Updates, Updates, Updates

July 16, 2021

So many updates! Aaron has twins now, which is a lot of babies. Sean talks about his job changes. We talk about Sidecar, Torchlight, the Laravel ecosystem, and much more.
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Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:05
Okay. We are recording after a long, long time.
Sean
00:00:06 – 00:00:07
Yeah. Welcome back, man.
Aaron
00:00:07 – 00:00:31
Yeah. Thanks. So the reason it has been so long is because my wife and I have twins now. So we have 2 we went from 0 children to 2 children, which turns out is a whole lot of children to have all at once. So we've been I think the their twins are, like, 9 weeks old now.
Aaron
00:00:32 – 00:00:50
8 or 9. They were born, May 6th. So a little bit over 2 months. So I've been on paternity leave. I've been now back at work for, I guess, 2 weeks, and just not sleeping very much.
Aaron
00:00:50 – 00:00:55
But that's where we've been, but now we're back. So sorry for the absence.
Sean
00:00:56 – 00:01:00
How's it going back at work? You feeling like that's happening?
Aaron
00:01:02 – 00:01:15
The 1st week? No. The 1st week was really tough. Just like I would just sit down and kinda, like, just stare at my computer. Because, I mean, 1, I'm super tired.
Aaron
00:01:16 – 00:01:38
2, I had basically 7 weeks of part time work where I would work 2 hours a day. And so then you come back to, excuse me, you come back to full time work. It's like, man, what am I supposed to be doing? And I was in kind of the brain fog zone, and so it was tough coming back. But this week has been this week has been a whole
Sean
00:01:40 – 00:01:45
better. Do you have to do do do you do you have to do a lot of programmings though? Because I
Aaron
00:01:45 – 00:01:46
know you're like
Sean
00:01:47 – 00:01:49
the boss, So I don't know what programming you do.
Aaron
00:01:49 – 00:02:11
Yeah. I do I do have a lot to do still. The hard one of the hard parts about coming back is there's really nothing super pressing right now, and so it's like there's a bunch of stuff I could be doing. And we have 2 other developers, and so we're, you know, we're still moving forward. There's a bunch of stuff I could be doing, but none of it is super urgent.
Aaron
00:02:12 – 00:02:34
And it's it's just been hard to, like, sit down and focus and do it. But, yeah, I I still do programming, but I also do a lot of, like, managing of, you know, the customer service team and the processes and stuff to get all of our data in, that kind of stuff. But, fortunately, I'm not strictly management. I still get to do some programming.
Sean
00:02:36 – 00:02:36
Fortunately?
Aaron
00:02:37 – 00:02:58
Yeah. Fortunately. I don't think I don't think I would want I don't think I would wanna be strictly management. Honestly and I told my boss, the CEO, I told my boss this the other day. I said, I think in a couple of years, I'd like to not be management at all.
Aaron
00:02:58 – 00:03:14
So I I have CTO and COO dual roles right now. I said, I think in a couple of years, I just want to do 3 days a week, just CTO, no, like, people management besides my 2 developers. I think that's my my ultimate goal.
Sean
00:03:16 – 00:03:22
Yeah. I mean, if that's assuming then that the company is gonna stay about the same size and not grow a lot more.
Aaron
00:03:24 – 00:03:29
Yeah. I would do you mean why do you say that?
Sean
00:03:29 – 00:03:36
Because you only have 2 developers, and then, like, once you get to a certain point as CTO It can be a
Aaron
00:03:36 – 00:03:37
part time CTO.
Sean
00:03:38 – 00:03:41
You don't really like do development work anymore. Although
Aaron
00:03:42 – 00:03:42
Yeah.
Sean
00:03:42 – 00:03:53
I see. You know, the client that we have, our infamous client, that's like a could I say revenue? If I said revenue, that'd be okay. Right?
Aaron
00:03:54 – 00:03:56
It they're going to be named eventually.
Sean
00:03:57 – 00:03:57
So you
Aaron
00:03:57 – 00:03:59
don't want tracked back to.
Sean
00:03:59 – 00:04:00
Well, like a, you know
Aaron
00:04:00 – 00:04:00
Huge company.
Sean
00:04:01 – 00:04:04
Huge company. Tens of developers.
Aaron
00:04:05 – 00:04:06
Yes.
Sean
00:04:07 – 00:04:17
And, yeah. Like, a lot a lot of developers. And that CTO, he still programs, which is interesting.
Aaron
00:04:17 – 00:04:20
He's in there every day. Yeah. Yeah. He's making PRs every day.
Sean
00:04:20 – 00:04:25
And my boss also wants to he's like the owner, you know, and at this point,
Aaron
00:04:25 – 00:04:26
there's
Sean
00:04:26 – 00:04:36
Mhmm. I think we're close to 20 employees. I mean, not that many, not as many devs. We have this other part of the business that requires different expertise.
Aaron
00:04:36 – 00:04:40
Yeah. That's kinda that's kinda how we are. A couple devs and a lot of employees.
Sean
00:04:40 – 00:04:53
We're like 5050, I think. And I Oh, well. I think it'll probably be kind of like that. Depends on what direction we go. If we go, like, more taking up more consulting type work, then we'll need more of these experts.
Sean
00:04:55 – 00:05:11
But if we're more into like selling software licenses, then Mhmm. We'd go more developers. But I think that well, anyway, don't wanna get nerding out about my business. I find it interesting, but I don't know who else does.
Aaron
00:05:11 – 00:05:33
That's great. Yeah. It's, it kinda, there's a broad spectrum of like CTO across, you know, business sizes and percentage of the business that is development and and that kind of thing. Our percentage of business that is development is pretty small. There's 3 of us, myself included.
Aaron
00:05:33 – 00:06:00
And then in total, we probably have twenty 2 to 30 employees depending on the time of year, and we just have the one internal tool. So yeah. And, you know, there there's a case that could be made for, like, even in our size company, having a CTO that's not a programmer, but I just don't know if if we're big enough or we have enough development to do that kind of thing.
Sean
00:06:00 – 00:06:45
I don't I don't think you I don't think you do yet. Doesn't sound like it. It's not that, like, I don't think that there's a point where you where the CTO needs to stop programming, and needs to focus more on the the main things that a CTO is supposed to do, you know, like building the organization, figuring out how to staff and hire people for the future and thinking about tech, you know, strategy for the platform for the future, like whatever the CEO, like, whatever direction they wanna go. And that turns into a full time job at a certain point. But then again, I think, like, watching this client of ours, watching them watching that guy program, I'm like, I feel like probably CTO should always do a little bit.
Sean
00:06:45 – 00:07:03
Like, it it should be where they're not necessary and in no way whatsoever a bottleneck ever. Right. But, like, staying on top of that. Like and then then there's probably there's companies where once you get to, like, much, much, much larger companies, that would be silly. Like, that would make no sense.
Sean
00:07:03 – 00:07:04
They think
Aaron
00:07:04 – 00:07:05
of abstract since
Sean
00:07:05 – 00:07:09
it's such a high level, it doesn't matter. Oh, well, maybe software companies. It's not true.
Aaron
00:07:10 – 00:07:24
How does our guy have time? Does, does our client does he handle, like, engineering organization hires and stuff? Or does I don't know what else he does besides because we only interact with him on programming.
Sean
00:07:24 – 00:07:29
On this one thing. Right. Yeah. I I suspect he does other stuff. You know?
