex
00:05:20 – 00:05:38
Yep. Do you do you have any sense of, like, what spurred some some of those improvements lately? I like, it seems to be having a moment and there's, like, a couple independent things going on both, like, with Terso, but also LightStream. Like, is did something happen that sparked that, or did a bunch of nerds just sort of, like, get excited about it at the same time? You
Aaron
00:05:38 – 00:06:27
know, I think nerds get excited, and things go in waves, but I think this happened, my point of view is it kind of happened as part of the TikTok cycle, not TikTok, but, like, the Tik tock cycle, you know, the pendulum swinging, from, from, like, overengineered complexity to under engineered simplicity, and I feel like the the pendulum is a little bit swinging back towards y'all. Why are we making everything so complex? And that's not necessarily only true in the database space, but it's true in in entire the entirety of web development. And you could say that maybe that is partially due to money not being free anymore, and suddenly everybody's like, oh, shoot. We need to do more with fewer people or fewer resources.
Aaron
00:06:27 – 00:06:47
And so I feel like, SQLite kind of hit hit the perfect part of the life cycle where people are like, god. We really need to simplify our stack. And SQLite turns out has been there for 20 years, literally, 20 years, maybe what are we in? 2024. So twenty 4 years at this point.
Aaron
00:06:48 – 00:07:21
And it's a culmination or a coincidence of, the the industry swinging back, but also individual machines becoming more powerful. And so one of the, historical and and continuing drawbacks of vanilla SQLite is it's gotta be on the machine. And so as individual machines have become more powerful, it's just easier to scale everything up vertically and be like, alright. Well, I'll just make a frigging huge machine and be done with it. And so I feel like some of those things happened altogether.
Aaron
00:07:22 – 00:07:54
And then Terso came along. Terso is a it is a hosted SQLite company, but they also have a fork of SQLite called LibSQL because as you know, but not everyone knows, SQLite is open source, but it is not open contribution. So it is tightly guarded by this group of, I think it's 2 or 3 guys that have been working on it for 25 years. And, you know, it sounds crazy to be like it's open source, but you can't you can't commit anything to it. I kinda respect it.
Aaron
00:07:54 – 00:08:07
I I kinda love it that they're like, hey. Listen. We started this in the year 2000, and we're committed to doing it until the year 2050, and we're just we're just gonna do it our way. That's like, I can't that's kinda great. Good for y'all.
Aaron
00:08:08 – 00:08:36
But and their team came along and were like, I would love a few extra things, and so we're gonna fork it. And their stated intention is if they ever allow pull requests, we'll give everything back. But since they don't, we're gonna maintain LibSQL. And so Lib SQL, has a lot of the modern afford modern affordances that we've come to like with other databases. And so I feel like it's maybe a few things conspiring all at once.
Aaron
00:08:37 – 00:09:06
The desire for simplicity, the rise of more powerful machines, a little bit more modern SQLite, and then finally, maybe just like the the bootstrapper indie hacker ethos that we see in someone like Kent c Dodds or Levels. Io or frankly, DHH. You know, their new thing is running on SQLite for operational simplicity. And so we're seeing some of these big, we'll say developer influencers saying, hey. SQLite is good enough, and I'm gonna use it.
Aaron
00:09:06 – 00:09:13
And that kind of runs cover for everyone else to be like, well, they said that they can use it so I can use it too. And so it's all those things together.
Alex
00:09:14 – 00:09:23
Yep. Yep. So if I was, like, gonna be making a new app and I asked you, hey. Is SQL right like, right for this? Are there, like, certain questions you would ask about that, or would you like, yeah.
Alex
00:09:23 – 00:09:27
I guess, like yeah. In what cases should I use SQLite?
Aaron
00:09:27 – 00:10:04
Yeah. That's a great question, and I think that is the right question. And I, I tend to take a very, like, it depends approach, and I'll give you concrete a concrete answer, but I'm never gonna be I'm never gonna be the person that's like, you should use x for all situations. It's like, ah, even the thing I love most in the world, not most in the world, most in the development world, Laravel, I'm gonna say, yeah, it's great for a lot of use cases, but you don't have to use it. So when should you use SQLite or maybe maybe better, when should you not use SQLite?
Aaron
00:10:04 – 00:10:27
The, the biggest drawback in my opinion of vanilla SQLite, and I'm not gonna really talk about LibSQL slash Terso. They cover a lot of these drawbacks, and I think they're fantastic. But I think it's interesting to talk about vanilla SQLite. The biggest drawback is the it's a freaking file. It's a file, and it's gotta be on a machine.
Aaron
00:10:27 – 00:10:47
Right? And so already you're like, well, that sure does limit that sure does limit a lot of what I can do. Right? Because if the file if the file has to be next to your application, that dictates certain architectures, which may not be amenable to certain applications. Right?
Aaron
00:10:47 – 00:11:11
And so if you're saying, man, with the amount of traffic we're running, we have to have 8 web servers. It's like, well, where's the single file going to live then? You're kinda hosed. Right? And so if you look at something like Campfire, which is, 37 signals, their new, once.com product, which is a service where you can buy software, which is crazy.
Aaron
00:11:11 – 00:11:35
You don't have to rent it. You just buy it, and then you host it yourself. They just basically say you gotta run it on one machine. And the, the operational simplicity more than makes up for the one machineness in that case. And so, you know, if you're talking about how much can SQLite handle, the answer is a whole lot.
Aaron
00:11:35 – 00:12:11
Like, it can handle many hundreds of thousands of reads per second and many, many tens of thousands, if not more, writes per second, but it's on one machine, and you can only have one concurrent writer at a time. And so depending on the mix of your traffic and the load and everything, it's like, it might not it might not be worth it. And another time where it's a really bad idea is if you end up needing, like, actual big data, not, like, pretending to be big data. Right? So once you get once you get into many terabytes, it's like, hey, y'all.
Aaron
00:12:11 – 00:12:37
This this database is a single file, and where are you gonna put a single file that is 8 terabytes large or even 1 terabyte of a single file? It's kinda hard to pull off. And so I think the docs say that, like I forget the actual number. Something silly where it's like, yeah, technically SQLite supports up to 264 terabytes or something. But even in the docs, they're like, if you're gonna do that Don't do that.
Aaron
00:12:37 – 00:13:02
Don't do that. Like, just use use a different use a different database. They're very explicit, and I think a little bit, too conservative. The the creators are very explicit that SQLite competes not with MySQL and Postgres, but with f open, you know? And so it's like they're saying we're not actually a competitor to MySQL, and I think that has changed a little bit.
Aaron
00:13:02 – 00:13:16
I think they're being a little bit too humble there, but, you know, truly huge amounts of data, truly multiple concurrent writers. I think some people hear that and they're like, well, I need, you know, I need to write many times a second. And you're like, yeah. Yeah. That's okay.
Aaron
00:13:16 – 00:13:55
Like, we'll just call that concurrent and pretend that it's concurrent because to the human, it is. And then finally, that thing that we talked about, which is it's on a machine. So if you need network access, you're you're gonna need something else that is a client server model and not an embedded model. Because once you put, once you put SQLite on a, you know, a network attached device or something, stuff starts to kinda get a little hairy because the you know, it depends heavily on the file locking implementation, and they that can be a little wonky on network attached drives or network storage. So if you need network access, it's just really it's not right.
Aaron
00:13:55 – 00:14:19
But I think, I think beyond those problems, SQLite should be considered for, should be considered for your application. You may look at it and decide, actually, I don't like, the limited support for types in SQLite, and so I'm not gonna use it. That's fine. That's totally fine. I just think it should be in consideration more often than it is.
Alex
00:14:19 – 00:14:27
Yep. Okay. You mentioned the creators, like, 2 or 3 guys are just doing this. Are they are they, like, full time active, like, still doing this all the time? Are they Oh, yeah.
Alex
00:14:27 – 00:14:28
Like, what's
Aaron
00:14:28 – 00:14:29
yeah? It's wild, man.
Alex
00:14:29 – 00:14:35
And then how do they make money if it's, like, this open source? Like, do they just have consulting contracts with, like, giant companies or what?
Aaron
00:14:35 – 00:15:12
Yeah. So that's a little opaque to me. I have you know, I've read enough stories to know a little bit about where it comes from, but, yeah, they so the guy the main guy is, I think it's DRH, which is confusing because we also have DHH in the world, but it's d Richard Hipp is his name. And he originally wrote it back in the day to be an offline database for literally a battleship and because it was like, I I you know, I'm working for a military contractor in the military, and we need something stable and offline. And he has said many times, if I knew you weren't supposed to write a database, I wouldn't have written a database.
Aaron
00:15:12 – 00:15:33
And yet it's like, well, what you what you don't know can't hold you back. And so I kind of adore that. But, yeah, they they've been working on it for 20 years. It is the official, archival format of the Library of Congress, which is kind of a big deal here in the States. And I have read their revenue comes from many places.
Aaron
00:15:33 – 00:15:54
So originally, like, back in the day, I think it was either Nokia or Motorola or something like that needed a special feature because, you know, all these phones use SQLite databases. Google Chrome, SQLite database. Like, trillions of SQLite databases in existence. And so you have these big manufacturers that are like, hey. We're Apple.
