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The Art of Teaching Laravel with Christoph Rumpel · The Laravel Podcast

• Matt Stauffer: Welcome back to Laravel podcast season seven. I'm your host, Matt Stauffer, CEO at Tighten. And in this season, I'm joined every episode by a member of the Laravel team. Today I'm talking to my friend, Christoph, whose last name I'm terrible at pronouncing and I keep trying, but every time I hear it's got like a rum-rum-pull. Americans say rum-pull, but rum-pull. So anyway, Christophe Rumpel, Dev Rel Engineer at Laravel. Christoph, can you say hi and share a little bit about what you do at Laravel. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, sure. Hello everybody. And thanks for being back here on the podcast. I was already here some years ago. I think maybe once or even twice, but I couldn't remember the topics anymore. It's already been that long, but yeah. Hi, my name is Christoph Rumpel. I'm a developer from Vienna, from Austria, father of two kids. And I'm a dev rel engineer at Laravel. Matt Stauffer: So we'll talk a little bit more about what DevRel engineer kind of means. But first I wanted to dive into what you know I talk about the beginning of every podcast, which is what was your story of coming to Laravel? And I guess that so sometimes people will tell me their story of coming to work in the framework. I meant, what is your story of coming to work at Laravel? But you can go expansive as you want. What's your story of coming to write Laravel, work at Laravel, everything? Christoph Rumpel: Coming to the framework, I still remember my first PR. So I can also mention this for a couple of seconds because I had this idea. There was this method. I think it was on the DB facade. It was something like get table. I can't even remember, but there was one method and I needed the plural version of the method. And I thought like, Hey, this is something that I maybe could PR to the framework. And I never had done a pull request before. And I was like, okay, how do I do this? And then I found this blog article by Dries Wintz, which was back then also doing something else, not working at Laravel. And I also messaged him, Hey, I want to do this PR. Can you help me a little bit? And I did this PR and it was super simple PR, but I messed up a lot of things like the formatting. Everything was where people like, my God, this guy, maybe I should do it myself. It's easier than accepting this pull request. But that's how I got into the framework. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Christoph Rumpel: That's one thing I still remember, but getting into Laravel, I jokingly often say I've, I feel like I've always worked for Laravel in some way for the last 10 years, because I've been in the community for over 10 years. I've been connected to all the people, to you, to the OGs from the Laravel world. Yeah, to, I've been blogging, I've been doing videos, I've been doing video courses. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, I've done so many things. So for me, it feels like somehow I've always worked in some way for, for Taylor and he just didn't know about it. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: But so yeah, you're welcome Taylor. And, but yeah, I always thought about what it would be working at Laravel. And at the beginning, there weren't many opportunities to work at Laravel. So it was just Taylor at the beginning. Then somehow Mohammed was there, first employee anoint and everybody was like, my God, there is someone working at Laravel, is this something that other people could do too? And I think from that time, one or two developers came every year. So it was not something where you had a lot of chances to get into it. But I thought about, could this be something for me as well? Because I love Laravel, love working with it. I love the vision Taylor always had for the framework and the community. So was this the right fit? I always wasn't sure and always hesitated when Taylor mentioned something and I saw, I'm not sure if I should apply. And for me, it felt like, I'm not sure if you noticed the same when people love to play video games. They often feel like, Hey, I should become a professional video maker of a game maker because I love playing video games, but yeah, it's not the same. And I didn't want to ruin the one thing which I already had with Matt Stauffer: Hmm. Christoph Rumpel: now being this my job and I felt like, I wasn't sure. So I never applied for, for, for Laravel the first years. And then there were more people coming into the team. And I think there were like 10 and then at some point Taylor tweeted, I still remember it. He said like, Hey, I need some help with creating videos for Laravel maybe one or two videos a week. If you're interested, just message me. And then I was like, Hmm. Maybe this is something that maybe is a better fit because I was always between, I was always a developer, but I always had this very creative side in me. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: And I wasn't sure, I fully a developer? Am I fully doing videos and creative stuff? I was somewhere in between. So that's why I always hesitated. And I felt like maybe this could be something that leads into, yeah, a job at Laravel that would be my perfect fit. And he also said it was like one or two videos. It wasn't a full time gig. So thought I should give it a try. One more I said, if I didn't try it, I surely would regret regret it. So I still remember the whole night I was laying in bed talking to my wife. Should I do this? I talked to a few friends and yeah, everybody said, yeah, you should try it. So the next day I still remember it was a Saturday and we just had our first kids. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: I'm not sure how old she was, but maybe a couple of months. And she was like, you take the day, you do the video and you can repay me later. And yeah, spent the whole day. I was locked into my office, thought about, okay, if I wanted to apply, it should be something cool and special. And I don't want to be the guy, message, Hey, I think I'm the right fit. Please hire me. You always want to be on the top 10 % of people applying for the job. And you really want to stand out. And I like, Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: If I want to apply for this job doing videos, I should do a video. And the day before I was already in bed thinking about what the concept of the video could be. And I woke up, go to my office. I was there, I don't know, five, six, seven hours. And I did everything. And at the end of the day, I sent it to Taylor. And yeah, a few weeks later, I, I joined the team for part-time doing videos for two days a week. At the time I was also working as a developer three days fully for another US company. And yeah, I felt like, this was the perfect fit. It was working, perfect scenario. I was working as a developer three days, fully working on the biggest, um, Laravel SaaS platform that I've seen. I learned a ton. And the other two days I was doing very creative work. I was with the team, which back then was, yeah, man, still it's very special. But back then, especially, I think it were just 10 people at Laravel and... I was working with them and doing videos and I felt, yeah, I really felt like, okay, this is going really the right direction for me. Matt Stauffer: That's very cool. And today you do more than just make videos and there's a certain set of courses that you just recently released, which was kind of very exciting. And was that your first full course? Cause I know that Laravel historically has not done courses. They've done basically here's a YouTube video. So was the PHP fundamentals course that you're about to tell us about, was that the first course that Laravel has ever released? Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, I think so. We had a few of like mini episodes of YouTube for specific topics, which is maybe a mini course, but yeah, nothing like that before. And we had the YouTube channel for many years now. And at the beginning, Mohamed, I think he started doing videos for Laravel about Vapor, creating Laravel applications and people already love this. And then Matt Stauffer: Okay. Christoph Rumpel: I think when he didn't have time anymore or when he left and Nuno was the next person doing quite a lot of videos on the channel. And then I just continued. I also had this what's new in Laravel series before on my YouTube channel, before I joined Laravel. I think that's also why I think I was a good fit for the job. I just continued what I did on my channel, on the Laravel channel and a little bit more. And yeah, so we had a lot of YouTube like videos. Smaller and longer ones, but nothing like this new learn platform, which we just created. Because we always felt like if you're coming to Laravel and Laravel is growing, the team is growing, but also the community, our products. So a lot of new people come to Laravel to the documentation. And as you know, we have really good documentation, but still we felt like we want to give people a little bit more than just the documentation example. Want to give them a little bit more with those two video courses which we just created. So we're not trying to be the next LaraCasts. We love Jeffrey. We love what he does. But yeah, we just wanted to have something on our side officially for new people. And that's why we created the Learn Platform and the PHP Fundamentals course and the Getting Started with Laravel course. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about the course, the PHP fundamentals course, because Josh made the Josh Siri made getting started with Laravel and then you started, you made the PHP Fundamentals course. So tell us about the course for someone who's not familiar with it. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, so basically it's a PHP fundamentals course. We want to show people, especially because we have more people also coming from other languages to Laravel because they see that Laravel has an amazing ecosystem. It's so productive and a lot of developers come here, but they're not that familiar with PHP. So we felt like we have to do this PHP fundamentals course. And we also had the goal to be both courses just around one hour in length. So we really had a hard time thinking about what do we put into the course. And we are all fans in Laravel, especially with being very practical and yeah, just going in, doing some things without too much overhead. And that's what I also tried with the PHP fundamentals course, give you the most basic things that you need to know about PHP, like variables, function, classes, all those basic constructs that you have in PHP, but in a very practical way so that you have the small episodes, five to 10 minutes, and you just, yeah, get started very easily and without thinking about all the other things that you maybe can know or learn about PHP. We want to give you a showcase. Hey, this is what you can do in PHP. And of course, if you want to learn more, there are lots of resources to dig deeper if you want to. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. So you have made courses before, you've made videos before. As you have switched to making videos and courses for Laravel, what's easier than it was before? What's harder? What can you do better than you could before with the resources you have? What have you grown in? What's different? Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, it's funny because a lot of things that have changed from switching from my own videos, my own courses to doing stuff for Laravel, but there was a lot of things that haven't changed. So for example, I still do videos very much the same way that I did before. So I always tackle them in a very specific way. Maybe here's something new that you can use in Laravel. And I'm thinking about what is the state that you were in before? What is maybe an issue that I have with the state? Then here's this new feature and this helps you to overcome this. And that's what I do with most of my videos. Show the people not just here's this feature, you can use it like this, but give them perspective, give them little demos, examples, and yeah, take them on this little journey from here's where you are, or probably might be. This is maybe some of the things that could be improved and here's how we can help. And here's where you can be if you want to. And this is a very simple. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: strategy for most of my videos and I still do this for Laravel. So this hasn't changed at all. But of course, I'm doing our videos on the Laravel channel for way bigger communities. So I thought like, okay, I have to change a few things. I level up my studio here. So that's all what I built just right before the job. So I can bring in a little bit more, professionality to my videos and a better look. And of course I have now a team. Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Christoph Rumpel: When I started at Laravel I was the only one doing videos. So for the first, I don't know, one year, I just did everything on my own, which was also cool. But now of course I have a team now we talk about topics that are interesting. I have Josh next to me doing a lot of videos too. So we have the DevRel team, but we also have the marketing team now with a lot of people. So of course, there's a lot more input, a lot more people that I can talk to. We can discuss things. So. Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: yeah this side has changed a lot for sure. And also the pressure because I'm doing videos for level, so they really have, they better have to be good. Yeah. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of Josh, your title is now officially DevRel engineer. And Josh talked a little bit about that, but I'd love to hear kind of your perspective. When a lot of folks hear DevRel, they hear your job is managing Twitter communities, going to conferences, making videos. So when you kind of think about your job, what are the key components of what you do on a day to day? Christoph Rumpel: Yeah. So, um, um, one funny thing is, um, Hank, our leader of the marketing team, he once said in the podcast, if you're going to hire, uh, a Dev Rel, the first one that you hire for a team should be someone who is not a DevRel person. And I thought about this a lot because it was the same case for me. So I had no idea what DevRel was before when I started doing the things that I do. And I wasn't hired as DevRel when I started level was just hired for. doing videos and in some way I'm still doing just videos. It's a little bit different for Josh and the other people of the team because they work more on also our marketing sites, building the learn platform. So there's a lot of things that the team was working as well, but I'm a little bit in a unique position inside our team because my focus is mostly on the YouTube videos because that's what I'm good at and very productive and Matt Stauffer: Got it. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, the others help a little bit more with the other things to do. But if you're in the team, you should be able to do videos, but also help with coding. And yeah, we also do a lot of conferences. So the last time I wasn't there, but Josh and Chris also set up this little YouTube video studio at the Laracon with all the interviews and the short video we did, which really turned out really well. So yeah, you have to be a good developer, but also someone who can. Matt Stauffer: Coding, yeah. Christoph Rumpel: and represent the brand, the community, the brand a lot and be this communication point between the brand level and the community. So I think that's why it's called Dev Rel Engineer because there are, it's a combination of being an engineer and also being able to talk to the community and yeah, be for them as well, be there for them. Matt Stauffer: Yeah, I mean, I remember when Leah joined one of the or several of the first jobs she was doing, she said, I built this, I built this, I built this. And I'm like, oh right, DevRel engineer, you're not just talking, you're building. And I think it's really fun kind of connection. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, and you have lots of possibilities to build something because the marketing team is cooking as well. And we also implemented so much cool stuff for the blog and the website. So, yeah, you can bring yourself all in with all your skills. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what if you were to design your dream job at Laravel, would you be doing anything different or would you just say, if I can just keep making videos, this is what I want to do. Christoph Rumpel: Yeah. So I still feel a little bit stuck between being this creative person, doing the videos and being this developer. And I try to, I try with the videos that I do to still stay in this spot. So I really like to have some videos like the one which I did about database insertion, how you can import 1 million rows to the database where I just did a lot of research and what you can do experiment. I do have a lot of demo projects for the videos that I do. So I still try to keep this creative mentality and skill that I need for every video, but combine it with some of those dev skills that I need. I think this way I can still create my own dream job here at Laravel. I'm still working on it, but I'm really glad that I can combine those two skills into my daily work. And also especially now with AI. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: And currently I'm experimenting, experimenting a lot with Remotion. Do you know this tool? It's a React tool to create videos through code. And, and it's super interesting. I'm not that familiar with React, so I have a little bit of a hard time, but with AI, a little bit help of AI, I experimented a lot. And the cool thing is you can just create anything, move it around and make videos from it in very good quality. Matt Stauffer: cool. Okay. Christoph Rumpel: And it gives you lot of possibilities on how you can programmatically create videos. I'm currently experimenting with, I have this what's new series on the Laravel channel where I tell the people about what's new in the framework of every release. And I already have a lot of tools that helped me to prepare those videos. So I have an artisan command that gets me all the new releases. I pick one of them. It shows me all the features. I pick the ones that I want to include into my videos. Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Christoph Rumpel: And then it generates a notion page with all the information about those features with the country, the authors of the PRS, the PR links and the names of the people, because I always mentioned them in the video. So there's a lot of preparation work that I need for these kinds of videos. And I try to let AI help me as much as I can. And currently I'm experimenting if I can bring this information through an AI to remotion and create automatically some demo examples, for example. Matt Stauffer: That's very interesting. Christoph Rumpel: And it's, and it's not like I want to create a video completely with AI because that's not the direction that I want to go. There's too much of my personality and creativity that I want to bring into the videos. But I think it's very important to try those tools out and see what you can do. And especially with creating videos for code, there a lot of things, animation that you probably could do easier for just HTML, CSS animation, then doing this maybe in Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Christoph Rumpel: DaVinci Resolve and Fusion. That's what I use for my editors. There are cool things out there which I like to check out as well. I think that's also very interesting. And yeah, to keep yourself updated because like our dev situation, also the video situation is changing a lot and you have to be prepared for what's coming and yeah, overthink about how you can improve stuff. And that's also what I like to do with my videos. Matt Stauffer: So when it comes to developing, you mentioned a few times things that you do to stay on top of development. And I know as like a professional video creator, one of the things you have to avoid is learning something enough to make a video about it, spitting out a video about it, and then never using that thing ever again, because it's hard to give a really rich and nuanced take on something when you've only ever heard of it. You know, six hours before you read the docs, you read the blog posts, you got the bit, you don't know the gotchas. You don't know the catches or whatever. How do you mention demo apps, but what does it look like to stay on top, not just from learning, but from practical experience? Like what do have to force to happen in your life so you can actually have practical experience with things? Christoph Rumpel: Yeah, that's a good one. So I often have to do videos about things that I just learned. So that's very tough. And there are for sure things that you can think about or that you don't have to experience so that you don't know all the catches from those things. But I think I've become quite good at checking out a PR, checking out what's new, thinking about how you could use this, of course, reading the PR description and Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Christoph Rumpel: making a video about it the same day or the next day. And I think that's also a kind of skill that you have to bring if you want to do this kind of work because yeah, that happens just a lot. Hey, here's Forge. Now we have zero deployments on every new site and here on Cloud we have hibernation. I have no idea what hibernation is and now I need to learn about hibernation. Yeah. And next day I'm doing a video about it. And it's not like, like Matt Stauffer: But you gotta learn. Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: like faking it, it's more like giving the current view and you can learn a lot about those things in just a couple of hours. And it is enough to make a good first video about it. And then maybe a year later, you can do another video about it with all the things that you've learned. But yeah, it's for sure important to be fast at learning things and preparing stuff and also knowing how you can, what you need in order to prepare yourself for video because that's also very different. I'm a person who is very organized and I try to, like I've shown, I have my notion pages with all the information about the video, the things that I want to cover, some, maybe some little scripts that helped me for intro and outro things. So yeah, you have to know yourself, what you need in order to get the best out of you, I would say. Did this answer your question? Okay. Matt Stauffer: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much. Yes, it did. It was a great answer. And actually, those last of the questions I had queued up for you. Is there anything you wanted to talk about today that we have not covered yet? Christoph Rumpel: Let me check. So I think teaching in general is a topic that I'm very excited about. And I think it's also something that you constantly have to reconsider how we teach people and how we can bring the right amount of videos with the correct level of knowledge that you need for the video. So bringing in basic videos, bringing in more advanced videos. Matt Stauffer: Mm-hmm. Christoph Rumpel: Of course, it's always easier to bring in the more basic stuff because that's also for us easier. And I also believe that this is one of my biggest skills that I can create very simple videos, even though the topics are maybe a little bit more complicated. And I think this is still the case because that's also where I came from. I have no technical background. I just started coding when I had to work on websites for the band that I had when I was in my Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: teenager days and when you had to use CSS to customize your MySpace profile. Do you notice? that, Matt Stauffer: yeah, I very much remember that. Christoph Rumpel: So there was this little tiny box where I could add CSS for, I don't know what it was for, but it gave you the possibility to just change the whole look of your MySpace profile, doing those nice background images of the band and things. And that's how I started with CSS and then HTML and then aat university, started writing PHP the first time and Java, and I was like, I think it was already 25. So, I had also a hard time learning these things. And that's why I believe I'm still quite good at, imagining what it is like for someone else to learning those concepts. And I think it's also very interesting. Also again, with a set with the amount of, beginner videos and more advanced video, what is the right amount of videos in those areas that you publish. And that's still something that we try to figure out. So I don't think there's a good answer to that. But especially now with the bigger team, we have way more personalities and people bringing different things into our work and our videos, because it's also every, every, everyone who works at Laravel brings their own personality, their own way. I know that a lot of people who are not Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Christoph Rumpel: that familiar with English, maybe like me speaking a little bit more than someone who is more familiar with English because they can see themselves more in like someone who is not native or the other way around. So it's also very interesting. So I think it's also good to have a very diverse team. And that's also what we're trying here with our DevRel engineer team. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. One of the things I really liked that you said at the beginning was the idea that for each of your videos, you try to say, like, here's where you were and here's where you're going to get to. And it's such a small thing, but like I've been working on a video course right now teaching you how to use a certain SaaS. And it's sort of like you could just say, here's what the SaaS does. And it's sort of like an info product. And I don't. like making the video like that. And I found myself naturally saying, now here's a problem and here's how we're going to go to the SaaS and maybe here's how we used to solve it or here's how we didn't be, you know, here we're going to go to the SaaS, we're going to use it. And so I've now built a little sample app and here's the sample app before. And then we're going to do these things and now look at the same. And I'm like, that's not always the way that you would do it. But it feels so much more natural for me because as a learner, like you're saying, like as a learner, I remember learning things because I still learning things. Remember learning these things. I can track it much better that way. I don't think that thinking through, I think it's pedagogy, like thinking through the learning process is not something that everybody's doing as they approach videos. And so I think that's, I'm really grateful that you're thinking about it that way because. Making a video and making a video that's going to help someone learn are not the same thing and choosing