Sean
00:07:29 – 00:08:01
I mean, well, maybe, but maybe he does it because well, yeah. I don't know without getting into so many details about them, but it is interesting. I like how how companies split this up. And then also, I mean, I'll say this on the on the podcast that, like, I'm in discussions about a role like CTO at my current company. Like, I'm getting promoted to that kind of level, And we just haven't, like, settled on the the job title yet, basically.
Aaron
00:08:02 – 00:08:07
Yeah. That's I mean, you kind of blew past it, but that's a big deal there. That's exciting.
Sean
00:08:08 – 00:08:20
I'm super excited about it. Really, I really love this company that I work at. It's super, super cool. I'm really passionate about our mission, and I've never felt that way before about a job that I've had. Same.
Sean
00:08:21 – 00:09:01
Yeah. And, like, I I really, really like our team, and the you know, my boss is the owner is, like, one of my favorite people, you know, ever that I've ever known, so I'm excited to to work at a higher level. And then also, like, just for me, getting to so, like, I'm more talking about, like, a blend of, like, CTO and product. So, like, in the product would be, like, figuring out, like, what like, figuring out a like, in our in our situation at our company, product is gonna mean figuring out and prioritizing what work is gonna happen, on the products that we have. We have 2a half kind of right now.
Sean
00:09:02 – 00:09:43
And then potentially thinking in the future of, like, what other future products we can do and, like, making sure that but then there's, like, the CTO ish type roles, like jobs that need to be done, which is it's awkward because we, like, we have a CTO kind of right now. He's not sure whether that's what he wants to do, kinda like you, and he's like, I'm not sure this is for me. But there's some things it's like which now that we have more and more developers and I I see in the next few years, we could grow a lot, potentially. I don't know what'll happen, but, like, it could happen very easily. So we gotta have, like, a plan for what?
Sean
00:09:43 – 00:09:49
Like, like, we think and we don't think about anybody's careers whatsoever right now at all. It's like
Aaron
00:09:50 – 00:09:50
Oh, yeah.
Sean
00:09:50 – 00:10:05
You know, you gotta if you wanna raise, you're gonna have to, like, figure out how to, like, make that happen for yourself. Like, nobody's really thinking about it. And then, you know, like, there's no there's no, like, deliberate mentorship or team building.
Aaron
00:10:07 – 00:10:09
And then we held down, build the next thing.
Sean
00:10:10 – 00:10:22
Yeah. It really is. And then, like, a tiny bit of thought of, like, kinda where we're going in the future with the products and then, like, technology decisions. We we kind of do that, but sort of spread out amongst all the developers
Aaron
00:10:23 – 00:10:23
on
Sean
00:10:23 – 00:10:39
the team. But, yeah, currently, we have no product, like, no product management at all. Well, I mean, there is. There's like a sort of loose, like, haphazard, like, it exists because we're very product focused to begin with, like, culturally.
Aaron
00:10:40 – 00:10:40
Mhmm.
Sean
00:10:40 – 00:11:00
So it ends up, you know, being okay. But, like, the more it works it works fine because, you know, we only had, like, some small clients, but we've added really big client recently. And so that sucks away a lot of, like, bandwidth from people that would have been paying attention to the product more deeply before. Right. So, like, we need that a little bit.
Sean
00:11:00 – 00:11:22
Know, so in all the process of doing this, and this might be interesting to you, I like, I've been trying to think through, like because I need to figure out, like okay. Because he asked me to write my job description. So I'm like, okay. So the first thing I'm thinking is, like, what are the jobs that need to be done Mhmm. At my company?
Sean
00:11:22 – 00:11:32
Our company's name is software. Great code for special operations, you know, like, elite military units.
Aaron
00:11:33 – 00:11:35
It's s o f. Is that right? S o f? What software?
Sean
00:11:36 – 00:11:43
Yeah. Yeah. It's confusing. So, yeah, I know. It is confusing every time I I'm like, did you mean software or soft writer?
Sean
00:11:43 – 00:12:02
Yeah, exactly. Nobody really says the T software. I don't know. But yeah. So at software, it's it's like so I was, I'm trying to figure out, like, what are the things that we need and that I'm best suited to do.
Sean
00:12:02 – 00:12:22
And I like, the product management thing is are something I was already kind of going after, which is kinda why I ended up in these, like, leadership conversations. And so I'm sort of taking a look at that and, like, what are the things that I that we need? So that's first. 2nd is, like, what do I put my best at and, like, what do I wanna do? And then, like, what's my like, where does that set me up for?
Sean
00:12:22 – 00:12:38
What kind of jobs in the future? So I wanna think about that a little bit. So the something that I realized is like because then we also have, like I said, we have the CTO and he's really great. He's a better developer than me. I mean, he's great.
Sean
00:12:38 – 00:12:48
He knows a lot of shit. And he's extremely well versed in everything. And he's like a well, he's like our friend Pete Keen. He's a lot like Pete Keen.
Aaron
00:12:48 – 00:12:51
Oh, knows knows a lot about a lot. Yeah.
Sean
00:12:53 – 00:13:06
Anyway, so it's awesome. So when there's yeah. Exactly. So when there's a problem, like, a weird problem that we have to solve, like, we have our software runs on prem in most clients. And so we actually provide them with hardware.
Sean
00:13:06 – 00:13:20
This hardware is stuff that they, like, throw in a backpack and, like, ship around and, you know But the Hummer. Off and on. Yeah. They do when they plug it into the battery or whatever in this vehicle. They I've learned all kinds of things that they do with this stuff.
Sean
00:13:22 – 00:13:35
So that's a really unique challenge. And for a while, we were literally giving them a laptop to basically run a server on. And then so Carl, like, invented this whole thing we called an anvil, and it's like this package of equipment that we give them and, you
Aaron
00:13:35 – 00:13:38
know Sounds like the nuclear football but for web servers.
Sean
00:13:38 – 00:13:52
Yeah. Exactly. So so anyway, he's awesome at that. But I think, not to put words in his mouth, but I think he's less interested in, like, the people stuff, the long term strategy stuff. Like, he's really just loves programming a lot.
Sean
00:13:52 – 00:14:06
And, and he loves, like, you know, doing things, like setting up systems that are just like, you know, that like, really well designed and, like, super helpful to us. He does all kinds of DevOps stuff and, like Cool.
Aaron
00:14:06 – 00:14:08
That's fun. I'm I'm with him. I I
Sean
00:14:08 – 00:14:13
think See. Okay. This is what I said. I hate that stuff.
Aaron
00:14:15 – 00:14:30
Well, that's that's why we're good together then. Yeah. I'm thinking I'm listening to what Carl's doing and I'm like, yeah, that rules. I love that. And I'm listening to you talking about, like, making career paths for people in the organization.
Aaron
00:14:30 – 00:14:33
And I'm like, do that.
Sean
00:14:34 – 00:14:57
Yeah. So then there's so what I think is there's there's 2 types of developers. There are, like, Carl, a new type developers who are who just really are passionate about, like, architecture and Mhmm. You know, code, just like code abstractions and, like, you know, really beautiful code. And and I appreciate that stuff.
Sean
00:14:57 – 00:15:14
And in fact, there was definitely a time in my career where it was like very much, like, all I really cared about. Mhmm. But I don't know. Like, I've changed and my interests have changed over time. And now I'm on the other side of developer, which is I'm very product focused.
Sean
00:15:15 – 00:15:44
Like, I want to and I think you just have this too, but you just have more of the other type and I just have almost none anymore, which is like, I'm very product focused in that, like, I want programming is a means to an end for me. Mhmm. At the end, the end is doing something super valuable and useful for my business, for my customer, for whatever. Right? Like, that's that to me and I could care less, like, how that ends up happening, you know?