Aaron
00:15:54 – 00:16:07
Literally, we're Apple, and we need you to do a thing. And he's like, great. That's a $1,000,000. And they're like, who cares? So that's, you know, that's one source of revenue is, like, priority support, priority features, that kind of stuff.
Aaron
00:16:08 – 00:16:45
I have heard through the grapevine that they also have an unbelievably robust private test suite to test against, the SQL standard. And so for other people that are implementing new databases that are these, you know, newfangled who'sey whatsits, they're like, well, we kinda need to test our implementation against what people generally perceive to be the SQL standard. You know, this is like the whole xkcd. There's, like, 15 standards, but, you know, they they have this incredible test suite, and so people like new
Alex
00:16:45 – 00:16:48
That can work for any sort of database or something.
Aaron
00:16:48 – 00:16:48
Exactly.
Alex
00:16:48 – 00:16:50
Oh, wow. That's amazing.
Aaron
00:16:50 – 00:17:08
And so new companies, while they're implementing like, hey. We've invented HTAP. Well, we got a test against SQL. They'll license out that private test suite. And then they have, they have a test suite that, like, is public, but I think the one that they license out is is pretty closely guarded secret.
Aaron
00:17:08 – 00:17:13
So I think the money comes from a bunch of different places. It's it's not totally clear to me.
Alex
00:17:13 – 00:17:18
It's almost like JEPson it's like JEPson testing, but for SQL standard or something like that.
Aaron
00:17:18 – 00:17:29
Yeah. Something something like that. And I have I've I've heard from employees of of companies that we have all heard of that they licensed the SQLite test suite. So, yeah, it's kinda interesting.
Alex
00:17:29 – 00:17:48
Okay. So SQL, like, SQLite we talked about is is, like, probably the most unique among the relational databases because of that file type thing. I guess, like when you were sort of learning about it, were there any like holy smokes that that's neat kind of surprises, like other than just like the single file thing, but like any like features or, or anything like that, that was, that was unique.
Aaron
00:17:48 – 00:18:31
I think the the biggest holy smokes thing is, like, you and I have been trained n plus ones are bad. You know, like, you you don't wanna make a bunch of queries. You gotta you gotta, like, eager load and you gotta, you know there's, like, sometimes query decomposition is better, but most of the time, you wanna send it all over the network, let the database do the thing, and get it all back. And that model just, like, goes away when when the database is right there because, you know, if you're like, alright. We gotta send it over we gotta send it over the network, and that's, you know, on a good day, 5 milliseconds, 3 milliseconds, whatever, and then you get it back, and it's like, ah, that's not so bad, but you don't wanna do that a 100 times.
Aaron
00:18:31 – 00:18:46
Right? That's why you got an eager load instead of n plus 1. That's just not true with SQLite because instead of milliseconds to get to the data, it's like whatever's way, way smaller. Nano, micro, yakto, whatever. You know, whatever's the smallest possible.
Aaron
00:18:47 – 00:19:18
That's how fast it is because it's right there. It's not going over the network. And so there's a little bit of a fundamental there's a little bit of a fundamental shift where it's interesting to see what possibilities that opens up when you're no longer working in the same universe of constraints that you're you've been trained to work in. And so you get stuff like even on the SQLite docs, they'll show you at the bottom how many queries ran on the page and how long it takes. And sometimes it's hysterical.
Aaron
00:19:18 – 00:19:23
It's like we ran 400 queries to satisfy this page, and you and I are thinking like, why?
Alex
00:19:23 – 00:19:24
Why did you do that?
Aaron
00:19:24 – 00:19:31
And then you look at the time taken, and it's like point 1 milliseconds. You're like, ah, okay. Cool. That that rules. Good good for y'all.
Aaron
00:19:31 – 00:19:50
And so that opens some interesting things about, like, what if we reimplemented Redis in SQLite? Well, that's kinda interesting, and people have done that. You know? This becomes a cache driver. And then the idea on that on that note that you could have a new database for everything.
Aaron
00:19:51 – 00:20:00
So cache, new database. Jobs, new database. Application, well, do you have tenants? Give them all a database. And you're like, wait.
Aaron
00:20:00 – 00:20:20
This makes no sense to me. But when the overhead of creating a new database is literally like touch aaron dot SQLite. It's like now Aaron has his own tenant database. You're like, oh, that's kinda awesome. And so those things, were really interesting to me coming out of more client server architecture for databases.
Aaron
00:20:21 – 00:20:42
And then the loosey goosey nature of it, I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's just like they have taken a stance, which I I I make no moral judgments about, but they have taken a stance that if you give us data, we'll keep the data. And so, like, if you declare a column as an integer and you're like, hey. I actually wanna put FUBAR in there. They're like, great. That's awesome.
Aaron
00:20:42 – 00:21:06
We'll hang on to it. It's like, is that good or is that bad? I don't really know. And you can see the author's point of view when you read the docs that they were basically strong armed into adding a strict table, and so now you can say, like, this is a strict table. If you give us fubar when we expect an integer, we're gonna throw an error, but that's because you guys made us do that.
Aaron
00:21:06 – 00:21:21
It's like they don't really like the fact that it it's there. And in fact, even on a strict table, you can still have an any column. And so you can have a column and declare it as an any and be like, don't know what I'm gonna put in here, but you better freaking hang on to it. And they're like, great. We love that.
Aaron
00:21:21 – 00:21:45
That's our preferred method. And so that was another, like, totally bizarre out of left field design decision, that I don't super love, but I can see that it's useful, especially if you implement a cache in SQLite. You can do a key value, and the value can be anything. Frankly, the key can be anything. And so there's just some weird stuff that when you get in there, you're like, this is not what I expected.
Aaron
00:21:45 – 00:21:52
Some of it's really awesome, like the multiple databases and the zero latency, and some of it's bizarre, like this the the flexible typing.
Alex
00:21:52 – 00:22:05
The flexible typing, that really surprised me, especially given, like, you know, like, what you said about the test suite and the way I've heard about their test suite is just like, they seem like super strict. Like everything must be precise type people, but then just like, Hey, we'll do, we'll take
Aaron
00:22:05 – 00:22:05
anything here
Alex
00:22:05 – 00:22:20
in this column. We'll take anything. That's that's pretty wild. Do they have, like indexing, like JSONB indexing or things like that? Like, can you index, you know, net like, nested JSON in a column, or is it more just, like, you know, traditional B tree type stuff?
Aaron
00:22:20 – 00:22:56
So it follows more of the MySQL method, which is you they have robust support for JSON and JSON columns and JSON functions. They actually, stole sounds bad, they actually were inspired by Postgres for JSON b. And so while there aren't, there aren't JSON columns, they, you store the JSON as text because it's SQLite and you just YOLO anything anywhere. You store the JSON as text, but you can also store it as JSONB, which is the, you know, the parsed binary representation so you don't have to reparse it over and over and over. And they say in the docs like, hey.
Aaron
00:22:56 – 00:23:10
Postgres did that, and we thought it was a great idea. So we have that now too. It's like, cool. Way to go, guys. But in terms of Postgres' gen indexes over JSON, in the same way that MySQL doesn't have that, SQLite doesn't have that.
Aaron
00:23:10 – 00:23:40
So you're stuck or you're limited to create a generated column that extracts the key or the values or whatever that you want out of the JSON blob and throw an index over that. I would have to confirm. I know MySQL has functional indexes where you don't actually have to create the virtual column, but under the hood, it uses a virtual column. You can just throw a functional index over anything. I seem to recall that SQLite has functional indexes in the same way.
Aaron
00:23:40 – 00:23:54
So you could just say, like, hey. Use this SQLite JSON function to extract this key from this JSON blob and then put an index on that, which then functions as a traditional index. We don't get the cool gen stuff that that Postgres has.
Alex
00:23:54 – 00:24:04
Okay. So for and then for this course itself, I know you you released and there are, like, a couple chapters still you have to be released. Like, what are you what are you looking for for finishing that up timeline wise?
Aaron
00:24:04 – 00:24:17
Yeah. So I finished yesterday all the JSON stuff. So that that is done, and I'm finishing today all the full text stuff. So that'll be done. And then we'll be, like, we'll be done done, which is gonna which is gonna feel really nice.
Aaron
00:24:18 – 00:24:37
There's a part of me that wants to claim it was strategic to launch it in early access and then be like, and then, you know, get a discount, and I'll finish it later. But it was really it was really like, I just gotta get this freaking thing out the door even if it's not done. And so, you can think I'm a genius, but I've just I just had to get it launched.
Alex
00:24:37 – 00:24:39
Do you start to hate it after a while?
Aaron
00:24:39 – 00:24:45
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I resent it big time. Yeah. I'm like, this this freaking database will never die.
Aaron
00:24:45 – 00:25:01
Yes. I absolutely start to resent it, and that's why I took, you know, 2 or 3 weeks just off off, and then I came back to it and had a little bit more energy. So, yeah, that'll be done. I mean, I don't know when this is gonna come out. Today is, you know, I I don't know if I'm allowed to say.
Aaron
00:25:01 – 00:25:03
Today is a date. It'll be out maybe next week.
Alex
00:25:03 – 00:25:04
August 22nd.