educational topics that are fun and interesting for me and choosing educational topics that are what the community needs is not the same thing. You know, like I very often like to teach for beginners and every talk I've ever given I hit a point where I'm like Christoph Rumpel: Yeah. Matt Stauffer: What am I doing? Everybody knows this already. I'm so stupid. They're all gonna be like Matt Why'd you just spend 40 minutes teaching a topic? We all know already, right? It's not it's not necessarily an easy thing to choose to Teach to beginners to choose to these different ways of teaching. So first of all, just want to say I'm grateful that you're doing it But second of all, have you always thought of yourself as an educator? Like what what brought you to the point where you're saying? I'm not just making videos I'm thinking creatively about how to solve the problem of educating people and educating the right people about the right things? Christoph Rumpel: Hmm, I don't really know. think I was always, I always had this creative side of me, think since the beginning, but I just started in the community by trying to learn as much as I could from others. Because as I said, I came in a little bit late. I'm learning coding with, I don't know, 24, 25 years old of age. And then I felt like I was already way behind so many others. So I tried to learn as much as I could in a very short time. I read all the blog articles, did all the courses from all the amazing people in this community. And at some point I started sharing all the stuff that I learned and I was like, okay, interesting. Maybe others could learn from me too. Of course, back then I felt like nobody's interested in my blog post about, I don't know, models in Laravel because you have the docs, you have so many other people talking about this, like you said, but there are always people who appreciate it because they maybe feel a little bit more connected to you. They maybe feel a little bit more closer to you than to someone who is maybe more experienced or maybe your tone or they just want to be friends with you and you're more kind of equal in a way that I feel like more like you are. And I think this could also be a reason why people choose to learn from this person and everyone brings a different aspect to a new topic. So I always tell people, if you want to do a talk, you always have something to talk about. Even if you tell me you don't have, everyone has something for a talk and you should always share what your experience are. And you don't have to, if you don't want to, but I can promise you there are people who are going to read it and there are people coming that will appreciate it. So, yeah, don't be afraid to do this. Matt Stauffer: I love that. Well, that's the end of what I have for you. Thank you so much for bringing up all the conversations around being a teacher. Is there anything else you wanted to cover? Do you feel like we got to everything on your list? Christoph Rumpel: I think we got it all. I can't think of anything right now. I only want to mention, please check out our new Learn Platform and our courses. And we also appreciate feedback, what people think about the courses. And if they think we should do some more, please tell us about it. We're still thinking about if we want to do a couple more. But yeah, we're very proud of this start of this Learn Platform. And we're always excited to see where this is going because... We don't know yet ourselves, so it's exciting. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. And check it out at learn.laravel.com and we'll put a link in the show notes as well. Christoph, thank you so much for hanging out. Obviously, you know, you know, I've been friends for probably over a decade at this point. So I always appreciate you. But it is fun to be able to dive a little bit into kind of your thoughts behind your teaching experience, because I didn't I didn't know you approached it this way. And it's fun seeing someone not just doing it, but trying to do it in a way that really helps people. So thank you so much. Christoph Rumpel: Thank you. just want to mention this one more time. I've mentioned a couple of times in other ways, but I still remember the first time that we met. Matt Stauffer: Laracon EU. Christoph Rumpel: It was, yeah, Laracon EU Amsterdam 2015, I believe. You did your talk about empathy and amazing talk. There's still so many people talking about this talk because it was the first time we've seen this kind of soft talk in a way, which was... Matt Stauffer: Thank you. Christoph Rumpel: really interesting and helpful and really touched a lot of people. people are still thankful for that. And you were waiting in line to go for lunch. It was lunch and I was right behind you and I was like, oh, that's Matt. I want to talk to him, but I wasn't sure. And then I just said hi and we had our first conversation and now we're here. So thank you again for having me. Oh yeah, it has been too. Matt Stauffer: Where were we getting coffee or something? It was lunch. Yeah, yeah, Matt Stauffer: Look at us now. So it has been 10 years then, because that's 2015. I love it. Yeah. And I'm very grateful that you said hi. And it's been wonderful continuing to be a friend with you over the years. Christoph Rumpel: Thank you so much. Likewise. Matt Stauffer: Awesome. And for the rest of you, thank you so much for hanging out with us, and we will see you all next time. Christoph Rumpel: Bye, thank you.