Sean
00:15:44 – 00:15:56
And I will I will program if somebody needs to program in order to get it done, in order to get the job done. But if also somebody else wants to do it, fine. I don't care. Like, it doesn't I don't need to have my hands in that. It's fine.
Sean
00:15:58 – 00:16:17
You know? So, like like, on this at this job, that's kinda gonna be my role. I'm gonna have to program for a while because we don't have there's no way I could not we don't have any other front end developers. I'm the I'm like, it's me, and we got a part timer, then that's it. And everybody else is gonna be terrified if they have to, like, touch our React code.
Aaron
00:16:19 – 00:16:20
Yeah. So there's no way
Sean
00:16:20 – 00:16:34
I can get away from that. That's fine. I don't even feel like I need to get away from it. It's like I now that I'm focused on, like, I'm having more ownership over it, like, in the in the company as, like, a more of a leadership position, I'm more motivated to do programming then. Because again, it's a means to an end.
Sean
00:16:34 – 00:16:53
Like I'm achieving what I need to achieve for like where, like, where, like, for our customers, for our company, etcetera. So, yeah, I really think there's 2 and there's the developers fall somewhere on that spectrum, probably with, like, a little bit of spectrum. But, like, prioritizing one over the other generally.
Aaron
00:16:54 – 00:16:54
So what
Sean
00:16:54 – 00:17:17
I'm what I'm gonna propose at our company is we just have 2 2 teams. We'll have to have overlap, but, you know, we could sort of, like, recognize this reality. Because I think I think that overall, our company would probably prefer to have a product focused culture because we are. We do that anyway. And it's more like, let's get a feature done because they wanted to need it.
Sean
00:17:17 – 00:17:28
I wanna add a little bit more to that where it's like, let's get a feature done because we did some research and we looked at everything that we could do and we chose that this is the thing that we should be working on. Right. You know what I mean? But, like, basically
Aaron
00:17:29 – 00:17:31
That's a little, like, formal product work there.
Sean
00:17:32 – 00:18:00
I would just wanna add it's not so formal. Just, like, add just a little bit of, effort to the front Mhmm. Part of that where, at some point, we look at kind of everything and then decide think about, like, how much time do we want to spend on this for you know, how much time does it make us the business to spend on this versus, like, we gotta get this done, and then that's all I'm focusing on for the next, you know, 4 weeks or whatever. But, yeah. But that's what I I think, like, we're very product oriented.
Sean
00:18:00 – 00:18:13
We're he wants all my owner wants all of our developers to go on-site a lot. I am the only one that's taken him up on that. You can imagine that that is a bit intimidating with our clients.
Aaron
00:18:13 – 00:18:14
I can imagine.
Sean
00:18:14 – 00:18:30
So, like, I don't know how many people will will go for that or developers. And there's also a big culture clash between those two groups. On both ends. You know?
Aaron
00:18:32 – 00:18:48
Yeah. I get intimidated when I, like, go skiing and there are a bunch of snowboarders around. Cause it's all the snowboarders are so cool. I can't imagine showing up at like seal team 6 or whatever. I don't know what units you work with, but showing up at a military unit and being like, Hey, I kind of do some computer stuff sometimes.
Aaron
00:18:49 – 00:18:56
Good Lord. Barely hang around snowboarders and geez. Right.
Sean
00:18:57 – 00:19:07
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I went to well, I won't say any of our clients at all. That'll be that'll be best. We have some that are not, like, super secret or whatever, but I'll just say I'll just say none.
Sean
00:19:07 – 00:19:19
But, yeah, it's even I went to one of our, you know, we call them tier 3 clients. So they're like regular, you know, military people who are doing
Aaron
00:19:20 – 00:19:21
them know they're tier 3.
Sean
00:19:21 – 00:19:33
They know. They know. But they like, and who are doing, like but they're doing specialized work, and it's not like just like a it's like one other level above just like the, you know, the entire army or whatever.
Aaron
00:19:33 – 00:19:34
Mhmm.
Sean
00:19:35 – 00:19:52
Because they're doing selection. Like, that's kind of what we do. Right? We help them with selection and training. And, yeah, even there, it's still it's a very different and then we have, like, a you know, we now have a one woman on our team who's who's a developer.
Sean
00:19:53 – 00:19:56
I'll not say who that is, I guess.
Aaron
00:19:58 – 00:19:59
Probably good. Yeah.
Sean
00:20:00 – 00:20:14
Anyway, so she, you know, like, we'll want her to do that too. And I'm like, oh, I don't know. She might be fine with it, but I was just thinking while I was at, you know, this one client, like, how this how will this work? Like, it's already
Aaron
00:20:14 – 00:20:31
I don't I don't imagine on on the, like, forward thinking scale. I don't imagine the most elite military units are quite as forward as the software, which we're not we're still struggling as a software developer community.
Sean
00:20:31 – 00:20:32
But And at our elite
Aaron
00:20:32 – 00:20:33
levels military units.
Sean
00:20:33 – 00:20:36
It's only dudes. I mean, it's just only dudes.
Aaron
00:20:36 – 00:20:37
Yeah.
Sean
00:20:37 – 00:20:58
It's a little bit different at the tier 3, which is good. Yeah. I don't know. Who knows, like, if they'll ever actually have women at these elite levels, but it's like, it just is like you're at like a what it ends up creating is this culture of how, like, you're like on a hunting trip with like your uncle or something. Like that's
Aaron
00:20:59 – 00:21:06
Yep. I totally I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay. And I and I don't I don't fit in in this environment. So
Sean
00:21:06 – 00:21:09
So I've sort of like learned how to exist there.
Aaron
00:21:10 – 00:21:10
Right.
Sean
00:21:10 – 00:21:13
But it's not my not my thing either.
Aaron
00:21:13 – 00:21:14
Not a space for me. Yeah.
Sean
00:21:14 – 00:21:20
No. It's like like, I did sports in high school, which I think helped a little with that because that's like
Aaron
00:21:20 – 00:21:20
Same.
Sean
00:21:20 – 00:21:33
Similar thing. So, like, I know how to what I'm supposed to do and stuff. But yeah. That's anyway. So, yeah, we got the we got these these fun unique challenges, and I'm excited about trying to think through all of that stuff.
Sean
00:21:33 – 00:21:33
That's Yeah.
Aaron
00:21:33 – 00:21:34
That's what That's awesome.
Sean
00:21:34 – 00:21:36
Kinda like makes me excited.
Aaron
00:21:37 – 00:22:02
Yeah. That's a big, it's a big potential change for you going from going from 4 day work week and building a widget empire to potentially becoming integral to your job and kind of putting some hammerstone stuff on the back burner for now. So we've we've talked a little bit about it, but just like high level thought process. What are you thinking through there?
Sean
00:22:03 – 00:22:14
Well, what I'm hoping is, cause I already talked with John, the owner about this, and I told him about our project and he's interested in the query builder. Cool. So I'm gonna have to demo that for him, the rails version.
Aaron
00:22:14 – 00:22:29
Right. The rails version. Yeah, of course. We've, that's the second version that we built is the one that everybody's buying and none of, none of them are released and we're selling it, which is great. Sorry.
Aaron
00:22:29 – 00:22:30
Keep going.
Sean
00:22:31 – 00:22:46
Yeah. So so, anyway, I I did talk with him about it, and I was like, I'm not gonna be able to just drop it. And this is, you know, again, one of the reasons why I love this company is because John is like, yeah. I don't know. The kinds of people that I would like to hire for this role are gonna be the kinds of people that just always have a lot of stuff going on.
