Latest / North Meets South Web Podcast / Controllers and Middleware, Grok vs. Claude, and Developer Value

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Controllers and Middleware, Grok vs. Claude, and Developer Value · North Meets South Web Podcast

• 0:00
  -Hey. I'm Michael Dyrynda. -And I'm Jake Bennett.
• 0:03
  And welcome to episode 183 of the North Meet South Web Podcast.
• 0:10
  Hello, friends. It is once again that time of the week. It is Monday
• 0:16
  night, and, uh, it's dark out. And it's been dark for, like, the last five
• 0:23
  hours. I'm not digging this thing. And the thing is, I know it's gonna get even
• 0:27
  worse because
• 0:29
  shortly they're gonna change the time to be an hour... It's gonna start getting
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  -dark at, like, 4:00 instead of 5:00. -Mm-hmm.
• 0:35
  Oh, I just hate this time of year. No fun, dude. No fun.
• 0:40
  -Are you- -And y-
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  Are you getting rid of daylight savings? Is that what's happening?
• 0:44
  -Uh, you know what, man? -Or is that still-
• 0:45
  I feel like they've been put... I feel like they've been teasing us with this for
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  -forever. -Right. Yeah, yeah.
• 0:49
  I really wish they would, uh, but I don't know if they are. I don't know. I feel
• 0:52
  like last year was like, "This is the last year they're gonna do it." And then it
• 0:56
  was like, "Ah, psych," or something. I don't know. We'll find out.
• 0:59
  -Yeah, okay. -We'll find out soon enough.
• 1:01
  -Find out when it happens -But I don't know.
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  So I guess we... Not this weekend, next weekend, daylight saving starts here. So
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  we're, you know, the day is already getting longer. It's bright when you wake
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  -up. -Yup, yup.
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  It's bright longer into the evening. So it's
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  good for us because, you know, obviously it means you can get up a bit earlier and
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  -there is some sunlight. -Yeah.
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  And you finish work at the end of the day, and there is still sunlight, so.
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  -Absolutely. Great. -But it has been, has been raining, which
• 1:24
  is, has made it difficult. Last episode we talked about my adventures with, uh-
• 1:29
  -Hay fever -... LawnHub. And well, hay fever, yes, but
• 1:32
  -LawnHub. -Mm-hmm.
• 1:32
  And I had to, had to go out and spray the weeds. And it says you're not supposed to
• 1:38
  do that if there's going to be rain within four hours. And when-
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  -Ah -... I'm planning this ten days in advance,
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  it's very hard to tell if there's going to be rain.
• 1:46
  -It is. Yes. -Because even if they can predict ten days
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  -in advance, it's never correct. -Not n- Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
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  So, you know, I, I got up on that day, and I look outside, and I'm like, "It doesn't
• 1:55
  look like it's gonna rain." And then I went for a, a run in the morning, or I
• 1:58
  went for a walk in the morning, and, and I got rained on. And I thought, "Okay,
• 2:03
  well, this has not bode well." And then I, I waited a bit and there was no rain. And
• 2:09
  I, I checked the, the forecast, and it said there's no rain due until, you know,
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  three o'clock in the afternoon. This is 10:00 in the morning. I'm like, "Okay, I'm
• 2:15
  gonna go out, and I'll spray the weeds now." And I got almost finished, and it
• 2:20
  -started raining. -Ah.
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  -You know, 30 minutes later, I'm like- -Oh my gosh. Pointless.
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  -Come on. -I just wasted all that stuff.
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  -Come on. -Yeah.
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  But, uh, it, it seems to have worked though, 'cause I went out the next day and
• 2:30
  all of the, the weeds that I had sprayed had started-
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  Yeah, but it'll still be at least, like, partially effective
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  -... drooping and stuff, so. -Yeah. Yeah, it'll be fine. It'll be fine.
• 2:36
  So yeah, the next one is in, in 14 days when I have to go out and spray the actual
• 2:39
  fertilizer on the lawn, will be interesting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna see
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  if I can go and hire a dethatcher or a scarifier-
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  -Oh, yeah -... whatever you call it-
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  -Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm -... to go and, like, pull up all of the,
• 2:50
  the deadness from the surface of the, of the-
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  -Yep -... lawn before I then go and put down the
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  fertilizer. And, and hopefully that will help to rejuvenate it. So-
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  Are you gonna, are you gonna aerate the soil too? You gonna pile out, pull out the
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  -plugs and all that stuff? -Mm-mm. No, I'm probably-
• 3:02
  Dude, you're gonna become one of those lawn guys?
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  No, I'm probably not gonna go that far. The scarifier I would do because it's,
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  like, you know, a machine that you can hire that goes through and does it.
• 3:11
  -Yep, yep. -But anything that involves too much manual
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  labor is something that I'm not that interested in, so.
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  -Mm-hmm. -I have... Like, if, as long as I fertilize
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  the lawn, it tends to come up okay. It's when it starts to get cold and wet, and I
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  go, "I'm not gonna go out there and mow the lawn," 'cause it just turns to mush,
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  -right? -Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Uh-huh.
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  And so, you do that once, and then before you know it, the weeds grow, you know-
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  -Yep, yep, yep -... as high as your knees. And then you go
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  and, and then you've gotta go and mow it, like, four times just to get it down to
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  level. And by that point, it's too late, and it's just turned into weeds. So
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  -I'm hoping it should be okay. -Hey, speaking of Scarify,
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  speaking of Scarify, Halloween is around the corner.
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  Yeah.
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  -We're transitioning- -Do you guys do Hallow-
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  -No -Do you guys do Halloween? Do you guys do
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  -Halloween? -No, although we've been invited to a, a
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  -Halloween birthday party, which I'm- -Oh, that sounds fun.
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  Yeah. So
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  for, for, uh... How old is he? Uh, uh, uh-
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  -Nine. -I can't remember if this is the older
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  -child or the younger child. -Eli's hanging out with the older kids
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  these days. He's moving on up.
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  Yeah. Yeah, he certainly is. Yeah. I am... It occurred to me that we were, we... One
• 4:10
  of the kids from school that lives, like, two doors down, he's in the, the year
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  above Eli. And, um,
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  we went around... With, with them, we went to the park. We had, like, a kick of the,
• 4:21
  the soccer ball, we played a bit of basketball, we pushed some kids on the
• 4:24
  swings. It was, it was a good bit of fun. But one of the other kids was there, plays
• 4:27
  in Eli's soccer team. And I was trying to put two and two together, like, how, how
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  is this child friends with the older kid when he plays in Eli's soccer team?
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  -Yeah, sure. -And it took me a while to realize that he
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  is actually an older kid
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  -playing- -Ah, okay
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  ... down a grade in soccer. So he is in, in the older kids' year level, so.
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  -That's fun. -But, uh-
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  -Yeah. -You know, they played, they played
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  together for two terms before I realized this.
