Aaron Saray
Appears in 115 Episodes
Understanding different learning styles
What a surprise, Joel and Aaron have a different learning style. We talk through our different approaches to learning, and what we've found useful.Did you like this? W...
Sometimes it's good to be boring
Do you like to fiddle with settings? Joel doesn't. Find out why, and hear about one example where we like deviating from the defaults.Learn more about Laravel at maste...
What was this developer thinking??
Maybe you've inherited a project and just looking at how the code is organized makes your head hurt. Before you go ripping it apart and "making it better", it can be u...
Should you fix all bugs in a legacy project?
You've inherited a legacy app. It's "running fine" in production, but when you add an error reporting tool, you see hundreds of errors, warnings, and notices logged ea...
Learning from other communities
Can a Laravel developer learn something from the Rails or Erlang communities? We share some perspective on how to broaden your horizons, and when might be a good time ...
Uh-oh, that proof of concept is going into production. Now what?
Many of us have built something we thought was "throw-away" code, only to have someone decide it's good enough to ship to production. How can you prepare for this, and...
The benefits of sharing what you learn
If you are listening to this, you probably enjoy hearing other people share what they've learned. In this episode, we turn the tables and explain why you should consid...
How to deal with interruptions
How can you handle an interruption to your work, especially if it is an urgent request for help? We discuss how to do this without derailing your planned work for the ...
Should I write this weird code or is there a Laravel feature I can use instead?
We walk through a recent experience where Joel was about to "burn down the world," as Aaron calls it. Instead, after doing a little exploration of the Laravel framewor...
Take time to look back and review
It feels good to finish a project, but before you move on, there are benefits to pausing and reflecting on what went well and what could have been better.If you're enj...
The benefits of testing, even under a deadline
We have to ship this feature in 2 weeks! Do we have time to test? In this episode we talk through this scenario and share some benefits of testing even under the press...
When to calculate a value versus when to store it in the database
For some values, it can be tricky to know whether it's better to calculate it on the fly or when to calculate it once and store in the database. We talk through a rece...
Should I use an event/listener or a model observer?
We share a few rules that help guide us to determine when to manually fire an event versus when to wire up a model observer.Make my phone buzz and download a book to m...
How we wrap up a project
Wrapping up our series on how we work, we talk through the end of a project and how to make sure there are no surprises.Download the free security tips ebook from mast...
Don't be afraid to change your mind
You learned a best practice, and it served you well. Is it set in stone? Or should you be open to re-evaluate later?Get those free e-books at masteringlaravel.io
The proper way to argue
We've all had disagreements about how to write or organize code, or how a feature should work. We share some tips on how to discuss it productively.Be a Joel, not a Co...
What makes a good staging environment?
Setting up a useful staging environment involves a number of choices. We discuss our preferred strategies and talk about why having a staging environment is a good thing.
Your project is not special
This isn't meant to be an insult. It's actually a good thing that your project isn't completely unique, and you can benefit from what other people have already learned.
Planning out a week of work
Continuing our series on "how we work", today we finally get to the dev work. How we organize it, plan it, and communicate with the project stakeholders.I heard this s...
A few things to watch for with Laravel policies
Aaron shares a few things that he's bumped into with policies in his apps, and we talk through some possible solutions or processes to help avoid them.Tweet @jclermont...
Onboarding a new project
When you inherit a project, how do you draw a balance before making everything nice to work with and delivering value to the stakeholders?Check out masteringlaravel.io
Paying down technical debt
Is all technical debt bad? Can it serve a valuable purpose? We share our opinions along with some tips on how to be strategic when paying down technical debt in your p...
Knowing when and how to try something new
You just attended a conference or finished a book/course and you're all excited to try out some new "best practice". We discuss how to balance this enthusiasm with the...
Wireframe before coding
As developers, coding is the fun part, but we share why we like to slow down and take some time to wireframe before diving into the editor* Download our free Laravel T...
Continuous integration doesn't have to be hard
Maybe "continuous integration" sounds like a complex thing to setup. We explain why it doesn't have to be, how to start small, and what the benefits are.
Deciding what to build
So someone has asked you to build an app, or add a feature to an app. How do you decide exactly what to build and how much to charge? We share our approach to these im...
Are your logs too noisy?
Logs and error trackers are a vital tool for maintaining a production app. But if you're not careful, they can get so noisy they stop providing value. We discuss a few...
How we decide whether or not to take on something new
This episode is a little different. We take a peek behind the scenes as to how we qualify projects, and the sorts of things you might think about before deciding wheth...
Are you allowed to do that?
Roles and permissions are a core part of most applications. Laravel provides some tools for managing and enforcing this, and third party packages provide even more fea...
Are you a Laravel developer or a PHP developer?
When you're building a Laravel app, you're writing PHP code, but you're dealing with many patterns and conveniences provided by Laravel. So where do you draw the line ...