Sean
00:22:46 – 00:23:06
So Great. It's, you know, it's fine. And so but I it will I I will it will change how I contribute. You know? There there will be less I will have to figure out different ways to contribute other than just hours coding.
Sean
00:23:07 – 00:23:13
Right. Because this is not I mean, I'm already, like, overloaded with programming now, but my brain is
Aaron
00:23:13 – 00:23:14
You are big time.
Sean
00:23:14 – 00:23:19
I hate programming. It's like 60 hours a week for the last, you know, for a good long while.
Aaron
00:23:20 – 00:23:21
Yeah. That doesn't work.
Sean
00:23:22 – 00:23:30
So so yeah. I mean, to be honest, that sounds kinda good to take a break from that. And, you know, I think this will come with should come with a pay raise.
Aaron
00:23:31 – 00:23:37
Yes. It should. If you're writing the job description, it should come with a pay raise. Yeah.
Sean
00:23:37 – 00:23:37
So, you know, hopefully If
Aaron
00:23:37 – 00:23:40
you're going from 4 days to 5, it should as well.
Sean
00:23:40 – 00:23:54
Exactly. Yeah. I think it has to, and if if it's like well, you know, I'll have to look at the money with him actually and figure out. Mhmm. But I'm assuming if he's asking me to do this, that he's already kind of figured it out.
Sean
00:23:54 – 00:24:17
Yeah. So anyway yeah. So that'll take that extra money, and I could put that towards something. Like, I have already I'm gonna start trying to find another programmer on the rail side because I think that's what I'll do is, like because you're because we talked about this a little bit. Like, Laravel community, obviously, that is your, like, strength in our team, is your connections there.
Sean
00:24:18 – 00:24:26
So it just makes sense for you to basically drive the the Laravel launch and, you know, that, like, initial
Aaron
00:24:28 – 00:24:29
Wave of feedback and stuff.
Sean
00:24:30 – 00:24:43
And and licenses and yeah. Like, all that stuff. Exactly. And then, you know, and I'll I'll help because I think we'll have to press pause on the Rail stuff. So here's what I'm thinking next, like, couple months.
Sean
00:24:44 – 00:25:12
We'll be finding another dev to replace Colleen who's gonna be stepping off of that project and can give us the hours to, like, get us to pull it in to pull the rails thing into its own gem, do any support stuff, that sort of thing. I will use my money to pay that dev, slash we also have money from the client. We have money. You know, it'd be some of that too. And then, you know, it just depends on like how much we need of their time or whatever.
Sean
00:25:13 – 00:25:31
And then, so while I'm sort of like kind of getting that prepped and thinking through, I gotta do we gotta do some stuff, like, launch wise on that end as well. You did a good job of getting some attention or, you know, around the stuff other stuff you're doing with Hammerstone.
Aaron
00:25:31 – 00:25:32
Mhmm.
Sean
00:25:32 – 00:25:58
So I gotta do something, try and, like, figure out how to do something in my spare time, you know, kind of similar. I don't know what that's gonna look like, but I can figure that out. But yeah. So that while I'm kind of doing that, that will hopefully be not too much time and mostly, like, just, like, finding somebody and, like, getting them synced up with Colleen and and that sort of thing. And I still have to also finish up a few things with our client.
Sean
00:25:58 – 00:26:24
And then so, I'm basically gonna be, like, trying to, like, get set up so that way we can we can launch the Vue thing. The the I I also need to finish the Vue piece before we can even launch the Laravel one. Yeah. So I'm just trying to, like, get to the point where I can release and do the Vue thing, and then we could launch that. Not do much in the rail side, just like kind of
Aaron
00:26:24 – 00:26:24
Mhmm.
Sean
00:26:25 – 00:26:45
Maintain and how I'm sure we'll have lingering stuff to do with the client. Have hopefully this other person do that and help you with any, like, stuff that comes up, you know, front end wise. And then we could go from there. But that's it. Like, I'm just trying to, like, basically high level get the client work off my plate Yep.
Sean
00:26:45 – 00:26:59
And get somebody I think, like, I need to make sure now that I get somebody else who can do work on the rails side and then do the Laravel launch. That's basically what I'm thinking.
Aaron
00:27:00 – 00:27:25
Yep. That seems right to me. Obviously the client comes first because we have a obligation to them and they pay us. So obviously they come first and then Colleen's gonna roll off, unfortunately, because she's, you know, got a job and she's got her file uploading product. And so she doesn't wanna, I we assume, doesn't wanna keep doing this forever, which is extreme extremely reasonable.
Aaron
00:27:25 – 00:28:17
So grabbing somebody somebody who does rails that we could have part time for a long time, because, you know, once we once we get rails out there, there's gonna be a million there's gonna be a lot of stuff to to maintain and fix and tweak and stuff like that. So having that person would be wonderful. I think there would be a lot of opportunity for you to flex your marketing brain, which I know you've wanted to do for Hammerstone for a long time. Once once we get, like, once we get Laravel packaged up, Laravel and Vue, I think there's opportunity for you to, like, you know, if you wanted write marketing pages or landing pages or whatever, and I could implement them, but I know that's something that you really like that you haven't gotten to do yet.
Sean
00:28:18 – 00:28:39
So on the Laravel side, I think that so like the thing that I do really well in marketing is understanding things that I should write about that will be very interesting and valuable to my audience. And Yeah. That's you, man, on the Laravel side. Like, you know all that stuff. But, like, there's some skills.
Sean
00:28:39 – 00:29:03
Like, I helped you through Torchlight landing page, which I feel like you got a really good reception and, you know, feedback on. So, like, that's maybe on the Laravel side where it makes more sense to help you. Like, we could, like, look at your ideas together, figure out where we're gonna get the most bang for our buck, and then I could help you with, like, the, you know, some of the, like, implementation stuff. I think that makes sense
Aaron
00:29:04 – 00:29:04
That's a good point.
Sean
00:29:04 – 00:29:11
With the content stuff. Right. And I could also, like, dig into the SEO thing with Buckbee and figure out,
Aaron
00:29:11 – 00:29:11
do
Sean
00:29:11 – 00:29:19
you know, what should our strategy be there? I like, I can, I can definitely like, you know, do that, do that work too?
Aaron
00:29:20 – 00:29:31
Yeah. And that's, you know, that's far future, not far. That's that's out there a little bit. I do kinda wanna talk about some of the stuff that I was doing while on paternity leave.
Sean
00:29:32 – 00:29:32
Yeah. You did a lot.
Aaron
00:29:32 – 00:29:41
Move into that for a little bit. Yeah. I did. Turns out. So, yeah, the whole like, you mentioned content for the Laravel community.
Aaron
00:29:41 – 00:30:34
I feel like, I've kinda in in hammer stone terms, I've kinda had it easy for a long time because you've been working on the rails front end and Colleen's been working on the rails back end, and I've just kinda been an advisor to Colleen. And so I've been trying to, like, keep the keep the Laravel hype train going, and I feel like it's working. So I've had, I think, a couple of a couple of big wins. The first was, I released a package called Sidecar, and what it does is it, like, it basically brings AWS Lambda into your Laravel application. So you can, like, package, deploy, and execute Lambdas all from your Laravel application.
