The Laracasts Snippet

The Laracasts Snippet episodes:

• 03.29.2024

  Horses for Courses

  We love tools: linters, type checkers, test runners, asset compilers, et al. Whilst these tools can help solve problems, they might also be a sledgehammer when all you really need is a screwdriver. Let me tell you a little anecdote...

  
• 03.01.2024

  The Stories We Tell Ourselves

  Tell me what you think of this. We all have certain stories about ourselves that we repeat, like mantras. "I am the type of person who is X, therefore..." But, for all the reps, I'm not sure these are doing...

  
• 02.20.2024

  Here's Why You Should Attend Laracon

  Luke, here! I recently got the chance to attend and speak at Laracon EU 2024, and it was fantastic. The venue was awesome, the talks were amazing, but what really makes the event special are the conversations you have with...

  
• 02.14.2024

  Find Your Fit

  It occurred to me recently that, if my job consisted exclusively of writing code 40 hours a week, I don't think I'd be a programmer today. I might go out of my mind. The secret, from my experience, is to...

  
• 01.17.2024

  Juggle the Idea

  If someone on your team presents a business idea to you, they've likely had it simmering in their head for quite some time. Don't be so quick to toss that idea aside. If there's such a thing as anti-patterns in...

  
• 10.12.2023

  Programming is Bootcamp for Conscientiousness

  Programming taught me an interesting life lesson: be a stickler for the details. You see, getting the thing to work is only half the battle. You’re not done. Not even close. Yes, make it functional. But then make it readable....

  
• 10.10.2023

  Business Impostor

  When it comes to business, I - like many developer-turned-small-business-owners, I’d imagine - am really quite green. Not just green, deep green. No MBA in sight. I’m not even sure what that stands for, to be honest. Master of Business...

  
• 08.26.2022

  Steal From Other Hobbies

  In this episode, we'll talk about stealing techniques and approaches from other hobbies or industries. What have you learned from one hobby that might be useful for your programming career? I can think of a few.

  
• 08.15.2022

  Laracasts Q&A: 2022 Edition

  It's hard to believe, but the last Laracasts Q&A episode was published over two years ago. Let's fix that with a new 2022 edition. I'll answer a wide variety of questions, including: how to initially plan a business, are lifetime...

  
• 05.04.2022

  Zoom Out

  I often hear about flat organizational structures and how they lead to more autonomy and better collaboration. That could be true! It sounds appealing. But my worry is: don't you lose the zoomed out perspective in the process? From my...

  
• 03.28.2022

  Don't Participate

  For a number of years now, I've found myself quietly mumbling the words, "Don't participate," every time I feel the need to insert myself into events or conversations that have nothing to do with me. It works wonders. Nearly every...

  
• 02.04.2022

  Programming Bullet Points I'd Send Back in Time

  In this episode, I take some time to ponder over which programming bullet points I wish had been drilled into me more in the early days of my learning. We'll discuss the psychology of learning, design patterns, SOLID, and, of...

  
• 01.28.2022

  If It's Not Perfect, Ship It

  It's far too easy for developers to fall into a trap of never shipping new code to production. "It's not ready," we tell ourselves. "Just one more month to clean things up, and then we'll push it up." But if...

  
• 12.01.2021

  Be the Tortoise

  If you've worked in programming spaces for any period of time, you will surely have heard the advice, "It's better to go slow than fast." We all instinctively know this, and, yet, we're simultaneously obsessed with optimizing every facet of...

  
• 10.27.2021

  Three Shapes

  Whenever I ask a slightly controversial programming question, the responses often take one of three shapes. Let's talk about each of them in this episode, before taking a few moments to discuss why it's so important to play gracefully with...

  
• 09.15.2021

  Trust the Process

  Every time I learn something new, I have to re-remind to trust the process. I'm not sure why. That feeling of "I can't" never goes away. You would think we'd eventually make the connection that if you work on something...

  
• 06.21.2021

  The Best of Both Worlds

  In this episode, we discuss the three-month process of converting Laracasts to a single-page application with Inertia.js.

  
• 03.26.2021

  If You Flip It, They Can Learn It

  It has occurred to me that I might have made some teaching mistakes in the past. Learning sticks when it can immediately be applied to a particular task or need you have. If you don't have an immediate use case,...

  
• 03.08.2021

  About That Laravel 8 Controversy

  I keep seeing oddly similar threads around the web that relate to Laravel 8's "increased prerequisites." They all seem to share the view that, if you want to upgrade to Laravel 8, be prepared to also learn Livewire, Inertia, and...

  
• 02.23.2021

  Cool Kids Table

  Here's an uncomfortable truth about the programming world: we all want to sit at the cool kids table. It was true in high school, and it remains true today. It makes you wonder how this might be reflected in the...

  
• 02.08.2021

  One Thing I Love About Laravel

  One thing I love about Laravel is how, for any given project or feature, there's already a clearly defined pathway I can follow to complete it. For example, we take it for granted that a robust queue system with model...

  
• 01.27.2021

  If Programmers Had a Superpower

  My wife recently paid me a compliment. "You're a good troubleshooter" - to which I replied, that's because it's all I do every day. Programmers are professional troubleshooters.

  
• 10.09.2020

  How to be Ignored on GitHub

  After you've maintained a popular open source project for any length of time, you begin to notice a pattern. Certain issues and pull requests bubble up to the top of your todo list, and certain issues...are ignored. Let's talk about...

  
• 10.01.2020

  The Goodbye Debacle

  We recently pushed a new "goodbye" landing page for the Laracasts website. In an effort to not succumb to the usual, boring "Goodbye, hope to see you again" copy, I opted for a different approach. Unfortunately, it didn't land for...