Aaron
00:25:04 – 00:25:51
Okay. So hopefully by the next week by August 29th, it'll be the the next two modules will be out. And, you know, we worked we worked very closely with Terso on this course, and Terso sponsored the course very generously. And it kinda came down it's an interesting thing to have a, a course on an open source technology that you can run all by yourself and never speak to another human about it, and then have a cloud company sponsor it and be like, actually, you should use us instead. And so it's an interesting, like, how do I remain true to the material and pure as an educator to teach you the things you need to know, but also do right, like, do my duty by the sponsor, whom I actually really like and and trust.
Aaron
00:25:51 – 00:26:17
And so kind of the way that I came down on that was I'm gonna teach you everything vanilla. We're not gonna use Libsql. We're gonna use SQLite. I'm gonna teach you the hard way, and if there is an easy way, I'm going to mention by the way, if you don't wanna do everything I just showed you, then you can go use Tersho. And I feel like that kinda cut that that kinda, like, satisfied 2 masters, which, you know, we we were told is impossible to do, but I think it's okay in this case.
Alex
00:26:17 – 00:26:26
Do you think you'll aim for a sponsor, like, for every course or just, like, sort of it works out and you and you find a good match that, like, philosophically and things like that? Or yeah. What are you thinking there?
Aaron
00:26:26 – 00:26:40
Yeah. I think it I think it it it's nice. Right? Because if we can do it in a way that I feel, I feel comfortable with, then it's a nice little bonus for everybody. Right?
Aaron
00:26:40 – 00:27:01
So for me and Steve, I have a partner in the in the business named Steve. For me and Steve, it's a nice way to get some money up front. It's not enough to justify the cost of doing the course, which is a huge amount of effort, but it is enough to, like, put some food on the table in the meantime, which is nice. Right? Because courses are risky because you might put in a huge amount of effort, and then everybody's like, nah.
Aaron
00:27:01 – 00:27:30
This is stupid. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet, but it's totally possible. So next is Postgres. We're we're doing Postgres next, and we have a a sponsor for Postgres. And so we we are trying to do that model because then for the business, they get to be associated with what I like to think is very high quality educational material, and they get to be associated with it in such a way that it is, it does fly under the radar of most developers.
Aaron
00:27:31 – 00:27:57
Like, you know, they they get their guard up. It's like, I don't wanna be marketed to. But if they come and they are being taught high quality stuff that is vendor independent and then also being pitched like, yeah. But if you don't wanna do that, there's a great vendor that I that I trust. So to the extent that we can find companies that we like, that we believe in, and that want to partner with us in that way because they can't strong-arm us to be like, teach a course about Tersos.
Aaron
00:27:58 – 00:28:16
Like, that's fine. I would do that, but that is fundamentally different than a course about SQLite. So if we can, you know, if we can continue to to get sponsors in that regard, yeah, we'll absolutely do it. If we can't, I'm not gonna sacrifice, teaching a vendor specific thing just to get paid. I'm not gonna do that.
Alex
00:28:16 – 00:28:26
Yeah. For sure. I know early on when when you and Steve sort of went out, you talked about different offerings, including, like, helping companies with their own stuff. Are is that something you're still looking at? Or you're just like, hey.
Alex
00:28:26 – 00:28:29
We're so good at these courses and, like, let's let's just get a few of those going.
Aaron
00:28:29 – 00:28:56
Let's let's say that it's because we're so good, but in reality, it's because we went out there and the market was like, we don't want that. So the the original offering or one of the original offerings as we were trying to figure out what are we gonna do with our lives, one of the offerings was, hey. Y'all y'all, the market, not any individual company, y'all have 5 people on your Dev Ed, DevRel team. You're spending $1,000,000 a year. They're making videos that are average.
Aaron
00:28:57 – 00:29:09
Why don't you give us a little bit of that money, and we'll come and help level up your team? And everybody was like, that sounds great. We don't want that. Will you make videos for us instead? And I was just like, no.
Aaron
00:29:09 – 00:29:21
I can't be the face of every company. I don't I don't wanna do that, and I don't think it's wise to do that. And so the resounding answer from the market was cool idea, bro. We don't want it. And so we just kinda dropped it.
Aaron
00:29:21 – 00:29:22
We don't do that.
Alex
00:29:22 – 00:29:29
Yep. Do you think is that because, like, front of the camera talent is the hardest thing to is that, like, the hardest thing to find?
Aaron
00:29:29 – 00:29:50
Maybe. Yeah. I think I think that is I think that is a hard thing to find. I think what we heard was that people like our dev ed team, our DevRel team is busy already, and we want more. We don't necessarily want better from the people that are doing the work.
Aaron
00:29:50 – 00:30:14
We need more and different things. And then I think some some people were like, we want to leverage you, Aaron, and your audience to bring eyeballs to our brand, and that's just fundamentally different. Like, that's fine. I'm okay with that. I'm okay taking sponsors for our YouTube channel, but that's fundamentally different than let's help your team make the best thing in the world.
Aaron
00:30:14 – 00:30:17
They're like, no. No. No. We want a new audience. I'm like, alright.
Aaron
00:30:17 – 00:30:26
Well, I could either fight with everybody and be like, try to convince them why they're wrong, or I could just change what we're offering, and we decided to change what we're offering.
Alex
00:30:26 – 00:30:30
Yeah. For sure. Okay. So what's the timing for the the post credits course?
Aaron
00:30:30 – 00:30:46
So it will be announced here on the show. This is the first time people are talking about it. I've I've said anything, but it will be announced early September, so a couple of weeks. And then, I I've been working on it already, so this is gonna sound like an insane timeline, but it'll be released mid October.
Alex
00:30:47 – 00:30:58
Wow. That is that is insane time. Are you are you like a 9 to 5 worker of, like, videos? Are you like an an Ambler, but you just manage to get a, like, how do you yeah. What's your, what's your workflow for something like that?
Aaron
00:30:58 – 00:31:12
Just a lot of anxiety is the answer. I you know, this is now my full time job, so that helps. Right? So I'm not like, I'm not a nights and weekends anymore. Like, when I launched streamcasting.com, it was a nights and weekends guy doing it.
Aaron
00:31:12 – 00:31:32
And it was like, I'm literally where I put the kids I've got a 1,000,000,000 kids. You know, I put the kids down, and then after that, I'm, like, working from 8 PM to 2 AM in the morning trying to record videos about how to record videos. I don't ever wanna do that again. That was terrible. So now, you know, it is, it's more it's too much right now.
Aaron
00:31:32 – 00:31:47
I will say that for sure. It's too much right now. Right now, it's about a 7 AM to 5:45 or 6. And the reason it starts early is because I don't miss dinner. Like, I I do have 4 kids under the age of 4, and so I go home for dinner.
Aaron
00:31:48 – 00:32:07
And then by, you know, by night, I'm just totally gassed. So, and it helps that, you know, I have Steve, so I'm not editing my own videos anymore. I'm not, I'm not managing customer support. We just hired somebody part time to to help us not only do customer support, but, like, to run my life. That was kind of the that was kind of the charter for her.
Aaron
00:32:07 – 00:32:27
It was like, listen. You're in charge of Erin now, so you do everything and and, like, order me around. And that has just been that's just been incredible. I highly recommend hiring your own boss. So, yeah, it's a lot, but I do have things going for me, which is full time extra help, able to just kind of focus on that solely.
Aaron
00:32:29 – 00:32:35
But, yeah, it's too much. We won't do it. We won't do it back to back like this again. SQLite Postgres was was too tight.
Alex
00:32:35 – 00:32:44
Yep. Do you have something that's not relational in the future and not necessarily like NoSQL, but even like Redis or Elasticsearch or something like that?
Aaron
00:32:44 – 00:33:20
Yeah. So that is, very much on my mind and I think a little bit out of my grasp. And so, like, for example, SQLite, I had never I I'd used it before. Like, everyone's kinda dabbled with it, but I'd never used it in a serious way. But it's so adjacent to the stuff that I know and have known for 2 decades at this point that I felt comfortable that with concentrated effort reading, you know, however many books are back there, reading 6 books about it, and printing out the docs and reading the docs, I can get to a point where I feel really confident.
Aaron
00:33:21 – 00:33:36
If I were to try to teach Dynamo, it is just a fundamentally different paradigm and a paradigm that I've never used in production. So, like, if I had used what's a core what's a what's Dynamo adjacent? Like, what's another one?
Alex
00:33:36 – 00:33:37
Cassandra or something like that. If I
Aaron
00:33:37 – 00:33:54
had used Cassandra in production for 10 years, I would be like, yeah. I'll pick up Dynamo. Different different flavor of the same thing. I I don't think I can just pick up Dynamo to teach it, and I don't feel like that would be not honest. I don't feel like it would be dishonest.
Aaron
00:33:54 – 00:34:16
I just don't feel like I would be confident in reading 4 Dynamo books and then being like, I'm a dynamo guy because I'm I'm just not. And so Redis is a lot closer. It's not, you know, it's not in the same family, but I've used it a ton. And so I feel like I could get there. Elastic, that feels tough because, again, I've never I've never used it in a serious way.
Alex
00:34:17 – 00:34:33
Yeah. Yeah. Elastic is the one that I feel like 5 years ago could have really used a good resource on. So it's like, you can do so many dang things with it and no one knows how to use it. I feel like it's sort of getting desegregated now where you have like time series over here, you have like some specific text search options.
Alex
00:34:33 – 00:34:38
You have, like, your log search options and things like that. But for a while, I think I think there's a good opportunity there.