Aaron
00:30:34 – 00:31:10
So, like, if you have a Laravel app and you need to run, you know, node 14 for something and go for something and Python for something else. You can like bring all of that into your Laravel app, and it handles like the deploying, the executing everything. So you don't have to worry about API gateways or anything like that. And so I released that, and, I, you know, I've written a couple of packages before, and they've been, like, not successes at all. I feel like this one is an actual success, and, like, people are using it in production to do stuff.
Aaron
00:31:11 – 00:31:45
And I was actually on, a Laravel podcast that recorded last night to to talk about it a little bit. And so I was really, like, I was super pumped about that, and that's one of those that I did during paternity leave. It was like, man, I've got this idea, and I've kind of, like, been working on doing that myself. Why don't I just make a package out of it? And it's become the, like, the defacto way of doing server side rendering, on Laravel Vapor.
Aaron
00:31:46 – 00:32:06
So that's Laravel Vapor. Yeah. Laravel Vapor is Laravel, but on Lambda. And so it's like a serverless, you know, a serverless, product by the Laravel team. And there's been a lot of discussion recently about server side rendering of, like, Vue JS front ends.
Aaron
00:32:07 – 00:32:32
And the Inertia team, which is another, you know, inertia is a it's another thing in the ecosystem. The inertia team got server side rendering working, but you have to run node in the background. And that's what actually does the conversion from JavaScript to HTML, and then you send the HTML back out. Right? But when you're on when you're on Lambda, there is no background.
Aaron
00:32:32 – 00:33:09
Like, there's no there's no node that you can shell out to or call or anything like that. And so people are using, Sidecar to run a server side rendering process on Lambda, and there's I know at least one guy. There are a couple people using it in production, but one guy has been messaging with me, and he said they're running, like, thousands of requests a minute through it to do their server side rendering. I'm like, that's incredible. This thing, like this thing that I wrote, you're now relying on as a critical piece of your app to do server side rendering.
Aaron
00:33:09 – 00:33:11
It's like, yeah, that's really cool.
Sean
00:33:13 – 00:33:14
That's that's amazing.
Aaron
00:33:15 – 00:33:25
Yeah. So that's been that's been really fun. I've been super encouraged by the reception of that. And then And
Sean
00:33:25 – 00:33:31
this is all tied to hammerstone. Like, these are, like, hammerstone projects. So that's like part of the marketing strategy.
Aaron
00:33:31 – 00:34:04
Yeah. So that's that's part of the strategy is that all the docs, all of that stuff lives on hammerstone.dev. And so we're getting tons of good, like, backlinks from, you know, Laravel News and a couple other Laravel sites that are all pointing to the sidecar package on hammerstone.dev. And then when people are going to GitHub, it's under the Hammerstone Dev Organization. So it's kind of like it's kinda like, content marketing.
Aaron
00:34:04 – 00:34:45
You know, engineering is marketing, which is what Buckbee always does. But it's like, I could write a whole bunch of blog posts, or I could build this package that a lot of people use. And the thing that I think maybe is more powerful is building something that a lot of people use for free, and kind of getting people used to the fact that Hammerstone and helpful packages are, you know, related in their mind. So, yeah, that's been that's been awesome. And this has all come out of, like, it's like, you know, writing the docs for refine, which is our query builder.
Aaron
00:34:45 – 00:35:08
It's called refine. Writing the docs for refine, I ran into this issue with syntax highlighting where it sucked, and I didn't like the way that it looked. And so I wrote the rendering engine, which is now Torchlight. And to run the rendering engine, I needed Node. And so I wrote sidecar to run the rendering engine.
Aaron
00:35:08 – 00:35:37
And so it's, like, because I'm kind of because I have a lot of time in in the hammer stone terms right now, It's like as I discover as I'm discovering these issues, I'm, like, trying to solve them and increase, like, the developer experience around what I'm doing and then put it out there and hope that it attracts other people in the same way. If that makes sense. So I'm like writing docs and it sucks. So I fix it and I'm trying to deploy this renderer and it sucks. So I fix it.
Aaron
00:35:37 – 00:35:41
And that's kind of the chain that I've been going down.
Sean
00:35:42 – 00:35:46
Yeah. It's and it's going ridiculously well, I would say.
Aaron
00:35:46 – 00:35:50
Yeah, I think so. I I feel like it is, which is which is great.
Sean
00:35:50 – 00:36:12
Your your work is, well, obviously, really valuable and part of that community. Yeah. Than you were like, you're more of much more visible part of the community. Yeah. You made some really good connections with some, like, leaders in the community as a result too.
Aaron
00:36:12 – 00:36:44
Yeah. And it feels really, like, it feels really encouraging because I feel like I've kind of been in the community for a long time and just kind of toiling away in obscurity. And now, like, it like, I kinda have this track record of, like, putting out stuff that is high quality, and it seems like it's all kinda starting to hit at once, which I bet is how a lot of people feel when it hits. It's like, god. I've been here for 5 years and nobody's noticed me, but it's like, hey.
Aaron
00:36:44 – 00:36:55
If you just keep putting good stuff out, like, keep your head down and keep working, like, it's gonna hit at some point. And I kinda feel like I'm at the point where it's like, oh, it's hitting. And it feels really great. Like, it's really encouraging.
Sean
00:36:57 – 00:37:39
Well, I think here's my here's my theory about, like, why you're hitting now versus before. Because you're you're you are solving you're working on problems that well okay. So there's 2 different things. You did torchlight, which is the syntax highlighting, and then you did side kick sidecar sidecar sidecar. Sidecar is the is the one that I think is telling here because that is really like, you took a problem that you had and saw this potential for an abstraction that would be useful for solving this type of problem everywhere.
Sean
00:37:40 – 00:38:27
And that type of problem everywhere seemed is also a problem that other people are having because other people are designing systems the same way that you are. So basically you are now an experienced enough developer that you are working on problems that other very experienced developers are working on, which is, like, basically the high value problems and the ones that everybody really, really cares about. Like, you it's like your your level has finally I don't think it's, like, I don't think I think that there's something to say for, like, creating like, getting in the habit of writing and getting in the habit of creating and getting in the habit of Sure. Putting these projects on GitHub. But, like, until you get to the point where, like, you can look at the Laravel community, you can look at the thing you're doing, and you can be like, okay.
Sean
00:38:27 – 00:38:55
This is like a thing I know other developers are gonna wanna do. And you're doing it in the way that they would kind of expect. And that, like Mhmm. It's like because usually, like, I will look at projects, and this is very hand wavy, high level, you know, stuff, but I just like to think about it this way. I look at projects programming projects, and it's like, why is it that when I see one GitHub project, I that solves a problem that I'm looking for, I latch onto it versus another.
Sean
00:38:56 – 00:39:11
And, like, some people say, like, it's the marketing of that side. It's the docs of that side. It's the, you know, what I think it is is that person is thinking the same way that I am. So it's just like a little bit of an extension of, like, how I'm, like, a thought that's already there. So it's really low friction.
Aaron
00:39:11 – 00:39:14
If you had written it, you would have done it the way.
Sean
00:39:14 – 00:39:21
That way. Yeah. And you can't do that. Yeah. You can't do that kind of project until you've been around for a while and are experienced enough.
Sean
00:39:21 – 00:39:37
And then then boom. Next thing you know, now you're like, oh, I am I am now thinking the same way as Taylor Otwell and, you know, Adam Wathan and these guys. Like, you're you're not thinking about the similar problems the same way as them, which means the same as, like, all the other sort of senior developers.