  
• 07.14.2020

  How We Work

  I recently hired a new instructor for Laracasts. Now that the team has grown to four people, including myself, I thought it might be interesting to discuss my personal hands-off approach to running a small and low-stress team.

  
• 07.07.2020

  Four Words Can Derail Your Day

  Four words can derail any programmer's day. Those four words are "If I could just..." Ask yourself if you frequently fall into this trap. "If I could just configure my code editor properly, then I could get some work done."...

  
• 06.03.2020

  Meet Them Where They Are

  As parents or teachers, if you want to instill a joy for learning or reading, it's important that you meet them where they're currently at in life. The goal, as we've discussed in past episodes of The Laracasts Snippet, is...

  
• 05.25.2020

  It's All About the Framing

  I recently came across a month-old YouTube channel with two million subscribers. The content...was fine. The audio...was fine. And, yet, two million subscribers! Often, the way in which you frame your content is significantly more important than the content itself.

  
• 05.18.2020

  TDD Dogmatism

  Few topics in the programming world spark debate quite as much as TDD. There's enough dogmatism from the evangelists of TDD to warrant an equal and opposite reaction from those who aren't on board and are tired of being told...

  
• 05.08.2020

  When Programmers Run Businesses

  We're living in an interesting time, when one person - anywhere in the world - can start a business without leaving their bedroom. Even better, this business has the potential to bring in revenue while the person sleeps. This is...

  
• 04.02.2020

  How Open Source Projects Spiral Out of Control

  Every open source project begins with the best of intentions. In fact, they usually begin with excitement. One developer has an idea, and thinks, "Hmm - I can do this!" So why is it that, more often than not, these...

  
• 03.24.2020

  Repair Your Focus

  We can all surely relate to the sense that our ability to focus has slowly deteriorated over the last decade. If this scares you as much as it does me, let's talk about how we reverse the process through habit...

  
• 01.21.2020

  They're Only Guidelines

  I think you'll find that intermediate-level developers tend to be the most passionate and rigid of the entire community. It is at this stage of your learning when you are most susceptible and attracted to programming "rules," or instructions from...

  
• 01.16.2020

  This is How We Elect a President

  To offer something different this week, let's tear down and inspect a recent conflict on the US presidential debate stage.

  
• 01.09.2020

  A Brain Dump on Fatherhood

  In this episode, I offer a brain dump on the intricacies of raising two little kids, and fatherhood in general.

  
• 01.02.2020

  The Learn to Code Absurdity

  Too often, we hear politicians spew the tired "learn to code" slogan in response to difficult questions related to disappearing jobs in remote America. Let's talk about the logistics and practicality of a middle-aged coal miner making this switch.

  
• 12.16.2019

  Thinking About Types

  I've thought quite a bit about types in the last year or two. I know - borrring - but I find it interesting to observe how intensely talented developers can disagree with one another on this particular issue.

  
• 11.25.2019

  The Correct Way to Think of Objects

  Developers passionately disagree with one another on most programming issues. For every tutorial on class inheritance, duck-typing, naming conventions, and mutability, I'll show you another resource that argues vehemently in the opposite direction.

  
• 11.18.2019

  Focus on Two Hours, Not Two Years

  Every developer should develop and manage at least one project themselves. Doing so not only harnesses your discipline, but it also forces you to flex product-related muscles you've never used before.

  
• 11.13.2019

  Identifying CSS Animation Bottlenecks

  One of the more frustrating aspects of front-end development stems from the fact that even the smallest of alterations has the potential to derail your entire week. In this episode, we'll discuss how to track browser-specific CSS performance issues.

  
• 10.24.2019

  Correlation Does Not Equal Causation

  That simple rule we all learned years ago in school may not have stuck properly. Why else would we, decade after decade, incorrectly and constantly draw "cause-and-effect" lines from one variable to another?

  
• 10.21.2019

  The Screencasting Mistakes All Newcomers Make

  It occurred to me recently that I've likely recorded more programming screencasts than just about anyone. In that time, I've picked up a number of small tips and techniques.

  
• 10.07.2019

  Forming Friendships When Working Remotely

  Traditionally, there are three primary locations when most friendships are formed: school, the workplace, and church. But what if you're unable to tick any of these boxes, as is increasingly the case for remote workers.

  
• 08.27.2019

  To Mute or Not to Mute

  A recent study found that a small percentage of individuals are largely responsible for the widespread sense that online interactions are hostile and toxic. Assuming this is true, is it possible that muting a handful of people will instantly remove...

  
• 08.20.2019

  Easy Frontend Performance Wins

  In this episode, we'll discuss a series of performance improvements that you can apply to your own projects right now. You'll learn about everything from image lazy loading to inspecting the cost of an NPM package.

  
• 08.08.2019

  The Final Podcast

  No, this isn't the last Laracasts Snippet. But we will be discussing PHP's final keyword and the arguments for and against applying it by default.

  
• 07.23.2019

  Conquering Eye Strain

  In the last few years, I've noticed that my eyes simply aren't as resilient as they used to be. After staring at a computer screen for so many years, the daily eye strain and headaches have been getting worse. Much...

  
• 07.17.2019

  Dogma and Personality

  Each of us is born with a unique personality that defines much of how we view the world. Is it possible that this also cascades down to the code we write? Maybe!

  
• 07.05.2019

  The Four P's

  Today, I have four completely unrelated topics to discuss with you today. As a (cheesy) way to connect the dots between them, we'll call this episode the four P's: Personal, Professional, Political, and Parental.

  
• 06.28.2019

  Beginners and Pros Share This Common Insecurity

  As part of managing Laracasts, I've been lucky enough to speak with countless developers. Whether newcomers or seasoned veterans, they too often seem to share the same insecurity: sooner or later, they'll be found out.