Aaron
00:34:38 – 00:35:12
The one that's outside of my wheelhouse that I do have my eye on and I do plan to try to learn if, you know, time permitting is DuckDV. That feels like that feels, SQLite adjacent in philosophy, but fundamentally different in workloads, and that's, like, super interesting to me. So I have the curiosity to get there on that one, and I I'm like, yeah. If I, you know, if I play with it for long enough, I feel like I could get there. But the other stuff, I'm like, they're they're just they're better people to do that, and that's really not my wheelhouse.
Alex
00:35:12 – 00:35:25
Yep. Yeah. That deck d b one would be, like, a good one following up on Postgres too, because you're seeing like some integrations between those 2. Like, I think like Crunchybridge and ParadeDB, all they have integrations there. So, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Aaron
00:35:25 – 00:35:38
Yeah. And people that like SQLite like DuckDB, because it's say philosophically similar, and so you could have 2 different workloads with kind of the same philosophy. And so, yeah, it seems really interesting, and it seems like they're doing cool stuff, which is always fun to watch.
Alex
00:35:38 – 00:35:43
Yep. How did you how did you get into databases, like, as a interesting topic area?
Aaron
00:35:43 – 00:35:54
Yeah. I come from an era where you just did it all. Right? So, you know, when I was 13, I let's see. If I was born in 89, 13 would have been 2,002 or something.
Aaron
00:35:54 – 00:36:01
Does that sound about right? We'll call that right. That's live math. So back then, it was like, oh, you wanna make a website? Great.
Aaron
00:36:01 – 00:36:07
You gotta learn Apache. You gotta learn PHP. You gotta learn MySQL. You gotta learn CSS. And so, like, what came by it?
Aaron
00:36:07 – 00:36:31
Honestly, it's also in my blood. My dad was a DBA. So my dad was a SQL Server DBA, and so I grew up around that sort of stuff. So, like, I'm, you know, I'm sitting at the living room computer, you know, giant desktop tower thing, and I'm like, dad, I don't understand what's happening. And he can, like, walk over and explain he can explain Bee trees and pages to me when I'm 13, and that's just people most people didn't have that.
Aaron
00:36:31 – 00:36:56
And so, you know, it's kinda like I inherited it, and it also fits my brain super well, which is why I studied accounting in college because it's the same like, accounting is basically databases but for business people. It's like, hey. We've got 8 rules that you must follow, and everything falls under these 8 rules. Now go figure out how to run a business using these 8 rules. And I'm like, oh, that's awesome.
Aaron
00:36:56 – 00:36:59
And so it's kinda like that's just how my brain works.
Alex
00:36:59 – 00:37:06
Yep. Yep. I loved I loved accounting too in high school. And, I went to law school and I like love the tax classes. Cause it's like the same way.
Alex
00:37:06 – 00:37:13
It's just like programming. I guess like, so you started programming when you were like before college, you had some background.
Aaron
00:37:13 – 00:37:14
Oh, yeah.
Alex
00:37:14 – 00:37:19
I like accounting is interesting, but why didn't you just, like, stick with programming? It seems like way more fun to be programming.
Aaron
00:37:20 – 00:37:41
It turns out it is. I'm not an accountant. So programming was just a hobby all the way through up until, you know, college, and there was part of me I don't know if I made the right decision. I'll just start there. But there was part of me that thought, I don't wanna ruin my hobby, and I will continue to
Alex
00:37:41 – 00:37:49
Wait a second. Wait a second. When you say part of you that doesn't know if you made the right decision in switching back to programming or in No. In Oh, in in the original. Programming.
Aaron
00:37:49 – 00:37:51
Yeah. In doing accounting. Yeah.
Alex
00:37:51 – 00:37:52
Okay. Okay.
Aaron
00:37:53 – 00:38:15
So part of me thought I don't wanna ruin my hobby. Part of me saw what my dad went through in 2001, 2, 3 when the industry imploded, and he was, like, out of a job for a while, and I thought, what's safe? Accounting. Accounting is safe. As long as you don't work at, you know, Arthur Andersen, which audited Enron and then it went away.
Aaron
00:38:15 – 00:38:40
So, like, accounting generally is safe. And I I was originally gonna be finance, and then I took a few accounting classes as a part of that curriculum and just absolutely fell in love and did that for 5 years. I got my masters and I passed the CPA exam. I did the whole thing. I went to work at Ernst and Young, and while I was there, I realized that it sucked.
Aaron
00:38:40 – 00:38:55
It was just awful. It was so bad. Like, in school, everything is, like, cathedrals in the sky, and it's like, theoretically, what would happen if you did this? It's like, I bet I can figure that out. And then you get to you get to a big four accounting firm, and it's like, hey.
Aaron
00:38:55 – 00:39:09
There are numbers on this form. Put them on that form, and that's what you do all day. It's like, oh, shoot. I have made a huge mistake. So I stayed 1 year because that's how long I had to stay to get to make sure that my CPA bonus didn't get clogged back.
Aaron
00:39:09 – 00:39:19
I think they gave me $5 for passing the exam, and I was like, I'm 21. I can't afford to pay it back. And so after 1 year, I was like, y'all, this is for the birds. I'm out of here.
Alex
00:39:19 – 00:39:19
And I
Aaron
00:39:19 – 00:39:20
just went back to programming.
Alex
00:39:21 – 00:39:28
Wow. And, and then, like, what was that like? Did you just like go get a programming job somewhere? Did you, yeah, I guess like, yeah. What, how, what was that transition like?
Aaron
00:39:28 – 00:39:57
Yeah. So during the year that I was there, I was doing, you know, how, when you're a programmer, everybody's like, oh, well, my brother-in-law needs some help programming. It's like there's like a 4% chance I can do what he needs. But, you know, I picked up a few of those jobs while I was at Ernst and Young, and I was doing stuff on nights and weekends because I thought I gotta build a way out because I knew I knew within the 1st month, this is not gonna work. And so I started taking on, you know, side work nights and weekends, June programming stuff.
Aaron
00:39:57 – 00:40:22
And then just like story of my life, I was just blogging about learning how to do things and, like, hey. I discovered this in this PHP framework pre Laravel. And so after I got out of Ernst and Young, I, you know, I live in Texas and a company from California called me and was like or I guess emailed me and was like, hey. We saw your blog post. Do you wanna work for us?
Alex
00:40:22 – 00:40:22
And I was
Aaron
00:40:22 – 00:40:41
like, what's going on? Like, I just spent 5 years getting credentialed, and I went through this whole recruiting season that lasts a full semester and barely, like I'm thrilled to get in a job, and then I you just email me. You're like, do you wanna work for us? Like, what a difference of industries. And so after I got and I said, yes.
Aaron
00:40:41 – 00:40:48
Of course. Because I was like, yeah. I would love a job. So after I got that, like, once you're in, you're in, and I just kinda hopped around ever since then.
Alex
00:40:49 – 00:40:54
Yep. Yep. Okay. Do you think you'll still be a programmer in, like, 20 years?
Aaron
00:40:55 – 00:41:20
Yeah. I do. My I'm I'm trying to formulate, like, the right way to say this, and I I I wanna write about it someday, but I haven't figured out the right way to say it. My focus in I I look beyond programming. It's like I my end desire is not to be a great programmer.
Aaron
00:41:20 – 00:41:46
My end desire is to build great things, and it just so happens that programming has allowed me it has afforded me the opportunity to do that. And so because since I as literally as long as I can remember like, I remember have a brother who's 2 and a half years older, and I remember being at home one summer day and asking him, hey, Jonathan. What do you wanna build today? And he's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I wanna build something.
Aaron
00:41:46 – 00:42:15
What do you wanna build? That has been me forever, and turns out software or, like, being a developer is just frankly the best way to create something from literally nothing. Ex nihilo, I'm going to create. And so I think in 20 years, I'll still be building, and frankly, I it'll probably still be the best way to build things. I don't think I'll ever give up projects, and I I think development is gonna be the way that I do that forever.
Alex
00:42:15 – 00:42:33
Yep. Yep. I wanted to ask you about that because, like, I don't know if you're, like, super high agency or just like creative or whatever, but you're like always doing stuff. And that's like one of the, there are like 2 or 3 skills I want my kids to have. And that's like, one of them is just like high agency slash like, go do it.
Alex
00:42:33 – 00:42:44
They'll be scared of it. Do you think that's like just born in you? Like since your brother didn't have it or like, is it, how, how would you cultivate that? Do you try to cultivate that in your, your young kids? Like, yeah.
Alex
00:42:44 – 00:42:45
How do you think about that?
Aaron
00:42:46 – 00:42:58
Absolutely try to cultivate that in my kids. So my kids are I have 2, 3 year olds and 2 8 month olds. And so, like, concrete yeah. Two sets of twins. Concrete example, puzzles.
Aaron
00:42:58 – 00:43:20
Puzzles are big. We're into puzzles right now, specifically puzzles with dinosaurs on them, which is like, is there anything more pure than a kid doing a puzzle that has dinosaurs on it? And so the kids are always asking me for help with the puzzles and with everything because they're kids. They don't know how to do anything. And I'm always my response is always, you can do it, but I'm here to help you if you need it.