Aaron
00:39:38 – 00:40:04
Yeah. That's interesting. And I I kind of think that's totally right. I mean, it it is that I've, you know, been around and been working for a while. It's also that I think the quality and the sameness, I guess, the the adherence to convention of of the Laravel world has increased a whole lot.
Aaron
00:40:04 – 00:40:29
And so there is there is 100%, like, a a, Laravel ethos of how the code should feel to work with, the way that you configure it, the way that you style it, there's definitely an ethos of that. And I feel like I now have that kinda in my bones, and it's just a lot easier to, like,
Sean
00:40:29 – 00:40:34
do it back out. And it's and it's then repulsive to people that are not thinking that way.
Aaron
00:40:35 – 00:40:37
Yes. Which I think is what Colleen ran into
Sean
00:40:38 – 00:40:38
Me too.
Aaron
00:40:38 – 00:40:39
Reading. Yeah.
Sean
00:40:40 – 00:41:07
I've had the same sort of like repulsion to like the approach that you took with the career builder, but it's not because it's bad whatsoever. It's just my brain has, like, one way of thinking about how I should, like, solve a problem. Mhmm. And yours is thinking about the Laravel, you know, ecosystem rails world, JavaScript world, and, you know, the Laravel thing are just totally different cultures. And so then you hit that's what yeah.
Sean
00:41:07 – 00:41:13
So, like, I me and Andrew too, like, and he was looking at it. He's like, what? Why do we do it that way? Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron
00:41:14 – 00:41:23
Yeah. Why are they chaining everything together? I remember Andrew said that once about the way we do browser testing. He's like, why is everything chained together? And I'm like It's
Sean
00:41:23 – 00:41:44
very surprising. We do a few things, you know, because we just ported it. There's a few things in the rails version which are a little bit surprising, which when we do a their actual, like, product launch, we gotta fix. Like, the because it's like, what we just talked about, we have to do the same in the rails community. Otherwise, it will not resonate the same way that your stuff does.
Sean
00:41:44 – 00:42:03
So, like, for us, like, that would look like we create a DSL for building filters. Like, it can be on top of what we have. So that way, we still have the same API and we can run the same tests and everything. We could build a DSL on top of it, which I I've, like, copy pasted ideas of this, you know, a few times in conversations we've had. But that would be the real Is that
Aaron
00:42:03 – 00:42:06
is that the do blocks that y'all keep mentioning? Yes. Yeah.
Sean
00:42:06 – 00:42:18
It would read it kind of reads like a little mini language, and there's so many libraries that do that. A lot of Rails developers are, like, sick of there's a DSL for everything, but that's just what what they do.
Aaron
00:42:19 – 00:42:19
Yeah.
Sean
00:42:20 – 00:42:36
So and and then, like, this can be pretty simple. Like, and it it does lend itself well to this too because it's like you're building a filter. It's like Massive configuration object. Yeah. And and we can we could easily build like a DSL around creating that.
Aaron
00:42:36 – 00:42:54
Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. I didn't realize this until I started working with Colleen, just in in the advisory role that I'm in, and she was like, why are you why do you do it this way? Like, we would never ever do it this way.
Aaron
00:42:54 – 00:43:18
And I just I'm like, I don't under I didn't I didn't realize that there was such a stylistic difference between Laravel and Rails. And then Andrew came in and said the same thing on his on his browser testing library. Somebody ported it to Laravel and turned it into, like, Laravel y style. And Andrew was like, what, why have you done this?
Sean
00:43:19 – 00:43:21
What have you done to my?
Aaron
00:43:21 – 00:43:34
Yeah. Magic test is ruined. And I looked at it and I talked to the guy, me, Andrew, and this guy, Matthias, we all talked and I was like, oh, this looks perfect. I love it. I have no idea what you're doing here.
Sean
00:43:36 – 00:43:48
We we totally have that friction too. Like, even just like Vue talking with, Laravel. I mean, eventually, I had I eventually sort of figured it out. I was, like, alright. I just got trust there and that this is the way to do it.
Sean
00:43:48 – 00:43:51
Yeah. Just, like, oh, it seems so weird to me.
Aaron
00:43:52 – 00:44:12
Yeah. Even Vue and React, because Vue was kind of not born out of, but definitely adopted by the Laravel ecosystem. And it's very like, the way that Laravel developers use Vue is very different than the way that somebody would use, you know, React. And it's just it just seems right to me, and it's weird.
Sean
00:44:12 – 00:44:47
I have to I have to understand that in order to make our open source Vue package, like, actually be something that people will look at and be like, ah, that slots right into how I would think about this. Yeah. So, like, I gotta I I gotta think about that. I mean, the worst case is, like, I now know how to do what we do inside and out, and I could build a React version, you know, in, like, a week or something Yep. That would be really powerful and, like, fit right into the React world versus, like because I'm using, like, the composition API and Vue, and I know, like, Laravel developers are not thinking about that whatsoever.
Sean
00:44:47 – 00:44:50
And versus, like, you can't be a Rack developer and not use hooks. I mean, that's like
Aaron
00:44:51 – 00:45:01
I know. That's what I keep seeing on Twitter. Yeah. And somebody somebody mentioned recently the composition API for Vue. And I was just like, dude, I have no idea.
Aaron
00:45:01 – 00:45:03
Like, I've I've never used it. I don't know.
Sean
00:45:03 – 00:45:05
Yeah. Well, brace yourself because it'll be
Aaron
00:45:05 – 00:45:06
Yeah.
Sean
00:45:06 – 00:45:46
Because it is like yeah, when you start doing the UI stuff, it's like, actually really like hooks that feels like the the right way to decouple the, like the the rendering and, like, the the sort of, like, UI state of an object from the I'm gonna call it business logic of the thing, which is not necessarily even just like the state. There's like you're doing other stuff. But even then, like, even just like the separating out how you're managing state. And it's like, all these renderless components that Adam Wathan is building Mhmm. For Vue.
Sean
00:45:46 – 00:45:51
Like, you could do that with hooks like that. I mean, it's hooks are that's what they're for.
Aaron
00:45:51 – 00:45:58
And I bet I haven't looked, but they have a react version. I bet they do. I bet they do hooks for all their headless UI stuff.
Sean
00:45:58 – 00:45:59
I'm sure that they do.
Aaron
00:46:00 – 00:46:02
Because you can also do world class developers.
Sean
00:46:03 – 00:46:09
Renderless components. That was like a rack pattern forever. But now I think it makes more sense to just use hooks.
Aaron
00:46:09 – 00:46:13
Oh, I didn't know they had gone through renderless components before getting to hooks.
Sean
00:46:13 – 00:46:35
Well, you could like you could do renderless components where, like, you could pass in, like, a a render prop was what they call it. Because the, like, rack is just a function. We have Right? It's like a functions that calls other things that you could you could pass in another function, which you could call in your JSX that renders JSX. So like done, you have a renderless function.
Sean
00:46:35 – 00:46:42
You have a renderless component. Like you just can use those pieces of react to do that. So it was just like a pattern that you could follow.
Aaron
00:46:43 – 00:46:45
And now everything is hooks instead of that.
Sean
00:46:45 – 00:46:51
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's better. I do. Cause also hooks hooks are like, I don't know.
Sean
00:46:51 – 00:47:22
They're it it's I like working with function components more than the class based components. I think it's easier for me to reason about them. Hooks are their own set of challenges, but once you kinda like once you start writing custom hooks, like, I write a lot of custom hooks for software, for example. And these are things that we can we pull in, we use reuse them, you know, all the time. And it's really easy to, like, pull a custom hook into a component and write a totally different component that just happens to use this, you know, custom.