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  -That's fun. -So-
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  Yeah, no. It's good, probably good for Eli to play up with, like, a little bit older
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  -kids and stuff. -Mm-hmm.
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  And yeah, I'm sure he gets... You know, it's like you play to the level of your
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  competition or of your teammates, I suppose.
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  -It's, uh, yeah. -And so you probably get better as you
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  play. Yeah. So we, um... Harrison had a soccer game this last Saturday and scored
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  two goals. He was practicing his hat trick dance if he got three goals.
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  -Ah, yes. If he gets three, yeah. -And so he, yeah, he had it all planned
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  out. Oh, he was... He wanted it so bad. He had a couple, like... He got two goals
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  -and then he- -Mm-hmm
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  ... kicked a third. It was high, it had a lot of, like, spin on it. Like, hit right
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  in front of the goal and bounced backwards.
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  -Yeah. -Like, uh, did not go into the goal. Yeah.
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  -Then he had a couple of those. Anyway- -Good.
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  It was fun. He almost made it. It was, it was the last game of the season, so it was
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  -like his last chance- -Mm-hmm
• 5:31
  ... to get it. But no, it was, it was all fun. All fun. Um, yeah. Okay. I've... You
• 5:37
  know, when we started this, this show we're like, "What should we talk about?"
• 5:39
  Well, I've got a couple things. First of all, um, have you ever seen these 1Up
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  Arcade boxes? So, like, they're, like, not a full arcade cabinet, but, like, it's,
• 5:50
  th- they're like mini arcade cabinets, if you will. So, like, 1Up Arcade, Street
• 5:55
  Fighter, they've got whatever. So David Hemphill and I are big into Street
• 5:58
  Fighter. We played, uh, Street Fighter when we were at Lari: Con this year. That
• 6:01
  -was fun. Um- -Mm-hmm.
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  But I always wanted a little Street Fighter box. And so I found one on
• 6:07
  Facebook Marketplace, this guy was selling it for, like, 100 bucks. I'm like, "Why
• 6:09
  is he selling it for ch- so cheap?" Well, turns out he was trying to convert it to,
• 6:12
  like, a RetroPie.Which is like a Raspberry Pi with, like, the software...
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  -Mm-hmm -... installed on it that allows you to
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  download ROMs and then use all the stuff. So he had done all the conversion on it.
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  Like, where you have to swap out all the buttons, you have to buy this, like, LCD,
• 6:25
  um, converter that will hook it up to the port. He bought all the parts, had done
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  all the things, and could not get the last step. Could not get it to work, just
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  didn't have the chops,
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  and so... Or so I thought. And so I was like, "Well..."
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  -Mm-hmm. -"...I'll figure this out, no big deal."
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  Well, no, it's been sitting in my basement for two months and I have not been able
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  to get it to work. And then I rewatched a couple tutorials and realized there was a
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  ribbon cable that was flipped around the opposite way.
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  -Wow. -Turned it around, plugged it in. That was
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  it, dude, I was, I was off and running. And so that's been so fun, been playing
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  -with that, like- -It's wild they did something so simple.
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  -Oh, seriously. I mean, it's just- -But yeah, I suppose if you, if you flip
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  -the pins, then it's, uh... -Yes.
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  But, uh, you know, this is why, uh, PC cases have always had the little notch so
• 7:05
  that you could never get it the other way around.
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  -Yes. Yep, not this- -Because you don't wanna s-
• 7:08
  -... not this one. -You don't wanna r- yeah, you don't wanna
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  -reverse, uh- -Yeah, polarity order, yeah
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  ... electricity going to the motherboard, huh?
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  Exactly. And so anyway, dude, that's been so fun, and it's a really fun little,
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  like, hobby project. Now, the cool thing is, like-
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  -Mm-hmm -... I didn't have to pay $400 for it. I
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  paid, like, 100 bucks for it, and then half was already bought.
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  -Yeah, it's pretty good. -So yeah, it's, it's been a little, it's
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  been a lot of fun just playing around with that. Me and Harrison played some Street
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  Fighter today, and we both like that game, and so... Yeah, that's been pretty cool,
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  so I would suggest that as a fun little hobby to anybody if they're interested.
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  There's, uh, there's some cool little mods you can do out there with it and it's,
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  -it's pretty fun, so that's been cool. -All right.
• 7:40
  -Um, yeah. -I can, we can buy these things here, uh-
• 7:43
  -Nice, yeah -... Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat Deluxe...
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  Yes.
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  Arcade machine has 14 games, Mortal Kombat 1,
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  2, 3. There's some other Mortal Kombat and a few other random games on there,
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  -thousand bucks, plus delivery. -Yeah.
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  -All right, good times. -Yeah. Yep. So this is almost... Yeah
• 8:02
  -Lose that before I spend money. -The- the pri- yeah, exactly. The price was
• 8:04
  right. Like, it was, it was way cheap, and I was...
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  -Mm-hmm. -"Yeah, I'll try this out." So that's been,
• 8:07
  -that's been kind of fun... -Yeah
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  ... to just mess around with but, and finally got it working.
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  -Love it. -Um, the other thing that I wanted to talk
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  about though is
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  we've talked a lot about the permissions stuff, right?
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  -Mm-hmm. -And so I- I wanna, I wanna sorta share the
• 8:20
  saga with you, if I can. Um,
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  so we talked originally about how we went through all of our applications, and
• 8:27
  previously we only had roles, and we replaced any place where we are checking a
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  role with a named permission. So instead of saying has role admin or has role
• 8:38
  manager, we would say, "Nope, what are we trying to do in this place? Oh, we're
• 8:41
  trying to edit a blog post. Okay, so we're gonna replace that with a check to say
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  permission enum
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  -edit blog post." Right? -Mm-hmm.
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  -That's- that's what it was. Um- -Yeah
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  ... and then we used attributes to associate active directory group, security
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  group names with those permissions, and then in active directory we just set those
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  permissions, or we set those groups, those security groups on the particular
• 9:03
  users that need those things. It works great. Works really, really well.
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  -Yeah. -It's pretty cool.
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  -I think. -We've had some other interesting solutions
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  around that. Okay, that's the, that's that side of it.
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  Um, now, the question has been, where do we do those permission checks? And all
• 9:16
  we're doing with those permission checks is we're just doing gates, right? We're
• 9:19
  -setting up gates... -Yeah
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  ... um, so that you can use Laravel's default can. You have can middleware, you
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  -have a can directive, you have... -Mm-hmm.
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  You know, this authorize that you can use inside of the controller if your
• 9:30
  controllers are auth- y- you know, using the authorizable trait. Um, you can do it
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  inside of a form request, you can do it, you know, a bunch of different places.
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  -Yeah. -Um, you can, uh,
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  you know, you could just use the gate facade. There's all sorts of ways that you
• 9:44
  can do this, right? And so the way that we had previously done it, like, as our
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  first step is we just replaced any of the middleware checks, um, in our routes file
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  with can middleware checks, and, uh, I mean, totally fine.