Aaron
00:43:20 – 00:43:32
Like, why don't you try it first? And then if you need help, I am right here, and I am gonna do everything in my power to move heaven and earth to help you, my child. But it's always, why don't you try? What have you tried it? Give it a go.
Aaron
00:43:32 – 00:44:15
See what happens. So, yes, I always definitely try to cultivate that in my kids. That is, I think something that I was born with the seed of, but have specifically tried to, cultivate that in myself, frankly. Specifically, I think in the past maybe maybe 10 years, so, like, into adulthood, I've tried to, I became aware of this term high agency, and I thought that is the way that I want to live. And it's a constant it's a constant battle of, trying to, like, fulfill that to fulfill that role in my own life of being high agency.
Aaron
00:44:16 – 00:44:42
But I very much ascribe to, like, the you can just do things mentality. Like, I don't want to, I think I don't want to have reached the end of my life, not in, like, a morbid way because I know that's gonna happen, but let's say the end of my career. I don't wanna reach the end of my career and think, oh, you could've gotten so much more if you just, like, I don't know, tried. Like, what's the worst that could happen? Some people think you're an idiot?
Aaron
00:44:42 – 00:44:56
Well, that's okay. Actually, people aren't thinking about you at all. They're thinking that everyone else is thinking about them. We're all living in this world where everybody's like, ah, I wonder what people think of me, and the reality is nobody thinks about you at all. And so I don't wanna, like, get to the end and be like, dang.
Aaron
00:44:56 – 00:45:16
You had a lot of opportunity, but you sure were scared. And so that's, like, the thing that I keep in mind because when you're competing with, like, the fear of putting yourself out there and being made to look a fool and the fear of looking back on your life and regretting it. Woah. Shoot. 1 of those is much bigger than the other, and so we just we go with the less scary option.
Alex
00:45:16 – 00:45:23
It it's true one is bigger, but one is, like, so much more immediate too. It's like So much more immediate. It's pain today if I have to go look stupid. So
Aaron
00:45:23 – 00:45:35
Yes. It is so much more immediate, but there's, like, this fundamental, like, deep soul fear of looking back and regretting this. Like, oh, gosh. I can't bear to even think about that.
Alex
00:45:35 – 00:45:46
Yep. Yep. With your 2, 3 year olds, do you see a difference in them in, like, in the puzzle stuff of, like, one is just, like, persistent. I'm gonna go do it, and one's, like, gonna go find you more quickly, or do you not see
Aaron
00:45:46 – 00:46:06
100% entirely different. Yeah. They're they're they are twins, but they're boy, girl, so they're fraternal, and they their personalities were evident. This is not just like a folksy dad thing. Their personalities were evident from the moment they came out of the womb.
Aaron
00:46:06 – 00:46:31
My daughter, just fierce and strong and, like, independent. When she came out, she screamed her head off. My son, gentle and, like, and and pure. And when he came out, he was sad. And, like, that has that has persisted into into now the the 3 years of their lives.
Aaron
00:46:31 – 00:47:12
My daughter will run headlong into a wall if if you tell her not to. She's gonna be like, I'm gonna do it anyway. And my son is just it's just so gentle and all of the teachers and the kids and everybody loves little Simon. They love Amelia too, but it's just like this, Simon is so sweet and gentle, and Amelia is so intense and so powerful, and it's so great, like, it's wonderful to have both, and for them to be the same age and tell each other, like, you're both, you're both doing the right thing and you could also be more like your sibling, and that would that would be fine too. And it's like, we have everything.
Aaron
00:47:12 – 00:47:13
It's awesome.
Alex
00:47:13 – 00:47:21
Yep. That's oh, man. That's so it's so much fun to just, like, see their personalities grow up and, like, how how early they're evident. Yeah. It's it's wild.
Alex
00:47:22 – 00:47:22
It's wild.
Aaron
00:47:23 – 00:47:31
Yeah. It's crazy. It's great. And we have, you know, we have another set of twins, and I can't tell their personalities at all. Can't tell them at all.
Aaron
00:47:31 – 00:47:52
They're both just as chill as could be, and I guess maybe that's their personality, but it's a boy girl set as well, and they are both they're the exact same as each other. They're both super chill. They're both super smiley, and they just kind of, you know, sit there and watch their older siblings run-in circles. And it's like, I don't know what y'all are gonna be like. So it is, you know, we, I feel like we have the whole, the whole spectrum.
Alex
00:47:53 – 00:48:04
Yep. Yep. On that same topic of like agency and habits or skills you want to see in our kids, do you think making money as a skill? Like, do you agree with that sort of idea?
Aaron
00:48:05 – 00:48:07
Yeah, I do a super do.
Alex
00:48:07 – 00:48:14
Yeah. Do you, I guess, like, how do you think you are at it? And is that something you want to try and like encourage in your kids from a young age?
Aaron
00:48:15 – 00:49:03
Yes. A 100%. I think I'm very good at it and have always been very good at it. And I think so I think, for example, my dad is very bad at it, and my dad is potentially one of, if not the smartest people persons that I know, but he just doesn't have that, like, he doesn't have that thing where he can turn it into money. And I think the I think the fundamental flaw there, not necessarily with him, but what I see what I observe in a lot of people in the world that are that are similar, that are incredibly intelligent but can't crack that nut, is I see a lot of people, and it's very common amongst developers, honestly.
Aaron
00:49:03 – 00:49:29
I see a lot of people that look at the world and say this is not the way that it should be. I am going to fight, and I am going to claw, and I'm going to change the system. And that's fine. In some in some aspects of my life, I am the exact same way. People on the outskirts, people that have people that have no leverage, people that are that are marginalized, like, I'm like, we gotta change the system.
Aaron
00:49:29 – 00:49:47
But when it comes to my company, I I don't have I don't work at a company, so I'm allowed to say this. My company calls me a family, and that's that's toxic, and I'm gonna change this. It's like, man, I don't care. Like, call me a family. I don't care.
Aaron
00:49:47 – 00:50:37
I don't believe it, but I am not going to I'm not going to agitate inside of a company, make everybody mad at me, and then end up getting, you know, laid off or put on a PIP or something because it's like that guy, Aaron, never shuts up about how everything is broken. It's like, I can I can fight that system or I can just operate within it knowing full well that when a company calls me a family, they're doing it so that I think that we're a family and I don't go anywhere, but they'll fire me at any moment? It's that kind of thing where it's like you have to decide which systems do you wanna rage against. Like, do you wanna rage against the machine, or do you wanna observe the rules of the system and operate within them to your advantage? And most of the time, I want to observe the rules of the system, operate within them to my advantage.
Aaron
00:50:37 – 00:50:40
And I think that has worked pretty well for me so far.
Alex
00:50:40 – 00:50:55
Yep. Yep. For sure. So you're, you're on your own end doing a lot of video creation now. How do you keep up your programming skills when you're not full time digging in the muck anymore?
Aaron
00:50:55 – 00:51:06
Yeah. That's the risk, isn't it? Because then at some point your, your skills stay in 2024 and it becomes 2030 and you're out. It's over. Like, you've lost it.
Aaron
00:51:07 – 00:51:27
I really like programming. That's how that's how I do it. And, so I continue I continue to actually program. So, like, for example, our, you know, high performance SQLite dot com, serves all of our videos and everything, and that's just a platform that we wrote. Me and Steve together just like it's a Laravel back end of UJS front end inertia in the middle.
Aaron
00:51:28 – 00:51:40
We just we we do it. We just still do it all. The other thing is I don't feel pressure. Well, I don't feel the effects of pressure. I get outside pressure to be like, hey.
Aaron
00:51:40 – 00:51:46
Can you compare, can you compare Next. Js with Laravel? And I'm like, nope. Can't. Don't know Next.
Aaron
00:51:46 – 00:52:03
Don't wanna know Next. Don't wanna work with it. It's fine if you like it, but I'm not gonna offer an opinion on it because I I don't know anything about it. And the same with, like, something that I do have a ton of respect for is rails, and people are like, what are the differences between Laravel and rails? And I'm like, that's a great question.
Aaron
00:52:04 – 00:52:22
Don't know. Couldn't tell you. And so that that I feel like keeps me, it keeps the, it keeps the options narrowed such that I can continue to to, like, teach about things that I actually know. And that goes back to Dynamo, like, meh. Don't know.
Aaron
00:52:22 – 00:52:43
Can't do it. Not gonna do it. And so while people do ask me that, and I think I see a lot of other, like, developer creators trying to be super broad and learn a new stack every day. And to me, for my personality, that's exhausting. I could not have 30 half finished projects in different stacks and be happy about it.
Aaron
00:52:43 – 00:53:06
Because like I said, my, the thing that I focus on is in fact beyond being a good developer and it's building things. And so what I wanna do is build things, so I stick with the stack that that I like. And occasionally it's like, ah, the curiosity bug has bitten me. I will read the entirety of the documentation for this thing. And that's where, like, that's where the new stuff comes in.
Aaron
00:53:06 – 00:53:18
But primarily, I just stick to what I to what I like, and I continue to go deeper on that. And so the well of what I can teach is just overflowing because I'm always doing something from which new ideas to teach spring.
Alex
00:53:18 – 00:53:28
Yep. For sure. Do you think you so then content wise, do you think you'll go outside databases, but into something you do know and love, like PHP, Laravel, something like that?
