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

Michael and Jake catch up ahead of Laracon in Boston, beginning with Michael's increasingly complicated home extension. Jake shares a family trip to Cedar Point, then the conversation moves to how a Laravel Cloud weekend challenge inspired Michael to build Fitrack, a personal app for coordinating training around a single fitness goal.

We then move on to home network and security upgrades, including a larger rack cabinet, a new NAS, locally accessible alarms and CCTV, Power over Ethernet cameras, Home Assistant, HomeKit, RTSP feeds, and using Claude to handle unfamiliar smart-home configuration. We also discuss Kitze hacking his NordicTrack treadmill and Michael’s experience connecting his own treadmill with Apple Fitness.

Finally, Michael and Jake look ahead to Laracon, discuss conference merchandise and accommodation in Boston, and finish with a conversation about donuts, candy, and the lengths parents go to when quietly disposing of their children’s leftover sweets.

Show links

• Cedar Point
• Laravel Cloud
• Taylor’s Laravel Cloud weekend shipping challenge
• Edwin’s Google Meet alternative
• Fitrack
• David Hemphill
• Home Assistant
• Aqara cameras
• Kitze's treadmill hack
• Caleb Porzio on code imprinting on our brains
• Laracon US
• Moxy Boston Downtown