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  But that sort of broke down a little bit. Um, we ended up having to, like, rearrange
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  -how our routes files were set up, and... -Yeah.
• 10:04
  ... you'd end up having to, like, break apart different pieces, um, based on-
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  -Just to get the granularity. -Exactly. And so, like, you'd have a route
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  file that would belong with another one, like, co-located with it that would have
• 10:15
  to be, like, further down, and then ended up being like, there'd be a merge conflict
• 10:19
  and somebody, like, fixed the merge conflict but they accidentally moved one
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  -out of that group. -Yeah, yeah.
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  And so now it was without permissions because, you know, it's just, like, in the
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  -routes file, and so- -Yeah
• 10:28
  ... I was like, "We can't do that anymore." Um...
• 10:30
  -Mm-hmm. -We- we've gotta... It- it just did not
• 10:32
  feel like it was close enough to the metal. It just felt like it was so s- sort
• 10:36
  -of, like, out there and removed. -Yeah. Yeah.
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  Um,
• 10:39
  and so, um, so first off, like, do you identify with that at all? Like, do you
• 10:43
  feel that? Like, do you ever feel like if you're doing a- a middleware check or a
• 10:46
  can check out at the edge there on the routes file, does that ever make you feel
• 10:50
  a little bit like, "Eh, feels a little too fragile"?
• 10:53
  I don't know off the top of my head anywhere where we are doing
• 10:58
  an authorization check in our routes file.
• 11:00
  -Okay. -Like, maybe very high level, but- but
• 11:02
  -nothing granular. I think all of that- -Sure
• 11:05
  -... granularity... -Like, are... yeah. Sure, like-
• 11:07
  ... all those authorization checks will push down into a form request or into,
• 11:10
  like, an action class if we wanna enforce that behavior deep into the- the business
• 11:14
  rules of that behavior.
• 11:17
  But- but typically, it'll be in- in the authorize method of a
• 11:21
  form request or inside of, like, an a-
• 11:25
  an action class,
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  -somewhere where we're authorizing that. -Okay. So that l- that brought me to my
• 11:31
  next step, which was, okay, so if we're not gonna do it in the middleware, we
• 11:34
  have, uh, we can- we can do it inside of each controller, uh, method.
• 11:38
  -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -Right? So if we're using resourceful
• 11:40
  controllers, um, we can just do a
• 11:43
  -this authorize, um... -Yeah
• 11:46
  ... or request authorize or whatever it is, this authorize, and that's gonna pass
• 11:49
  in the user, and then you can just pass in the permissions check, which is fine.
• 11:52
  That- that works great. But
• 11:54
  it's, like, I sort of hate having to have those at the top of every controller
• 11:58
  method. It sorta sucks. And so you have some options, right? Um, one option that
• 12:04
  was really interesting and attractive to me was that if you're dealing with a
• 12:08
  resource, like a blog post, for example, instead of having to put that in every
• 12:14
  single method...Um, this gate check, this authorize check, in the constructor you
• 12:19
  could say, "This authorize resource," and then you could point it at the policy that
• 12:25
  you had created, if you created a policy, like a post policy.
• 12:29
  -Mm-hmm. -And then you could do your, your gate
• 12:30
  checks in there. So inside of that, you could just kind of say, you know, um,
• 12:36
  "Here are the different a- view any, view, edit, update, whatever."
• 12:39
  -Mm-hmm. -And you would just say, "Authorize
• 12:41
  resource, here's the policy," and it would automatically apply the correct policy
• 12:45
  check to the proper method, which was amazing.
• 12:48
  -Yeah. -I was like, "This is great." Okay, so
• 12:49
  we're gonna move everything to policies now.
• 12:52
  -Mm-hmm. -Everything to policies, and then we'll do
• 12:54
  our, you know, our permission checks inside of those policies so we know like,
• 12:58
  okay, you go to the controller, the controller's gonna have an authorize
• 13:00
  resource. And then at the top you're gonna click through that, and that's gonna get
• 13:03
  you to your policy. And the policy is gonna define the, the different, you know,
• 13:07
  permissions that they need in order to be able to do these things. Very well
• 13:09
  organized, very clean, super nice, loved it.
• 13:12
  -Yeah. -And then Laravel 12 came along.
• 13:16
  And Laravel 12 basically nukes all of that.
• 13:18
  -Mm-hmm. -It does not use the authorize resource
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  anymore, it is not in the docs anymore, and
• 13:24
  now it's back to, and all the docs recommend using
• 13:28
  Gate.dodop.authorize inside of every controller method.
• 13:34
  -Mm-hmm. -And I'm just like, "I hate this.
• 13:36
  I really-" "...hate how it looks." And so I know-
• 13:38
  -Mm-hmm -...what you're saying is you just use a
• 13:41
  -form request in that case, right? -Yeah.
• 13:43
  If you want to, if you want to do that authorization check, you're just gonna
• 13:47
  say, "I am, I am going to do that inside of a form request
• 13:51
  for every method inside of all those controllers," right?
• 13:56
  -Yeah. -Um, is that accurate? Is that how you
• 13:57
  -would do it? -Yeah. And we, we also typically use a lot
• 14:02
  -of single action controllers because- -Mm-hmm
• 14:04
  ...we are not, like we're not building a crud, cruddy app really. Um-
• 14:10
  -Yeah -...we have lots of components, and
• 14:12
  components make requests to specific routes.
• 14:16
  -Endpoints, yeah, sure. -Endpoints that are responsible for doing
• 14:20
  particular things. So yeah, we, we will typically have an action that is called,
• 14:25
  uh, from a controller that is, um,
• 14:29
  past a, a request object which is responsible for doing the authorization.
• 14:34
  And whether, you know, whether it's a, a get endpoint or an index endpoint where
• 14:39
  like, some things don't need to be authorized, and so the authorize method of
• 14:44
  -that form request will just return true. -Yeah, sure.
• 14:47
  But there will be some index methods where we do need to do tho- those checks in
• 14:51
  there. And so we will do the authorization inside of, you know, a otherwise empty
• 14:56
  form request. But it gives us, you know, extra files around the place, but they are
• 15:01
  consistently named and consistently located. So if we have like a, a
• 15:08
  user index controller, for example, then we would also have a user index request
• 15:14
  that goes in, you know, the, the request folder or whatever. But if you are using
• 15:17
  your fuzzy, fuzzy finder in your editor, you're going to type, you know, user index
• 15:22
  and you will see the request and the controller there, uh, next to each other.