Aaron
00:53:28 – 00:54:00
Yeah. There's a very there's a very real possibility where by this time next year, I've got, high performance Laravel, for example, or I've got, Laravel from scratch or something like that. There's also, this is a higher possibility, that I teach a school a course on ScreenFlow. So I've got screencasting.com, which is, like, philosophically, how do you record screencasts well and quickly because, boy, are they a pain. But I'm gonna do a course on the particular software that I use, which is ScreenFlow.
Aaron
00:54:01 – 00:54:23
And, yeah, they're they're definitely it's gonna expand outside of databases, but it's not gonna expand outside of things that I want to teach, which I think is like that is the ultimate boundary circle. I'm just I'm not gonna teach TypeScript. I don't know TypeScript and I have no desire to learn it. And so anything inside the circle of interest, it's fair game.
Alex
00:54:23 – 00:54:31
Yep. Do you have a sense of, like, this is how many courses I need to do a year going forward? Do you think about it that way? Or is that a bad way to think about it?
Aaron
00:54:31 – 00:54:45
Oh, yeah. Super do. So we've been public about this high performance SQLite did $130,000 so far, which you hear that and you're like, wow, Aaron's rich. Woah. Hang on.
Aaron
00:54:45 – 00:54:58
Hang on, friendo. So there's me and Steve, which already divide by 2. We have a part time employee. We have self employment taxes. I've got, you know, a wife that works very hard, but doesn't get paid for it and 4 kids.
Aaron
00:54:58 – 00:55:18
And, so, like, that gets sliced and diced 2 bits immediately. And so, yeah, there's a big question about, like, how do we make this a sustainable business? Like, we did a very successful course launch, which is awesome. Better that than a an unsuccessful course launch or a poke in the eye. Right?
Aaron
00:55:18 – 00:55:40
Better better to be successful. Then the real question though is how do you turn that into a business? And that's something that, like, Steve and I are a 100% trying to figure out. And I think some of it will be launch new courses, but then the more interesting thing that we're trying to figure out is, the SQLite course is not out of date. So how do we how do we market?
Aaron
00:55:40 – 00:55:56
How do we come up with something sustainable? How do we make it evergreen? How do we leverage new courses to sell old courses? Like, when we launch Postgres, are we gonna see a spike in SQLite? Because we have tension shined upon us that's like, oh, you don't like Postgres?
Aaron
00:55:56 – 00:56:13
Well, we've got this other thing. So, yeah, we're trying to figure that out. Like I said earlier, these the pace that we're on now is not sustainable, but we are in we are in a mode where we have to get to a certain velocity, and then we can coast, but we're not at coast yet.
Alex
00:56:13 – 00:56:21
Yep. Yep. Do you think do you anticipate trying to do a SaaS again or anything like that, or do you think you'll stay in content for a while?
Aaron
00:56:21 – 00:56:49
Yeah. I do think there's a path, and I and I hope that this path emerges, frankly. I do think that there's a path where in the course of our work and our audience growth and our distribution slash attention because that's the game we're in. Like, yes, I am an educator at my very heart. I am an educator, but the game we're in is distribution.
Aaron
00:56:49 – 00:57:07
Right? And we currently have it. And so if we can get to a point where, a SaaS idea emerges or, a a SaaS partnership emerges, so somebody comes along and says, hey. I have built a SaaS, but I don't have distribution. You have distribution, but you don't have a SaaS.
Aaron
00:57:08 – 00:57:19
Like, that would be awesome. So I'm a 100%. Steve and I both are on the lookout for that. Steve is Steve is a unicorn. He's a video editor, developer, database dabbler.
Aaron
00:57:19 – 00:57:35
Like, he does it all. And so between the 2 of us, we're we're always on the lookout for in our course of work slash with the audience that we have and are growing, what is a good fit here? Because, yeah, this recurring revenue, can you imagine? That'd be amazing. I would love that.
Aaron
00:57:35 – 00:57:37
So but we're not we're not quite there yet.
Alex
00:57:37 – 00:57:44
Yep. Yep. What about do you have the goal of, like, hey. I'm never working for any for someone else again, or are you more like, hey. This is fun right now.
Alex
00:57:44 – 00:57:50
I like it. I wanna give it a shot, but, you know, who knows? Or if a good opportunity comes up, like, I'm fine with that.
Aaron
00:57:50 – 00:58:05
The goal is to never work for somebody else again for sure. But that doesn't mean that we wouldn't sell the company. Steve and I are both, like, somewhat uncomplicated. We're like, if somebody comes along with a huge bag of money, we're gonna sell the company. Like, yeah.
Aaron
00:58:05 – 00:58:07
Yeah. Perfect. Great. Sounds good. Yeah.
Aaron
00:58:08 – 00:58:21
So it's not like I have this I have this, pure, like, I must this this company is my life's mission. No. Not even close, but, like, yeah. Do I like working for myself instead of someone else? You bet I do.
Aaron
00:58:21 – 00:58:34
It's a lot more it's a lot more stressful right now, but it sure is a lot more fun. So, yeah, that would be that would be the goal is to either through this mechanism or some other mechanism continue to do stuff on our own with, you know, me and Steve.
Alex
00:58:34 – 00:58:52
Okay. So you've obviously been very successful with video content. So you've got 3 video courses that are 6 figures. You've got 2 channels that are, I don't know, 30, 40000 people, subscribers each. What, like, what can you tell me or tell others about video content and like how to be 6 out?
Alex
00:58:52 – 00:58:57
Do you watch a lot of video content? I guess, yeah. Broad broad ranging question here.
Aaron
00:58:58 – 00:59:23
I watch a lot of I watch a lot of maker content, and sometimes that is software developers on YouTube. Oftentimes that expresses itself as builders. Like, I watch a lot of woodworking YouTube. I watch a lot of homesteading YouTube, a lot of, like, construction YouTube. And, honestly, I think that informs my content a lot more than watching some other person that I'm ostensibly competing with.
Aaron
00:59:23 – 00:59:36
Right? Because what I don't wanna do is, like, watch somebody that's in the same space and be like, oh, shoot. They're doing it better. I gotta copy that. I think that's a I think that's a death knell for any creator to be like, I'm just gonna do what they do.
Aaron
00:59:36 – 01:00:12
There's part of me that thinks, doing what somebody else does is a great way to get started, but you have to pretty quickly decide, maybe not decide, you have to pretty quickly express who you are in the content versus trying to be somebody else. Because people, like, we we we like different movie stars. We like different restaurants. The fact the fact that Pizza Hut exists does not preclude Papa John's from existing. And so I think that same thing is true, which, by the way, I like both of those very normie pizza places.
Aaron
01:00:12 – 01:00:18
They're both fantastic. 1 and I'll order from both of them. And I think that's places. They're both fantastic. 1 and I'll order from both of them.
Aaron
01:00:18 – 01:00:39
And I think that, like, that is true in content. Right? So I what I see most often is people being afraid, just in life, full stop. But in content, people being afraid to express who they are and try to do something, like, let's say, Primagen or Theo does. Right?
Aaron
01:00:40 – 01:01:01
Instead of saying, like, you know what? I do things differently. Like, my I've taken certain stances that are contrary to what Prime or Theo do, which is no moral judgment against them. It's just, like, I have to do it my own way if this is going to be sustainable. So that's that's philosophical, like, you know, in theory how to be different or how to be successful.
Aaron
01:01:01 – 01:01:27
I think practically how to be successful is publish. That's it. That's the full answer. Publish. Like, you can sit around and watch Prime or Theo or me or Josh Siri or you or any of these people and be like, I'm gonna study, and that's great, Except that that becomes a a vector for procrastination and a vector to release your fears to be like, I can't do it yet because I'm not there yet.
Aaron
01:01:27 – 01:01:29
And you're like, no. No. No. No. No.
Aaron
01:01:29 – 01:01:47
The only way that anybody got there is they just put it out there, and they just kept going. I look back at some of my early stuff. I'm like, that's not very good, but I'm super proud of it because I'm like, you did it. I owe everything to that guy. That guy who put out that crappy video, I owe him my entire career.
Aaron
01:01:47 – 01:01:50
And so it's like, you just gotta get started.
Alex
01:01:50 – 01:02:08
Yep. Yep. But before you, like, really took off, did you know, like, hey, video is is sort of the type I wanna do, or did you, like, do a I you mentioned doing some blogging and getting a job from that. Like, I I guess, like, did you always think, like, hey. I like making videos the most, or was it just like, oh, you got some traction with that, and and it was like, this this is a good thing.
Aaron
01:02:09 – 01:02:37
I did not think I did not think that video was going to be my way out. I I I really didn't. I enjoy writing a lot, and I've I've written a lot, and I've done it for a long time, and I think I'm good at it. But I noticed so back when I, like, very first started doing video, I was also, like, trying to build software products as well, and it just wasn't working. And people kept being like, yeah.
Aaron
01:02:37 – 01:02:48
We don't we don't care about your SaaS, but we when are you gonna put out another video? And I'm like, y'all. The no. The whole point of the videos is to get you to go over there and buy my software. And people are like, yeah.
