North Meets South Web Podcast

In this episode, Michael and Jake catch up on life and code. They talk about fatigue, seasonal shifts, lawn adventures, and the return of hay fever.

We dive into replacing a legacy Salesforce integration with Saloon, frustrations with mocks, and how Saloon fakes have improved testing workflows. Michael walks through his experiments with AI tools like Claude and opencode to prototype fake gateways - treating AI as a “junior dev” pair. The discussion covers gateway patterns, middleware, registry-based response handling, and strategies for testing Salesforce without polluting production environments.

From weeds and soil temps to software fakes and AI-driven dev, this one’s a mix of everyday life and practical engineering insights.

Show links

• LawnHub – Michael’s lawn care supplier
• Saloon (by Sam Carré) – Laravel/HTTP client package
• Salesforce – CRM platform discussed in the episode
• Mockery – PHP mocking framework
• opencode – terminal tool for AI coding (by SST’s Dax and Adam, Terminal Coffee)
• Claude – AI model used for coding exploration
• GitHub Copilot – AI coding assistant
• Stripe test cards – referenced in gateway fake analogy
• Bond for Livewire

In this episode, Jake and Michael catch up on life, family, and tech.

Michael shares proud stories about his son Eli turning into a “soccer terrorist” on the field, while Jake recounts his own stint as a stand-in soccer coach. They dive into Laracon AU updates — from speaker announcements and Road to Laracon podcasts, to quiz night and swag planning.

Other highlights include experiments with AI-generated artwork, Bruce’s new social media adventures, sponsor promotion, and even a tangent on coding tools like PHPStan and how AI can help fix issues in the background.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Road to Laracon
• Bruce on X
• Laravel Live Denmark
• Boost

In this episode, Michael and Jake reflect on their recent time at Laracon US 2025 in Denver - catching up in person after six years, reconnecting with the Laravel community, and sharing behind-the-scenes stories from the conference floor.

They also cover:

• Why this Laracon felt like a true “homecoming”
• Building Laravel meetups and fostering community
• The book (and tv show) Station Eleven (and how different things might have been)
• The value of attending conferences, particularly as a non-speaker
• Continued discussion on the complexities of handling roles and permissions

The episode weaves together community highlights, technical challenges, and personal reflections.

In this episode, Michael and Jake kick things off with some Laracon travel talk, sharing their hotel plans, coffee quests, and even jokes about pillow fights at the conference hotel. Michael reveals his precise coffee scouting for the Vib by Best Western hotel, determined not to survive three days on Starbucks alone.

• Should you define middleware in a controller’s constructor?
  Michael explains why he avoids it - preferring to keep all middleware in route definitions for better visibility and maintainability. Jake explores the pros and cons and why he’s still tempted to use it for certain edge cases.
• Dynamic permissions vs. static definitions:
  We switch gears to talk about the balance between flexibility and clarity when defining permissions for applications, especially when it comes to handling user roles, teams, and complex business rules.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Laracon US travel plans
• Vib by Best Western (the hotel coffee and tacos!)
• Laravel middleware usage
• Permission handling in apps
• Travel gear for developers on the go

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the nuance of being “busy”, saying no to features (and why), handling user feedback early, Laravel-powered static views with dynamic data, and building tools that stand the test of time.

In this episode, Jake and Michael reflect on parenting, discuss Apple's new Liquid Glass UI, finding smarter ways to use video on the web, plus share thoughts on AI overload, Laracon prep, and why Wistia might be your next favourite video tool.

In this episode:
- Apple’s Liquid Glass UI
- Kit.com and Wistia for video
- Reflections on AI, tech bubbles, and accessibility
- Laracon US and vox pop interviews
- The emotional ride of watching your kids grow up

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss Jake's new stealth grill, his eldest son's takeover of the state finals (and metric's takeover of measurement), and Michael goes through the process of refining over 150 talk submissions down to the final Laracon AU schedule.

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss using interfaces as a dictionary of constants, working with and testing inputs passed down multiple layers of the application, and refactoring legacy code with PHP's ArrayAccess interface.

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the ramp up of Laracon AU planning, touch base on Jake's unorthodox usage of Laravel Horizon, and Michael finally coming around to using AI.

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss Michael's new recording gear, building integrations with external APIs using Saloon, and configuring Laravel Horizon.