• 15:25
  So it's easy enough to find 'em. And then you'll also have the user index action
• 15:28
  perhaps. Um, and so all of this stuff, because it's, it's got like a
• 15:32
  s- a common prefix, it all comes up when you're searching for it. Um,
• 15:39
  your mileage may vary depending on whether or not you'll, you're navigating the file
• 15:42
  -tree or if you're using fuzzy find. Um- -Sure, sure
• 15:45
  ...you know, obviously as a VIM user, my hand's on the keyboard so, uh-
• 15:49
  -Yeah, yeah -...it's, it's more common that I will find
• 15:52
  things that way. Um, and that also then extends to tests, like if you've got a
• 15:56
  user index test, for example, um, or a user index controller test, whatever you
• 16:01
  wanna call it, all of these things will appear, you know, at the top of your
• 16:05
  search anyway. So
• 16:06
  it makes it easier from that perspective to locate things rather than having to
• 16:10
  traverse the directory tree to look in like a request folder or a controllers
• 16:13
  folder or wherever else. It's all just there. Um, so yeah, more files but
• 16:19
  they're, they're typically very small files,
• 16:22
  but it also then allows us to co-locate that behavior where it makes the most
• 16:25
  -sense. You know, requests- -Yeah
• 16:27
  ...and authorization kind of go together. Controllers are really
• 16:31
  just for delegating, you know, taking some data, passing it to some action and
• 16:35
  returning some response. But they're, they're typically, you know, no more than
• 16:39
  five or six lines long.
• 16:41
  Right. Yeah, and I think, I think for me, I get it, like I get... I'm not
• 16:46
  necessarily so concerned with
• 16:49
  making a new form request for every single thing, although it does sort of suck,
• 16:53
  honestly. Um, and I think it's just because it's like, how many levels of
• 16:56
  indirection do I have to have before I finally get down to the thing? You know
• 16:59
  -what I mean? -Mm-hmm.
• 17:00
  'Cause it's like the reason we organized it around policies is because we were
• 17:03
  like, "Okay great, we're gonna treat them as resources." Okay, so now we have
• 17:06
  -policies. -Mm-hmm.
• 17:06
  Wonderful. But now it's like we're sort of saying, well, I mean maybe it's a policy
• 17:10
  but we're basically gonna have a form request for every single one of them
• 17:13
  every, anyway, so what's the point of having the policy?
• 17:16
  -Mm-hmm. -Like, now the pol- so, so now I go
• 17:19
  route controller, method, form request, authorize, policy, then permission?
• 17:25
  -Mm-hmm. -I mean, holy crap.
• 17:25
  -Mm-hmm. -That's like seven layers of indirection to
• 17:27
  -get down to the actual- -Yeah
• 17:28
  ...permission check. It's crazy. And so it's like, if you're gonna do that, if
• 17:32
  you're going to do a form request, it almost feels like you could do without the
• 17:36
  -policy, um, because- -Mm-hmm
• 17:39
  ...like, I don't really, I'm not using it almost anywhere else-
• 17:42
  -Yeah -...except for in the controller. And so-
• 17:44
  -Yeah -...you know, if I'm going to create the
• 17:46
  form requests, I almost don't wanna create the policies because-
• 17:50
  -Yeah -...I don't wanna do one more layer.
• 17:54
  Yeah. It also depends. Like if you're very
• 17:57
  resource-centric as it seems to be that you are, then, you know, the policies-
• 18:01
  -I mean, sometimes it's- -...do make sense. But we, we definitely
• 18:05
  err on the side of
• 18:07
  not having resources. Like we're not updating people and businesses and
• 18:12
  addresses and things like that as commonly as we are adding a person to application
• 18:17
  or add address to person or, you know, all of this kind of stuff where these actions
• 18:22
  kind of dictate what's happening.So, um, and so whether or not you have access to
• 18:26
  do that action is kind of decoupled from the resource itself. Whereas
• 18:33
  you, because you've got the policies and that kinda stuff, you're- you're more
• 18:37
  leaning towards that side of things,
• 18:40
  so it probably makes more sense to use the policies. Um, but I still think, you
• 18:45
  know, the form requests just make a- a consistent... Yeah. Yeah, it's seven
• 18:49
  layers and it's more things, et cetera, but it's always gonna be in the same
• 18:54
  place. You don't have to stop and think, "Oh, hang on. This is an index method.
• 18:58
  Where do I authorize this now?" No, it just goes in the form request.
• 19:01
  -Yeah. -Like-
• 19:02
  -Mm-hmm -... yes, extra file, yes, extra location.
• 19:05
  Potentially, like, if you're doing the policy and, you know... But it, but it
• 19:10
  means that you can guard those things directly as well, using the policies.
• 19:15
  Yeah.
• 19:15
  -Um, where- -I guess that's-
• 19:16
  ... you're not necessarily encapsulating business logic behind
• 19:19
  -a request or an action or whatever else. -Yeah. Okay, so here's the last piece with
• 19:24
  the form request thing. So, like, there will be... So there are places where we do
• 19:28
  have more intensive sort of policy logic. So for example-
• 19:31
  -Mm-hmm -... I'll have, like, a coaching entry,
• 19:34
  right?
• 19:35
  And for that, a coaching... And, like, if somebody... The ability to be able to view
• 19:40
  a coaching entry depends on if it is... Like, if the person that's logged
• 19:46
  in, if their user ID is the person that is, like... They're the coachable team
• 19:52
  -member ID- -Mm-hmm
• 19:53
  -... or something like that, right? -Mm-hmm.
• 19:54
  They're the person who's being coached. So if it belongs to them, they can see it.
• 19:57
  Or if it is a person who directly manages them. So if they're anywhere within... So
• 20:03
  indirectly or directly manages them. So if they're anywhere in the tree of that
• 20:06
  -person's- -Mm-hmm
• 20:07
  ... purview, they can be seen, right? Where does that live? That has to live
• 20:10
  inside the policy. That's the logical place for it to live.
• 20:12
  -Mm-hmm. -My question is,
• 20:14
  if I'm doing that, um, does the... So, like, let's say the, uh, the view
• 20:21
  coaching entry request, right? Or is it coaching entry view request? Which one is
• 20:26
  it? Coaching entry show request? Is that what you'd call it?
• 20:30
  Yeah, it's show coaching entry request, I think.
• 20:33
  -Okay. So verb and then model and then- -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah
• 20:37
  -... yeah? Okay. -Yeah.
• 20:38
  So show coa- so show coaching entry request. If I do that, um-
• 20:43
  -Mm-hmm -... does the show coaching entry request
• 20:44
  authorize the method, have access to the ID or to the currently hydrated, eager
• 20:49
  loaded, um, model binding, right? Does that make sense?
• 20:55
  Uh, like, yeah, for the, like, for the relate, for the related entry.
• 20:59
  Right. So, like, so when you do, you know, you have implicit route model binding,
• 21:02
  -right? -Mm-hmm.
• 21:02
  So, like, it will, it will automatically pull the ID. You know, it says, "Here's
• 21:07
  -the ID." -Yep.
• 21:08
  Uh, "I'm going to go ahead and grab that particular type hinted model out of the
• 21:13
  -database," or "I'm gonna 404." -Mm-hmm.