Aaron
01:02:48 – 01:03:34
I don't I don't get your software, but your videos are awesome. And that's again that goes back to, like, should I fight the world, which sounds exhausting, or in this regard, should I give them exactly what they're looking for? And it's like, ah, I am going to ride my bicycle downhill instead of riding it uphill. And so once I reali like, once I finally internalized, it's a very uncomfortable you have to understand it's a very uncomfortable realization to come to to to to realize that people want to see me on video because that feels very, like, self centered and egotistical to be like, The market is demanding more of Aaron. It's like, are they bud?
Aaron
01:03:34 – 01:03:48
Are you sure about that big guy? But once I finally internalize, like, Hey, people enjoy your content. You should do more of it. That's when it started to go downhill in a good in a good way. That's when it started to be a lot easier to to get there.
Alex
01:03:48 – 01:04:02
Yep. Do you do you get energy then from from that and realizing like, Hey, I'm a part of this is personality and things like that. Or are you like, is it tiring to be like, oh, I have to keep sort of this flywheel going? Like me personally has to keep this flywheel going.
Aaron
01:04:02 – 01:04:12
Yes. Yes. And yes to both. I get energy from it. Like I, I do get energy from, releasing a thing and hearing people say, like, wow.
Aaron
01:04:12 – 01:04:26
That was a really good thing you made, and I feel a sense of pride. And I'm not fighting against that. I think it's good to take pride in one's work. I think that is a good thing. I think it is a good thing to do work well even if nobody ever says you did a good job.
Aaron
01:04:26 – 01:04:55
So I think there's nobility in doing good work. I take pride in my work and I enjoy it when people say you did a good job. It is also exhausting. It it really is to have, because for everyone that says you're doing a good job, there there may be as many people saying, like, you did this wrong, and that, like, that gets to me. I'm not I'm not, like, a a very, I wanna say strong, but that seems bad.
Aaron
01:04:56 – 01:05:03
Yeah. I'm not very thick skinned. I'm not. When people say when people say, like, hey. That implementation was kinda stupid.
Aaron
01:05:03 – 01:05:14
I'm like, oh, man. Or, like, why do you why do you type the word clear in your terminal instead of hitting control l? Everyone knows that control l clears the terminal. And I'm like I
Alex
01:05:14 – 01:05:16
did not know that. I did clear all the time.
Aaron
01:05:16 – 01:05:23
I didn't I didn't know that. I just typed the word clear like an idiot. And everybody's like, What an idiot. And I'm like, shoot. This sucks.
Aaron
01:05:23 – 01:05:44
So, yeah, it definitely you know, it vacillates between I'm the smartest man in the world and why am I even doing this? And there's some of that that's healthy, like, you know, exposing yourselves to the extremes is healthy to, like, center you, but I would rather just not be exposed to extremes. But, I enjoy it. I enjoy the craft. I enjoy helping people.
Aaron
01:05:44 – 01:05:54
I enjoy people thinking that I'm good at it and taking the, sometimes constructive criticism and sometimes just mean people. I think that's just part of the game.
Alex
01:05:55 – 01:06:02
Yep. Yep. Okay. I wanna close off. I want you to educate me a little bit on PHP and more just like the ecosystems and the vibes.
Alex
01:06:02 – 01:06:03
Here we go.
Aaron
01:06:03 – 01:06:04
You're about to get PHP Pelt.
Alex
01:06:05 – 01:06:30
Well, like I would, I'm self taught I've always done like Python and JavaScript, so I would, I'm not like a snobby programmer at all, but I would say like my impressions of PHP before 5 years ago was like kind of janky and things like that. But like a lot of people in the ecosystem are really good at the craft. Like you and Taylor and Adam Wadden, I guess just like a, there's a lot of really good people.
Aaron
01:06:30 – 01:06:32
We've had a lot of, we've had a lot of graduates. Yeah.
Alex
01:06:32 – 01:06:42
Yeah. I guess, like, was I wrong there or was there some sort of shift that I just didn't realize? Like, yeah. What's the PHP story over the last 10 or 15 years?
Aaron
01:06:42 – 01:07:19
Yeah. The PHP story over the last 10 or 15 years is one of, I in my opinion, continual improvement on a couple of different fronts. One is, the PHP core, which I guess is like the PHP Foundation or whatever, the people actually in charge of the language. I have been continually impressed by the ways in which they are pushing the language. And so, like, at its very this is not vibes based, like, we'll get to vibes, but at its very at its very fundamentals, the language has gotten better.
Aaron
01:07:19 – 01:07:34
It's just gotten a lot better. And so, you know, we have a lot of, we have a lot of types that you can opt into. So if you're like, I love TypeScript. It's like, well, we also have types now. We don't have generics, but you can add generics with a, you know, a package.
Aaron
01:07:34 – 01:08:03
But we've come a long way on, like, type safety. We have come a long way on like, on stuff like, you know, enums and traits and all these like language levels features that have been added have come a long way. There's also a big interoperability group for PHP that puts out these, PSRs. I actually don't know what PSR stands for, but it's like we all agree on this thing and then we're gonna we're gonna codify it. Codify it?
Aaron
01:08:03 – 01:08:15
Codify. We're gonna make it a standard. And so we've got PSR 1 through, like, 14, 15, 16, or something like that. And that is what I see missing, frankly, in, let's say, the JavaScript community is, like, we have all these different
Alex
01:08:15 – 01:08:21
Wait. It's it's sorry. When you say PSR, these are, like, are these new features they're getting added?
Aaron
01:08:21 – 01:08:48
Like So these are these are, ways of working. So let's take for example, auto loading of files. So, like, in PHP, you've got, you know, classes that live in namespaces. And, so like if you've got an app slash models directory, you put your user and your bookmarks or whatever in there. There is a PSR, I think it's PSR 4, that codifies here is how we're going to auto load classes.
Aaron
01:08:49 – 01:09:15
And so every framework, Laravel, Symphony, YI, CodeIgniter, whatever, they all adopt PSR 4. And so when you're jumping back and forth between frameworks, you know if I put my class in this folder, then I can load it in another class by doing it this way. And so we've all standardized. So, like, code styling, I think, is a PSR. A cache implementation is PSR.
Aaron
01:09:15 – 01:09:39
So, like, if you have a cache package, and that's shoot. If it's PSR 14, maybe PSR 14 compliant, then you know, oh, I can just use any of these cache packages off the shelf because they're all PSR 14 compliant. There's a request response, PSR that says, like, hey. This is a PSR 7 response. And so you automatically are guaranteed, alright.
Aaron
01:09:39 – 01:10:01
Well, I've got these affordances on there, and I can swap out my implementations if I need to. And so there's this group and it's it's got a, you know, board and voting members. Taylor Otwell's a part of it. It's like, they put they put things up for vote and the group decides, like, yeah, we need a cache. Like, we need a cache interface that everyone can adhere to, and then you can do whatever you want in your implementations.
Aaron
01:10:02 – 01:10:20
And so that just become like, I feel like that, precludes the possibility that, like, a EJS, CJS thing could happen. Right? Because all the big frameworks get together and fight about it, and then they agree on something and we ship it. And it's like, alright. Everybody uses PSR 4.
Aaron
01:10:20 – 01:10:35
That's just how you load your files. Every package in the community must use PSR 4. And if you don't, nobody's gonna use your thing. And so that like that goes a super long way into making things, I guess, cross framework compatible or interoperable.
Alex
01:10:36 – 01:10:44
Interesting. Yeah. So it's not the language itself, but it's just like all these things that themselves have market share sort of operating in a similar way. Okay. Okay.
Alex
01:10:44 – 01:10:55
And I I had gotten the impression that Lara or PHP was like a ton of Laravel now. Are is there like like, is it pretty evenly split between or not evenly, but at least, like, Symphony and these other ones are also quite big?
Aaron
01:10:56 – 01:10:58
Symphony is quite big. Symphony Like,
Alex
01:10:58 – 01:11:01
is Laravel the most popular or Yeah. I'm not gonna okay.
Aaron
01:11:01 – 01:11:10
No. You're not wrong. There anyone that is a hardcore Symfony user right now is just screaming that, like, Symfony was there first. It's like, yes. I agree.
Aaron
01:11:10 – 01:11:29
Totally. You're right. Symfony is great. Symfony, in my opinion and then we were getting into hot take territory. In my opinion, Symfony suffers from, technical correctness where Laravel, has exceeded in what we now everyone calls developer experience.
Aaron
01:11:29 – 01:11:47
Right? And so while Symfony historically was very, very good, Laravel in fact builds on top of a lot of Symfony components. And so, like, we have the utmost respect for Symfony in the Laravel community. But there are just a lot more like, it's a lot more fight versus win again. It's like, hey.
Aaron
01:11:47 – 01:12:10
This is the technically correct way to do a thing, but we're gonna make it easy. Like, yeah, we're we're still gonna do it right, but we're just gonna make it a lot a lot easier for everybody. And then, like, that's at the that's at, like, the framework level. I think in the ecosystem level, that philosophy has extended from local development through to production. So, like, let's say you wanna fire up Laravel.
Aaron
01:12:10 – 01:12:39
Well, you can download Laravel Herd, and what Laravel Herd is a free tool that will set up PHP, MySQL, Redis, and Nginx, and and honestly, like a ngrok type of thing. It'll set all that up on your machine. You could go to the Apple Store or the Windows Store. I don't know what that is. You could go to the Apple Store today, buy a new MacBook, download Laravel Herd, and be up and running with everything you need to run Laravel in 5 minutes.
