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

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.