• 21:16
  And then you use that in the policy to then check against, is this current, you
• 21:21
  know, is this current, uh, coaching entry? You know, you inspect it, basically, to
• 21:25
  determine if the person who's currently logged in can see that thing or not.
• 21:29
  -Yeah. -So my question is, does the authorize
• 21:31
  method have access to that particular model? So that when I'm saying, uh, this
• 21:36
  arrow authorize post class, comma, or- or just say, like, view, comma, and then I
• 21:43
  -pass in that particular post. -Yeah. Well, the- the route model binding
• 21:49
  stuff is done
• 21:51
  up the stack and then passed down into the request. So you do have access to the
• 21:55
  route and all of its bound parameters at that point. Yeah.
• 22:00
  So, yeah, like, in the controller, typically you have, like, the way that the
• 22:03
  implicit route model binding works is in the controller you have request, you know,
• 22:07
  type entered request, dollar sign request, comma-
• 22:10
  -Mm-hmm -... type entered coaching entry, dollar
• 22:12
  -sign coaching entry. -Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 22:13
  -Right? -Yeah, yep.
• 22:14
  And then in the controller, you have access to that thing. So what I'm saying
• 22:17
  is I don't know how to get access to the coaching entry, dollar sign coaching
• 22:21
  entry, from the authorize method, 'cause I would need that-
• 22:23
  -Yeah, and- -... in order to be able to do my policy
• 22:25
  check.
• 22:26
  Yes. La- uh, so typ- previously, you'd have to do, like, this route and then pass
• 22:31
  -it the, the string name. -Mm-hmm.
• 22:33
  I think in Laravel 12, they introduced the thing so you can use an attribute to then
• 22:38
  bind that directly out of the route. So you can... I think it's pound square
• 22:44
  bracket route, and then give it the thing, and then you can actually inject a
• 22:48
  properly typed, um,
• 22:51
  class or instance there so that you will get the completion and you'll get all of
• 22:55
  that stuff there, and Laravel will then handle injecting that from the request
• 22:59
  -automatically. From- from the route- -Because doesn't that feel like... So if
• 23:02
  I'm just, I- I'm- I'm discovering the solution here with you. I'm talking it
• 23:06
  -through- -Mm-hmm
• 23:06
  ... because I'm interested in- in how it kinda does work. To me, it feels a little
• 23:09
  bit gross that, like, I have it type entered inside the controller. Like, and I
• 23:13
  know the name of it, I know the variable and all that stuff, but the form request
• 23:16
  -does not have that. -Mm-hmm.
• 23:18
  You know, it doesn't know. It doesn't have any idea of that route model binding
• 23:22
  thing. It doesn't know. And so
• 23:25
  it's like I have to either, you know, duplicate that inside of the form request
• 23:31
  or I have to somehow pass it in. I just, like, I'm wondering, you know, what is
• 23:35
  Team Laravel doing for this? Like, it seems like this is not
• 23:41
  how I- I would think that it would be done. Like, it just-
• 23:44
  -Yeah -... it seems too chaotic. I just, I'm
• 23:47
  like, "Who..." There- there's gotta be a way. There... Either there's, A, they're
• 23:50
  doing it a certain way that they're not super stoked with, um, and they're just
• 23:55
  sort of doing it. Or, B, they're doing it a different way that I'm completely
• 23:59
  unaware of. Or,
• 24:01
  C, I just don't like it and they don't give a crap. They don't care at all.
• 24:04
  -Mm-hmm. -It's fine. It's fine for them. You know
• 24:06
  -what I mean? -Yeah. Nuno, I think Nuno was posting
• 24:10
  something about this the other day. I saw a screenshot. So they're just calling
• 24:15
  request validate, um... Oh, no, this is the MCP Tools thing. I'm sure I saw that
• 24:21
  he tweeted somewhere.
• 24:24
  In Laravel MCP, tools, prompts, and resources share the same API request
• 24:28
  handle response. Similar to controllers in Laravel, you can validate input, dispatch
• 24:31
  actions, and more.But this is calling request validate, this is not talking
• 24:36
  about authorization.
• 24:38
  I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm certain in one of Nuno's, um, streams or videos that he
• 24:45
  posted, he did talk about how he goes through this. Which I assume would be very
• 24:49
  similar to how they're doing it, uh, in Laravel Cloud at the very least, 'cause he
• 24:53
  had a heavy hand in, in the architecture of that platform. So, um, it would
• 24:58
  definitely be good to, to gauge
• 25:01
  some... 'Cause I know that, you know, you brought this up in, uh, in Cash Money,
• 25:05
  -and, and David- -Yeah
• 25:06
  ... David Hemphill and I, we've, we're very much aligned in this in terms of, um,
• 25:11
  you know, using form requests for everything, and, and handling
• 25:13
  -authorization that way, so... -So, so-
• 25:16
  -I think- -Like-
• 25:18
  ... I think this is where it kinda comes down to, you know, there are many
• 25:20
  different ways of doing these things in Laravel, and it, and it varies case by
• 25:24
  case, app by app. Um, you know, some things make sense in some context that are
• 25:29
  different in others. Uh, and it's hard to find, like, the one prescribed way of
• 25:34
  -doing it. -Yeah.
• 25:35
  -Um, but yeah, I know- -I just, I just wanna be consistent, and it
• 25:38
  -just- -Yeah.
• 25:39
  Every time I feel like I've got it nailed down, there's, like, some weird edge case
• 25:43
  -thing that's like, "Oh-" -Mm-hmm.
• 25:44
  "... except for that, then you have to do it a different way." And I'm like, "No-"
• 25:46
  -Yeah. -"... dang it all, I don't wanna do it a
• 25:47
  -different way. I wanna do it-" -Yeah.
• 25:48
  "... the same way every time." Like, and it just feels like I can't find that way.
• 25:53
  I thought I had. I though- I did, I actually did have it. When I had that
• 25:56
  authorized resource thing, it was working perfectly. Now I, now it's, now I can't.
• 26:01
  -It's, it's- -Yeah, I mean, that's-
• 26:02
  -I'm screwed. -That's gone from
• 26:04
  the controller, because the base controller is gone, but you can still use
• 26:07
  the trait directly if you wanted to. You can, I mean, you can always bring that
• 26:10
  -base controller- -Well, no-
• 26:10
  -... back if you wanted to. -You can, but-
• 26:13
  -Or is it gone? -... you have to extend, like, if you do
• 26:16
  that, the, the, the way that they do the middle ware on the controllers is also
• 26:21
  -different now- -Right, okay
• 26:22
  ... because they've, they've removed that construct middle ware.