Aaron
00:47:22 – 00:47:29
Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. So don't tell me too much, but a hook is just a callback. Is that right?
Sean
00:47:31 – 00:47:33
No, it's not quite right.
Aaron
00:47:33 – 00:47:49
Because it, it looks like whenever I see it, it's like use effect and you're passing something through what looks like to a function call. And so it just seems to me like it's a, you pass a callback through or you pass, you know, preempts or you pull in a function and you call the function.
Sean
00:47:49 – 00:47:50
Yeah. Is
Aaron
00:47:50 – 00:47:51
that what it is?
Sean
00:47:51 – 00:47:58
It's like the they get they they do some magic behind the scenes. So
Aaron
00:47:58 – 00:47:59
okay.
Sean
00:47:59 – 00:48:16
It's and it's sort of like hooked into the whole like react render life cycle. So different things happen at different points or whatever. But, like, you design it in a way because you have to assume that your React component is gonna get called a lot of times.
Aaron
00:48:17 – 00:48:17
Sure.
Sean
00:48:18 – 00:48:34
So you you design it in a way that it's essentially, like, omnipotent. Like, you have to think it through. And so that's, like, kind of the where you get gotchas with hooks, especially the useEffect, which, you know, like Dave wrote that whole thing about Right. You write a whole book about useEffect.
Aaron
00:48:34 – 00:48:41
I think it's I think it's a whole standalone site or course or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. UseEffect over lunch, I think is what it is.
Sean
00:48:41 – 00:49:06
Yeah. Yeah. So, like, use effects, you know, use effect happens at one time at, like, when, you know, the render is getting called, But then also you can return a function, which then gets called from useEffect, which gets called after the component unmounts. And then but it gets called every single time, so you have to then provide dependencies to tell it only create a new one if these things changed. So Yeah.
Sean
00:49:06 – 00:49:35
So that's that's kind of the weird the weirdness of it. But the thing is, as a experienced developer, it's fine. I'm fine working with that. I don't mind it at all. And I also kind of just I like having that granularity exposed to me, But then I wrap it so that way I create custom hooks for less experienced developers to use, you know, in the project and then we can, like, safely use use state.
Aaron
00:49:35 – 00:49:42
So it can be a it can be a black box to them, and you can still get all the power that you need, and they don't shoot themselves in the foot. Yeah.
Sean
00:49:42 – 00:50:10
I can write helpful things that they can use and we, you know, then we use like and then also, like, okay, so say you write some gnarly component that has, you know, like, 3 use effects and, like, all these different things in it, and then I can it's easier for me to then say, alright. Let's refactor it into a custom hook. And then that way we can think about it, you know, in like a decoupled clean way. So I really like that about hooks.
Aaron
00:50:12 – 00:50:20
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that does sound architecturally, that does sound like something I would enjoy. It's just I've never, ever, ever worked with it.
Sean
00:50:20 – 00:51:16
Well, and it's also like, I see the argument for class based components too. Cause then it's very like explicit, like what's I think it's it's more it's like if you're used to thinking object oriented way, it's easier to to do that versus hooks are very, like, comp composition over inheritance driven. I my brain has been thinking about things more in terms of composition over inheritance, which is another, like, one of the the frictions that we have between, like, the Laravel piece and, you know, when I'm, like, looking at code and thinking about stuff is that I the like, in JavaScript land, I've been, like, composition over narratives for a long time. So, like, class heavy programming is, like, seems weird and clunky and unusual to me because it's not sci fi the way I think about it.
Aaron
00:51:17 – 00:51:27
So yeah. Rails is rails is still inheritance. Right? They're not I mean, they have a they break it down into a lot of concerns, I guess. But it's still, I mean, it's still inheritance.
Aaron
00:51:27 – 00:51:29
They don't use composition as much. Right?
Sean
00:51:29 – 00:51:48
No. Not as much. Yeah. But but also Ruby's class system is, like, beautiful and really, really nice. So it's way less onerous to work with, you know, object oriented design stuff in in Ruby versus JavaScript.
Aaron
00:51:50 – 00:51:54
Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing. JavaScript is JavaScript is pretty gnarly.
Sean
00:51:54 – 00:51:55
Truly bad. Pretty Yeah.
Aaron
00:51:55 – 00:51:57
Pretty bolted on, I guess.
Sean
00:51:58 – 00:52:10
Yeah. Well, no. That's so, like, it's just different. I say I say it's bad because, like, well, I guess the bolted on feeling is from how kinda clunky the syntax is. I don't like it.
Sean
00:52:10 – 00:52:15
Mhmm. You know, like, got a new up function, then, like, functions.
Aaron
00:52:15 – 00:52:15
It's weird.
Sean
00:52:15 – 00:52:18
They have the arrow syntax now, which is much better.
Aaron
00:52:18 – 00:52:19
It's helpful.
Sean
00:52:20 – 00:52:33
For functions at least, you know, but, like, and then they have, like, the the new class style, which is also helpful. Think about that. Is it really papers papers over the fact that JavaScript is a prototypal inheritance
Aaron
00:52:34 – 00:52:34
Right.
Sean
00:52:34 – 00:53:02
System, which is very cool and very different and and also, like, would have been an interesting way for people to think about problems except the syntax for doing it was so bad. And and they tried to make it kinda look like classes, so people would treat it like regular, you know, classes. And so I overall, I was at prototypal inheritance is super cool, but, it just you know, the syntax there is
Aaron
00:53:03 – 00:53:04
Just so frank.
Sean
00:53:04 – 00:53:20
Yeah. Nobody's ever gonna do it. Like, I remember I used to this is like, you know, way early days. I used to do projects where I and I would write code using prototypal inheritance as, like, a key strategy and, like, how I was solving a problem, and nobody else could understand it. So I was like, okay.
Sean
00:53:20 – 00:53:23
I can't, I can't do it this way.
Aaron
00:53:24 – 00:53:32
Yeah. That's funny. I don't what's the opposite of prototypal inheritance, which I've always called prototypical inheritance, but I don't think that's right.
Sean
00:53:32 – 00:53:33
Okay. Maybe that is right.
Aaron
00:53:33 – 00:53:42
No. I act I think it's objectively wrong, but it's just what I've always said. So, like, what is what is regular inheritance? Would do we just call that inheritance?
Sean
00:53:43 – 00:53:46
Yeah. Is there It's classical. Opposite of
Aaron
00:53:46 – 00:53:50
classical. It's funny. I've never thought of that.
Sean
00:53:51 – 00:53:58
And it's and that's like you have a class and then you have instances of that class.
Aaron
00:53:58 – 00:53:58
Right.
Sean
00:53:58 – 00:54:07
You do not have that in JavaScript. There's no It's so weird. There's no class. But that there is now It's
Aaron
00:54:07 – 00:54:11
a prototype? There's just a prototype chain. Is that what it is?
Sean
00:54:11 – 00:54:27
Yeah. Like, we we put so there's syntax around it now so you can create a class in air quotes. Yeah. But, it's not and it's basically like a function to create new objects from a base prototype object.
Aaron
00:54:28 – 00:54:35
Yeah. It's kinda blown my mind. I've never thought about it. I've never thought about it in that much depth before, but you're totally right.
Sean
00:54:36 – 00:54:39
See, this isn't like my nerdy days where I really cared about that stuff. That's Yeah.
Aaron
00:54:39 – 00:54:49
You know? Yeah. I'm still there. I just care about a different language than that. So, speaking of the Torchlight rendering engine is all JavaScript.
