Michael and Jake celebrate episode 200 in the most outlandish way possible: with no special plan whatsoever.

Michael shares an update on his home renovation, including construction progress, verandah engineering, outdoor kitchen plans, landscaping, structured cabling, smoke alarms, CCTV, and the ever-growing list of "small" additions that come with a major building project.

They then discuss home networking, with Michael planning a mostly Ubiquiti, while Jake compares notes on his own home network, including reusing old whole-house vacuum pipes as ethernet conduit and planning better Wi-Fi coverage throughout the house.

Later, the conversation shifts to software development and AI-assisted coding. Michael describes what he calls - rightly or wrongly - a "software factory" that uses Amp as an orchestrator, GLM 5.3 agents for implementation, spec-driven development, automated code review, browser testing, and overnight agent workflows.

The episode wraps with a broader discussion about what AI means for software development, how it enables software for an audience of one, and whether Michael should buy the 24-port PoE switch after all.

Jake and Michael are joined by TJ Miller, David Hemphill, and Chris Gmyr to talk about the realities of working with non-technical stakeholders that are now empowered to deliver software through AI.

Show links

• TJ Miller
• David Hemphill
• Chris Gmyr
• KFC's Picklecore Menu
• Luma Brighter Learning
• Zillow
• Rula Health
• Laravel Nova
• Lovable
• Laravel AI
• Refactoring to Collections
• Rector
• PHPStan

In this episode, Michael and Jake recap Laracon US Boston, from Malaysian food and an undefeated dodgeball run to Laraprom, the great nachos-with-rice debate, conference logistics, Aaron Francis stepping into Laravel’s VP of Marketing and Community role, and a reminder to make room for silly software.

Jake shares his work rebuilding Boom Party, the fast-paced Bomberman clone his team used to play after stand-up, along with hosting decisions and a creative workflow involving Claude, Gemini, and Suno.

Michael closes things out with what was supposed to be an easy Pest 5 upgrade but turned into a much bigger test-suite adventure: converting old PHPUnit-style tests, untangling inheritance, tracking down mysterious parallel test failures, discovering the pain of stray exit statements, and ultimately getting repeat runs across an approximately 18,000-test suite down to just eight seconds.

Show links

• Pomplamoose
• Spindrift
• IZZE
• Laracon US
• Aaron Francis
• Sidecar
• Whimsy-driven development by Christina Martinez
• Boom Party
• Fly.io