• 26:25
  -Yeah, 'cause it's a method now. -Yeah, they've con- removed that. And so
• 26:28
  you have to have, like, there's like a public static function middle ware on
• 26:31
  every controller, but the authorized resource uses that middle ware the way
• 26:37
  that it was previously written. Which is why I think-
• 26:39
  -Mm-hmm -... they removed it from the docs. It was
• 26:40
  like, "No, we're not gonna do this anymore." Like, you have to extend-
• 26:43
  -Mm-hmm -... a different type of, um... I- I looked
• 26:47
  into it. It's just, you have to do something funky. It's definitely not the
• 26:49
  direction the framework was going. Which I'm fine with saying we're gonna stick
• 26:52
  with where the c- the framework was going. I'm fine with changing, I just don't feel
• 26:56
  like I have a clear picture of, like, how it is. And, and again-
• 26:59
  -Mm-hmm -... maybe it's... They are just like, "No,
• 27:02
  no, no, there is a clear picture. The clear picture is do a gate authorize check
• 27:06
  in every single controller method." And I'm just like, "Ick, I don't like that.
• 27:09
  -That's still the thing." Um- -Yeah.
• 27:12
  -And so, you know. -I found, I found Nuno's, uh, tweet about
• 27:15
  it. It was from the 29th of January. So some things just stick in my head better
• 27:18
  than others. But he said, "Yes, authorization on my form request. I
• 27:22
  typically test form request on my controller test." So the... I- I've linked
• 27:27
  it to you, I have a link for you in the show notes. Basically he's got a
• 27:29
  controller which has a method that injects the request, and the assumption is that
• 27:33
  the authorization has already happened in the request, and the validation obviously
• 27:36
  then happens in the, uh, form request implicitly. And then it's just a matter of
• 27:41
  calling the action handle method and returning response from the controller,
• 27:45
  -and- -Okay, so here's, here's my only, this is
• 27:47
  my only hang up, right? And you may have an answer to this, you may not.
• 27:52
  If I have
• 27:54
  a
• 27:56
  item.
• 27:58
  If I'm edit, like, so if I'm editing an item, okay?
• 28:01
  -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -And I am getting that through the
• 28:03
  controller method, um, not store, not like a new one, like I'm-
• 28:09
  -Mm-hmm -... editing or I'm viewing one that
• 28:10
  -already exists. -Mm-hmm.
• 28:12
  How can I reference that item that's coming in in my form request
• 28:18
  in the authorize method? That's it. If I could figure that out, I feel like I'm
• 28:21
  good.
• 28:22
  And I'm, I want that to be actually a good answer. Like, I don't want it to be some
• 28:25
  janky, like, I have to pull it from the route thing. Like, I want it to, like...
• 28:29
  Yeah. Well this is the, the route parameter attribute that you would, you
• 28:32
  would
• 28:33
  hint that
• 28:34
  in that authorize method, and it should inject it for you that way.
• 28:39
  -Okay. -That's how I believe it's meant to work,
• 28:41
  so.
• 28:44
  Storage, keep that route parameter attribute. Yeah.
• 28:47
  Yeah. Yeah, and I'd say the only piece to me that still feels incomplete on that is
• 28:52
  that I have to have that in both my controller and my form request, that same
• 28:57
  variable. I have to keep it in. I have to keep it consistent. It, my refactor tools
• 29:02
  are not gonna know that those are gonna need to change together.
• 29:05
  No. They won't. Um,
• 29:10
  no.
• 29:12
  But you, you need... Well, yeah, you need to put them in both places anyway
• 29:17
  if you need both of them to be aware of it. It's, like, it's no different than
• 29:20
  passing it down into an action or sending it somewhere else. Like, those things just
• 29:24
  -need to know about it. -Well, except for from there, I'm passing
• 29:26
  -it from the controller into the action. -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 29:30
  Right? And so I can see it in the controller. It's like it's right there.
• 29:33
  -Yeah, yeah. -I can see the name of the variable. I know
• 29:34
  I have that available to me in the controller.
• 29:37
  -Mm-hmm. -And so then I just... And it's no problem.
• 29:39
  -I- I just, it's like it's- -I mean, if you wanted to
• 29:42
  if you wanted to, you could then, you could then type the route parameter in
• 29:46
  both of them rather than relying on the implicit injection
• 29:51
  -into the controller. -Could I do, could I...
• 29:53
  -So rather than just- -Go ahead.
• 29:55
  Yeah, so rather than in your controller method doing, you know, binding the, the
• 29:59
  model directly, you could just say route parameter. 'Cause this, you can-
• 30:03
  -Ah, okay -... that route parameter attribute
• 30:06
  is, a- an attribute that targets parameters. So you could do it on a, on a
• 30:11
  controller's edit method, yeah.
• 30:14
  -Mm-hmm. -But, you know, without running the code,
• 30:16
  looking at it, it certainly seems to, to be the case.
• 30:21
  Okay. I need to find the documentation for that,
• 30:24
  for what you're talking about. Is it an attribute, that route attribute?
• 30:27
  Contextual, yeah, contextual, contextual attributes, I think is what they're called
• 30:31
  -in the documentation. -Okay. Let's look that up.
• 30:34
  Contextual attributes, yeah, as part of the service container documentation.
• 30:42
  Contextual attributes.
• 30:44
  Route parameter, and then so you say, like, the route parameter would be, uh,
• 30:49
  -coaching- -Yeah
• 30:51
  ... as a string, and then you would have a, you know, coaching,
• 30:56
  dollar coaching, you know, and put it put it in the definition that way.
• 31:01
  I'm curious if when I get it that way, if it's actually going to give me is is it
• 31:06
  just going to give me the value, the ID that's being passed through? So I have to
• 31:10
  -look it up again? -It'll it'll do the casting for you.
• 31:12
  -It will do that. -It's basically an explicit model
• 31:16
  binding.
• 31:18
  Right? You're saying take this thing explicitly from the route, right, the the
• 31:25
  ID of the coaching
• 31:27
  model, and then Mhmm. It will handle casting that into a coaching
• 31:30
  -Oh, I see it -... model.
• 31:33
  Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep.
• 31:37
  And it does a container make from the request and gets that route parameter, and
• 31:42
  then you get that back because it's an attribute that you have now typed as a as
• 31:47
  a, method parameter, you'll get the type of that thing knowing that it is an
• 31:53
  instance of whatever it should be out of the route, which in this case
• 31:57
  Interesting. So I could do that I could do that inside of the, um,
• 32:02
  -the form request? -The form request and the controller. Yeah.
• 32:05
  I mean, it it doesn't stop the like, I've gotta put it in two places. But it makes
• 32:10
  -it -Yeah. Or maybe or maybe it actually I
• 32:12
  wonder if it actually also, makes 2 queries.
• 32:16
  -That would be the thing to check for. -Hmm.
• 32:20
  I mean, it's pulling it out of the route. So it's set
• 32:23
  -on the route there. -Yeah.