Aaron
00:54:50 – 00:55:01
So, someday you'll have to look at it and tell me everything I've done wrong, but it's it it's like it's, you know, hundreds of lines of JavaScript and it's.
Sean
00:55:01 – 00:55:02
Oh, that's cool.
Aaron
00:55:02 – 00:55:09
It's just, it's done my way. So you'll have to help me one of these days, but it works great. It works great now. So there's no,
Sean
00:55:09 – 00:55:15
I'm so used to it at backend developer JavaScript.
Aaron
00:55:15 – 00:55:29
Yeah. That's probably what, what I would call it back end developer JavaScript. Yeah. Well, what else? Anything else it's been, you know, 2 months, but we should probably not go for 2 hours.
Aaron
00:55:31 – 00:55:43
One, one thing is I've actually had people reach out to me and been like, Hey, I listened to the podcast. I really like it. What's, when's it coming back? I'm like, Hey, that's really encouraging. That's coming back this week.
Aaron
00:55:43 – 00:56:00
I know. And we got mentioned on, podcasts that I listened to called no plans to merge, which is amazing. It's 2, Laravel Laravel adjacent developers who are just hysterical. And one of the guys was like, yeah, I listened to it. It's kind of like our show.
Aaron
00:56:00 – 00:56:04
I really like it. I was like, woah. So that's encouraging.
Sean
00:56:06 – 00:56:10
That's that's blowing my mind that people listen
Aaron
00:56:10 – 00:56:19
to this. I know. I know somebody DMs me and was like, Hey, you got a shout out on no plans to merge. Also, I really love your podcast. When's the next episode?
Aaron
00:56:19 – 00:56:27
It's like, what? All, all you people, I'm just thinking I'm talking to Sean and it's recorded, but people are actually listening.
Sean
00:56:27 – 00:56:34
Oh, speak of podcasts. Did I did I told you what happened to full stack panic. Right? You broke up for
Aaron
00:56:34 – 00:56:35
a second. Say it again.
Sean
00:56:35 – 00:56:37
Did I tell you what happened with full stack panic?
Aaron
00:56:39 – 00:56:41
I think you did. You lost a whole season.
Sean
00:56:41 – 00:56:45
Yeah. I think I'm just gonna bail on the project. I think it just like killed it for me. I can't.
Aaron
00:56:45 – 00:56:46
Yeah.
Sean
00:56:46 – 00:56:52
Like, I was gonna bring it back and sponsor it by Hammerstone. And then, you know, but, like
Aaron
00:56:52 – 00:56:55
Tell me again where the season went. What happened?
Sean
00:56:55 – 00:57:15
Well, problem 1, I thought that I had downloaded I was using SquadCast as well. Uh-huh. I thought that I had downloaded each of those episodes from SquadCast into a folder. I'm still not sure that I didn't, but, like, maybe it never synced on Dropbox or something happened, and I did not. They were not there.
Sean
00:57:15 – 00:57:37
And then we signed up for the squad cast account, and then we talked about how, like, oh, let's just make full Psych panic a hammerstone project. And so I was gonna pull it into that ecosystem. And then I was like, oh, okay. Well, I'll just use our SquadCast account because, like, the my business is making no money now. So, like, I'm like, I don't wanna pay, you know, the bill for this.
Sean
00:57:37 – 00:57:48
So I canceled the SquadCast account. They deleted everything when I canceled it. So then when I was like, oh, no. I don't have the the things, you know, saved. I went back to go see if I could restore my account.
Sean
00:57:48 – 00:57:59
And they're like, no. We just delete everything, which is very, very, very irritating. I don't understand that policy. Is it g
Aaron
00:57:59 – 00:57:59
b r?
Sean
00:57:59 – 00:58:01
Is that what it is?
Aaron
00:58:01 – 00:58:08
Or the California thing, maybe. So you lost, like, 8 full interviews. Right?
Sean
00:58:08 – 00:58:11
Yeah. Yeah. And I feel so bad for those people and like Yeah.
Aaron
00:58:11 – 00:58:15
And you can't I mean, you could, but you can't go back to them and be like, let's do it again. Like,
Sean
00:58:16 – 00:58:18
that's gonna work. I can't do that.
Aaron
00:58:18 – 00:58:22
The magic the magic is gone and emotionally, it would be tough to get there.
Sean
00:58:22 – 00:58:31
Exactly. That is a bit of, like, an emotional hike for me to, like, let's do this again. I still am passionate about that topic and helping people with, like, dev careers.
Aaron
00:58:32 – 00:58:34
Yeah. And
Sean
00:58:34 – 00:58:38
I think it would be a cool hammer stone thing to do, honestly, like, pull it into that brand. But
Aaron
00:58:39 – 00:58:48
We'll do it. I mean, if you ever want to do it again, do it again. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be dead. It can be, it can be paused for now. Cause I know that was something you enjoyed doing.
Sean
00:58:48 – 00:58:50
I did very much.
Aaron
00:58:50 – 00:59:00
Maybe, maybe in a couple of years when you've got a lot of management experience and a little bit more time, you can pick that back up. But, man, that sucks.
Sean
00:59:01 – 00:59:07
Yeah. It sucks. I put a lot of, like, time and money into that thing too. I mean, it's a sunk cost. I know it.
Sean
00:59:07 – 00:59:08
I know it.
Aaron
00:59:08 – 00:59:10
Good. Doesn't make you feel better.
Sean
00:59:10 – 00:59:17
It hurts. It hurts. Yeah. It's like, oh, I I read sad all at the same time.
Aaron
00:59:18 – 00:59:33
Yeah. The only thing that like that that's ever happened to me was on a much, much smaller scale. I recorded a 1 hour screencast one time and only recorded audio, and I was I was devastated. It was 1 hour and I was, I was devastated.
Sean
00:59:34 – 00:59:35
That's terrible.
Aaron
00:59:35 – 00:59:38
And I can't imagine. Yeah. 8 hours of content.
Sean
00:59:40 – 00:59:50
Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. But that's still that's still pretty frustrating because, like, you're recording a screen cast. You're probably in, like, take 492 or
Aaron
00:59:50 – 00:59:54
whatever. Exactly. Finally do a good day.
Sean
00:59:54 – 00:59:55
That was the one. Nailed it.
Aaron
00:59:55 – 01:00:20
Yeah. You open up ScreenFlow and it's a black screen and you're like, wait, what did I do here? I remember I walked out of the guest bedroom and walked into the living room where Jennifer was, and I just like laid down on the couch and put my head in her lap. It was like, I'm so discouraged. It was terrible.
Sean
01:00:23 – 01:00:29
It's very hard to, like, accept it. You know? It is. Like, no. No.
Sean
01:00:29 – 01:00:30
You'd think it happens.
Aaron
01:00:30 – 01:00:37
I never rerecorded it. Yeah. I was just like, okay, well, I'm not doing that content then. That's fine.
Sean
01:00:38 – 01:00:39
The universe has spoken.
Aaron
01:00:39 – 01:00:42
Yeah. I feel, I feel your pain on that one. It's super frustrating.
Sean
01:00:46 – 01:00:51
Alright. Well, I don't have any other, I don't have any other updates for us for the moment.
Aaron
01:00:51 – 01:00:59
Yeah. Let's call it. We'll talk. I do want to talk more torchlight, but we'll do that next time. I mean, we're already at an hour, so we'll cut it there.
Aaron
01:01:00 – 01:01:02
All right. I'm going to hit stop. See you later.
Me

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

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

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

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