Aaron
01:12:39 – 01:13:19
And then that goes all the way through to there's a first there are actually 2, first party deployment solutions, for Laravel. So the creator of the Laravel framework has created a way in which you can deploy Laravel to either serverless with Laravel Vapor or any server with Laravel Forge. And it's like the entire life cycle slash journey of a Laravel application has been covered by the Laravel team, which is fundamentally different than something like rails where it's like, we give you rails and now we kinda give you Kamal, but you gotta figure like, Heroku has to exist. You know, you gotta figure out all the rest of it. The Laravel team has just decided, you know what?
Aaron
01:13:19 – 01:13:30
We don't have a base camp or a campfire or whatever. Our entire mission is to make tools for Laravel developers. It just makes our lives, like, really easy.
Alex
01:13:30 – 01:13:37
Yeah. Interesting. What what's the origin story of Taylor and Laravel? Like, I did Taylor Taylor worked for Ian. Right?
Alex
01:13:37 – 01:13:41
Like, did he make Laravel there and then spin it off? Like, what's how did how did this happen?
Aaron
01:13:41 – 01:14:08
Yeah. So the creator of Laravel is named Taylor Otwell. He, worked a long time ago for a guy called Ian Landsman with whom I host a a podcast, and Ian was out there looking around for he he was a PHP shop, you know, back in the back in the day. This is probably, gosh, 2011, 2010, something like that. He was looking for a PHP framework, and he happened across, the docs for early Laravel.
Aaron
01:14:08 – 01:14:32
I wanna say, like, 1, 2, or 3, very, very early on, and was, taken by how good the docs were. And so he reached out to this guy, Taylor, and was like, hey, man. What's the deal with Laravel? And it ended up that Taylor came and worked in house at Ian's company, and Ian gave him, like, 50% time to just work on Laravel. He's like, just go in the cave and make it better.
Aaron
01:14:33 – 01:14:52
You can open source it, but we need, like, hey. We need an active record implementation. You gotta go write a database driver kind of deal. And so Taylor worked there for a number of years, and then Laravel just outgrew outgrew, his his being employed. And so then it became an independent thing.
Aaron
01:14:52 – 01:15:10
And that was just why we call Ian the godfather of Laravel because he was like, he is, you know, he's more like the the patron or something of Laravel, but he really likes the godfather, so we give it to him. But, yeah, that's where it came from. And historically, Taylor, I think was a dot net developer. And so he took a lot, you know, he took a lot of inspiration from is Blazer a thing?
Alex
01:15:10 – 01:15:11
I've heard of that. Yeah.
Aaron
01:15:11 – 01:15:24
Yeah. Who who can say? He took a lot of inspiration from dotnet, a lot of inspiration from Ruby on Rails, but then implemented it in kind of the forgotten lands of PHP and just kinda, like, just kinda dominated.
Alex
01:15:25 – 01:15:33
Is do you think PHP is in, like, a noticeably different spot if, like, Taylor Atwell doesn't exist or just, like, stays in cheese sharp world? Like
Aaron
01:15:33 – 01:15:51
Yes. A 100% difference. My opinion of PHP is it has always been the working man's the working person's language. It's always been the language of the levels IOs. Like, it's always been the language of people who are like, oh, man.
Aaron
01:15:51 – 01:16:05
I just freaking wanna build a thing. And that ethos, like, goes through to WordPress. It's like, it's a disaster in there. I've never worked with WordPress, so this is just an outsider's opinion. It's a freaking nightmare, but, hey, we run every site in the world.
Aaron
01:16:05 – 01:16:36
So who's mad? You know? PHP has always had that, like, hacker builder tinkerer kind of ethos where, like, the more purists do do, migrate to something like Ruby or something that is, like, technically beautiful. And PHP is like, yeah, sometimes the, you know, array find and array search, the order of operations is switched, and you just gotta kinda remember that or order of arguments. But somebody like Taylor comes along with a product mindset, a, like, someone who can say, like, yes.
Aaron
01:16:36 – 01:17:11
PHP is bad, but what if what if we made it appealing to the people? Like, what if we made these things, these 18 different products, and put, like, a level of polish on it that frankly nobody has ever done before? Like, what if every single open source library was branded and packaged and had beautiful docs and tests and a logo, and somebody with that kind of product mind comes along and walks into this wasteland of PHP and is like, what if we made it beautiful in here? And I feel like that was the thing. He's a very good programmer.
Aaron
01:17:11 – 01:17:18
I I have to admit he's an incredible programmer, but his product mind, I think, is what has made it. His taste is very, very good.
Alex
01:17:18 – 01:17:24
Interesting. Okay. Is the PHP world still, like, mostly MySQL? Is that is that shifting at all or is it still
Aaron
01:17:25 – 01:17:39
So Taylor has publicly said I'm not talking his book. He's publicly said, that of the sites that they deploy through Laravel Forge, which are numerous, 90 to 95% choose MySQL.
Alex
01:17:39 – 01:17:47
Okay. Yeah. I I feel like Postgres is eating the world, but it's still hard to shift a default like that, and and there's probably not not enough differences.
Aaron
01:17:47 – 01:18:03
It is. And I think MySQL is helping out Postgres a lot here. If you follow Mark Callahan, I think you do, on on Twitter. Every every Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever, he's like, there's a new MySQL release and the regressions are this bad. And you're like, shoot.
Aaron
01:18:03 – 01:18:27
This is not gonna last, is it? It's like MySQL 8 is on a steady march of regressions, and somebody has gotta step in. And I don't know if it's gonna be Oracle. There's another company in the space that might do it, but I can't speak to that. But somebody's gotta step in and do something because the continued regressions I have actually heard in back channels that I think matter, people are like, I don't think my SQL is gonna be it.
Aaron
01:18:27 – 01:18:34
I just don't think it's gonna be it. And so people are starting to look at Postgres more seriously in our, you know, tiny part of the world.
Alex
01:18:34 – 01:18:45
Yep. Interesting. Yep. And and and then in other things that I consider, like PHP adjacent Vue, how is how is Vue doing? Is Vue like the most popular front end thing for PHP, and how is that doing generally?
Alex
01:18:45 – 01:18:46
Yeah.
Aaron
01:18:46 – 01:19:17
Yeah. It's interesting, that the entire world kind of settled on React except for Laravel, and we're like, nah, Vue is the stuff, man. So I think, I think early on so, like, Vue early 2 dot releases, Taylor looked at Vue and was like, this is what I would have done if I were writing a JavaScript framework. And so when he adopted it and then Jeffrey Way, who's the instructor at layercast.com, when they adopted it, that kind of, again, ran cover for the rest of us to be like, great. We're using Vue now.
Aaron
01:19:17 – 01:19:39
And that really it really did, I mean this as a compliment and not a slight. It's like a back end developer's front end framework. It's like it Vue 2 just made perfect sense to me as a back end developer, and I was like, I I adore this. This. And you can still get that with Vue 3 as long as you don't opt in to, like, all the TypeScript stuff.
Aaron
01:19:39 – 01:19:56
You can still kinda get the same vibe. But, yeah, they they kinda like settled early on on Vue is Vue is our thing and all the stuff they built is Vue. Since then, you know, Phoenix LiveVue came along. Rails has Hotwire or like their whole turbo. There's a whole mess.
Aaron
01:19:56 – 01:20:26
I don't actually know all the names of their stuff. That, like, that paradigm came along and we have our own implementation of that. And that's Laravel Livewire done by Caleb Porzio, who also wrote Alpine JS, and so he's got a few frameworks there. But I would say the majority between Vue and Livewire, that covers the majority of Laravel applications. I will say some people have started to switch more to React with the just the giant proliferation of libraries, that are available over there.
Aaron
01:20:26 – 01:20:40
Like shad cn is like, boy, would be nice to use shad, wouldn't it? And I I've actually used shad cn dash view. There's somebody ported it to view, and it's pretty good. But, yeah, React still has the upper hand on, ecosystem in my opinion.
Alex
01:20:41 – 01:20:47
Well, thank you. I appreciate you, educating me on PHP here. And just Yeah. And just generally, like, thanks for coming on. It's it's been great.
Alex
01:20:48 – 01:20:51
Yeah, fan for a while, so so good to have you on the show.
Aaron
01:20:51 – 01:20:58
Yeah. Same. Same. I've been admiring, your your education and education business journey for a long time. So thanks for having me on.
Alex
01:20:58 – 01:21:02
Yep. For sure. Anything you wanna you wanna pitch as we as we head out?
Aaron
01:21:02 – 01:21:14
I spend more time than I should on Twitter, which I refuse to call x. So you can find me at twitter.com/aron, d as in Daniel Francis. Yeah. That's about it. Aaronfrances.com, I guess.
Aaron
01:21:14 – 01:21:24
And if you wanna give me money, if you're a sophomore at Texas a and m, accounting 220 acct229.com. I don't know how many listeners of yours are sophomores at Texas a and m.
Alex
01:21:24 – 01:21:25
In Texas a and m circles. So
Aaron
01:21:26 – 01:21:33
Or screencasting.com or high performance SQLite dot com. But honestly, it's been a joy to be here and y'all just find me on Twitter and let's hang out there.
Alex
01:21:33 – 01:21:36
Cool. Aaron Francis, thanks for coming. Yep.
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.

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