• 32:26
  -Yeah. -So
• 32:28
  worth exploring. Uh, I wouldn't go and refactor my
• 32:31
  I'm still not super yeah. Well so that's where we're at. It's like we're already
• 32:35
  going through the process of refactoring the code base. So I'm pulling my hair out
• 32:38
  trying to figure out, okay, we're doing this once. How do we wanna do it? And I
• 32:42
  just don't feel like I have a good answer. So
• 32:45
  -Yeah. There are -I might just end up I might just so what I
• 32:47
  know what I know I can do is the the easy way that's ugly is just do the gate
• 32:53
  authorize check at the top of every controller method and call it good. And it
• 32:56
  is it is ugly, but it's effective, and it works every time. Like
• 33:00
  -Yeah. -I mean, there are there are some ugly
• 33:03
  things, and there are some paper cuts in the framework that I don't know that there
• 33:07
  are good solutions for. Um,
• 33:10
  and, like, I know that Taylor likes to go through and find these paper cuts and and
• 33:14
  clean them up, but there are just some things that I think can't be cleaned up. I
• 33:19
  mean, I say that now, maybe in 6 months, he will, you know he will have one of
• 33:22
  those light bulb moments and figure out how to do it. But, um, yeah, the the form
• 33:28
  request and the controller kind of different context as well.
• 33:31
  -Yeah. Yeah. -Even though they're coupled. Um,
• 33:34
  -yeah. -Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay.
• 33:38
  Interesting. I'd be interested to to hear where you land on it though.
• 33:41
  Yeah. I think I think if I'm if I'm just trying to be, like if I'm trying to be as
• 33:47
  consistent and as, like, pragmatic as I would as I could be, I think, ideally, I
• 33:52
  would like to put it in the form request. I would like to just always have a form
• 33:55
  request object, always have an authorized method, and always be checking the policy
• 34:00
  -in that spot. -Yeah.
• 34:01
  Um, and then I think the trick the only trick I have to figure out is how I can
• 34:05
  make sure that I have access to that that, um, model that is bound, you know, the
• 34:11
  implicit binding. And if I can figure that out, then I'm I'm good to go. And I'll
• 34:14
  I'll let you know kinda where we where we land on that.
• 34:16
  -Yeah. Excellent. -Cool.
• 34:19
  -It's nice. -Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright. We are what
• 34:23
  -time are we at here? 34? -Yeah.
• 34:26
  Alright. We got we we got anything else before wanna talk about before we go or
• 34:29
  are we good?
• 34:31
  Uh, no. I mean, we talked about the Salesforce mocking thing, uh, last
• 34:35
  episode, which I'm still working my way through because I realized today that at
• 34:40
  some point during the AI writing the code, it deleted a whole bunch of code that I
• 34:45
  -Oh, fun. -... still had written. So and I'm not sure
• 34:47
  like, I don't know if I'd stashed it and then dropped the stash because I thought I
• 34:51
  wasn't working on that anymore. Um, but it likes to be very verbose. And so
• 34:56
  what I have found through this process
• 34:59
  is that
• 35:00
  a lot of stuff you end up doing multiple times because you'd like you get the first
• 35:03
  cut and then you have to like tidy it up and then it like starts doing weird
• 35:07
  things. Like I said, I want you to bind a faker instance to the container. So it
• 35:12
  went and actually bound
• 35:14
  well, I said I wanted to choose dependency and injection. And so I went and then
• 35:17
  bound an instance of faker to the container rather than just injecting it as
• 35:21
  a constructor
• 35:23
  property. So this is things like that. I'm I'm getting to the point where I'm, like,
• 35:28
  I would just do this myself. Like, you have given me enough of the skeleton that
• 35:32
  I can go and make the rest of this work. Otherwise, I'm just gonna keep going round
• 35:35
  and round in circles.
• 35:37
  So
• 35:38
  I did find though, um, I'm using I think we spoke about open code last time. I'm
• 35:43
  using that. They're offering brock code fast for free for a period of time while
• 35:50
  they're testing it out with with their stuff. And I think
• 35:54
  it tends to produce results, like, good enough results much quicker because it
• 35:59
  doesn't
• 36:00
  spit out all of the, like, thought process that it's going through where Claude
• 36:04
  and the Sonnet model will say, you know, I'm doing this. I'm looking at this. Oh,
• 36:09
  this didn't work. I'm gonna, like, go and investigate this. Whatever. Like, it's
• 36:13
  very verbose in terms of describing what it's doing. Brock code seems to just,
• 36:18
  like, do it and then go here's the result at the end, which
• 36:23
  depending on who you are
• 36:25
  may or may not be
• 36:26
  a better option. But I found towards the end of last week that
• 36:31
  that Groq code was
• 36:34
  certainly producing results much quicker where Sonnet kept on timing out. But I
• 36:39
  think Claude had some issues last week, and they made some tweaks to their models
• 36:42
  or something like that. So maybe that came into play because it seems to be working
• 36:45
  okay again today.So, anyway, I don't know. I think our code base is, is
• 36:52
  quite large and some of the stuff that's in there may impair
• 36:57
  -more than impact what it's doing. -Mm-hmm.
• 37:00
  And so, yeah. It certainly has gotten through a lot of the boilerplate and a lot
• 37:05
  of the things that I wouldn't wanna do, like, you know, coming up with mock
• 37:09
  responses for Salesforce requests. Like, it's figured out what they should look
• 37:13
  like and
• 37:14
  the shape of the responses and generating all of the, the bodies. So it's been very
• 37:18
  good at that. But in terms of tying all the pieces together, I'm not stoked with
• 37:21
  -it, to be honest. -Yeah.
• 37:23
  You know, whether, whether or not that's, like, the model is not capable of it or
• 37:26
  I'm not capable of steering the model at this stage is
• 37:30
  unclear. But it's just a frustrating thing, and it's, it's turning into a bit
• 37:35
  of an abusive relationship now because every time I say- ... "Nah, this is crap.
• 37:38
  I'm not gonna use this anymore. I'm gonna do it myself," I find my way back to it
• 37:41
  and try again anyway. Maybe this time it'll be different, so.
• 37:45
  -You get... You're codependent. -It's no, it's no good. But I feel-
• 37:49
  -There's- -I, I just, I
• 37:51
  -there's- -There's gonna be a whole industry popping
• 37:52
  up around, like, AI, like, relationship coaching.
• 37:55
  Yeah. Yeah. There's, uh, we'll, we'll probably wrap on this, and maybe I'll get
• 38:00
  your opinion on it and then we can wrap. But
• 38:03
  I feel like there's a big push
• 38:06
  as an industry. Like, you see it all the time. Companies are saying, "You've gotta
• 38:09
  use AI. We're not hiring any more staff unless you can show that you've exhausted
• 38:12
  all avenues with AI," and, and whatever else. Like, so there's that whole school
• 38:16
  of thought going on. And, um,
• 38:22
  I feel like as engineers, as developers that have been in the game for a long
• 38:27
  period of time, that have, like, done all of the work by hand for a long period of
• 38:30
  time, sitting there and watching the computer write the code for you, it's
• 38:34
  like, what am I being paid for now
• 38:37
  to, like, sit there and just what? Like, I feel very dirty about it. Whereas some
• 38:41
  people are like, "This is great. I can get more done," I don't feel like it's made
• 38:45
  me quicker. I feel like it has certainly written more code than I could have over
• 38:49
  the same period of time. I don't think it's produced the same amount of output
• 38:54
  and the same amount of value as I could in that same amount of time, if that makes
• 38:57
  -sense. -Mm. Yeah, so do you-
• 38:59
  -Um- -You feel like it's actually made, made you
• 39:01
  less efficient, but it's, it's easier for you?
• 39:04
  -I don't think it's made me more- -Less produc- not, not less efficient, less
• 39:06
  -productive? -Yeah.
• 39:07
  -Do you feel like you're producing less? -Yeah, I feel like... Yeah, 'cause, like,
• 39:11
  I'm not doing it. I'm watching the computer do it, right?
• 39:14
  -Sure. -But I feel like what it's producing, I
• 39:16
  still need to go over, and there's a lot of untangling going on there. So I'm, I'm
• 39:20
  watching the computer write the code for, you know, hours of a day
• 39:25
  or across a week, you know, hours of, of, of that week. And it's like, well, what,
• 39:31
  what am I supposed to be doing while it's
• 39:33
  churning out code? And then, oh, it's finished. Okay, now I've gotta go and look
• 39:36
  at it. No, that's no good. Figure out how we're gonna fix it. Okay, then off it
• 39:40
  goes again. It's like... I don't know. As, as someone who has always written the
• 39:45
  code, it's like, I understand that I get, you know, you get paid to do the work, but
• 39:50
  now I'm not doing the work, if that makes sense. So what-
• 39:53
  -Yeah, yeah -... what, what am I, what am I being paid
• 39:54
  -for here? -Are you, are you using, are you using it
• 39:56
  in, like, planning mode first to kinda get it all set up?
• 39:58
  -Yeah. -And then you... Yeah. Okay.
• 40:00
  -Yeah. -So you're doing it that way. Okay. Yeah.
• 40:01
  -Yeah. -I don't know, dude. I, honestly, I wish I
• 40:03
  could tell you. I feel like tomorrow I actually told Andy Hinkle. I was like,
• 40:07
  "Dude, you're gonna do a Teaching Tuesday for us tomorrow, and you're gonna show us
• 40:10
  how you actually go through
• 40:12
  with Claude and with, uh, Cursor and, and how you actually go through. What's your
• 40:17
  process, you know? Um, how do you set it up in planning mode? What are the things
• 40:20
  that you're prompting it with?" And whatever. And there, there are little
• 40:22
  things. Like, so today he went through and was like, "Here are all the strings that
• 40:28
  I want to have a passing test for, that it should have this output. And here are all
• 40:33
  the ones that I have strings that should be ignored, and this is what it should
• 40:37
  -be," whatever. And then he said- -Mm-hmm
• 40:38
  ... "I need a regex that solves all of these." And it was like, "Okay. Let me
• 40:42
  wri- let me do this." And he's like, "No, no, no. Start with TDD first. Like, write
• 40:44
  the test." It was like, "Okay, I'll write the test." Then he's like, "Okay. Now
• 40:47
  write your regex." And it wrote a single regex that solved all of those, and it
• 40:51
  -passed- -Mm-hmm
• 40:51
  -... all the tests. And it's like, okay. -Yeah.
• 40:53
  Pretty sweet. Like, 'cause Andy's... He's, he's good with... You know, he... I don't
• 40:57
  think he's ever had to use or, like, had to know exactly what the regex was. Most
• 41:01
  of the time, you can just kinda, like, Google it, and like, "Okay, I need a regex
• 41:04
  -for a phone number." -Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:05
  Great. There we go. You know, I don't know what it means, but whatever.
• 41:07
  -He's very good at writing regexes. Yeah. -Totally. And, like, I love regex stuff.
• 41:10
  And so, like, for me, it's very interesting to kinda see him pull it apart
• 41:13
  and whatever. But it's like, does it really necessary for him to learn all
• 41:17
  that, or can he just prompt the AI to do that? And so it's like-
• 41:19
  -Yeah -... there are instances where it's, like,
• 41:20
  -very useful for that sort of stuff. So- -Mm-hmm.
• 41:22
  And it was stupid, it would be stupid for him to write that code because s- you
• 41:25
  -know, it can write it for him. And so- -Yeah.
• 41:27
  -Um, yeah. I don't know. -For those kinds of things, like, I have
• 41:29
  definitely found that it's, it's quite good at it. Um, especially, you know, when
• 41:33
  we've been wanting to figure out... Like, we have
• 41:36
  in the Salesforce library
• 41:39
  every- everything that, like, runs a raw query against the Salesforce endpoint, it
• 41:45
  just sends an execute query request. So it could be a, it could doing a select from
• 41:50
  contacts or accounts or, you know, whatever else. So the only way to kinda
• 41:54
  figure out what kind of request is actually being sent in order for us to be
• 41:58
  able to then fake the response is to inspect the query string. Um, and so,
• 42:04
  like, it's kinda figured out
• 42:06
  initially that it, it was writing a regex. I'm like, "I think this is a bit
• 42:09
  overkill," 'cause I was looking at this regex. I'm like that, that looks very
• 42:13
  complicated. Uh, let's maybe just use a string contains here and just look for,
• 42:17
  like, if the query string contains from account, it means that we're doing an
• 42:21
  account lookup so we can return the account if it... You know, all of that
• 42:24
  kinda stuff. But
• 42:26
  it's... Yeah. There, there are things... I haven't formulated a concrete opinion on
• 42:30
  it yet. There are certainly things that it can do and does well. Like, I love using
• 42:33
  -it to go and fix PHP stand violations. -Mm.
• 42:37
  'Cause it's like, ah, I don't wanna go through that. Um-
• 42:39
  -Yeah -... especially when you update a, a patch
• 42:41
  release and end up with 90 or whatever
• 42:45
  stand violations that weren't there before the update, like I did yesterday.
• 42:50
  Um...... but, uh, yeah. There are also things that, even guided, like, "Okay. I
• 42:56
  want a- I want you to create a- a registry of these things." Or "I want it..." You
• 43:01
  know, if you- if you're very specific and very guided, um, it can go and generate a
• 43:05
  lot of code. But then you've gotta go and look at it, because, um, it doesn't do
• 43:10
  things quite as well as I would hope for code that I want to ship into production.
• 43:14
  Because, yeah, the AI may have written it, but then I have to support it. So...
• 43:20
  That's the main thing. Like, you do still need to understand it in, you know, in a
• 43:24
  -professional capacity. -Yeah.
• 43:25
  Like, if you're- if you're a non-programmer and you're just trying to
• 43:29
  bring your ideas to life... I spoke to a friend the other day who's a- a UX
• 43:33
  researcher, and he built this thing, um,
• 43:37
  that does
• 43:39
  some analysis. I don't wanna go too much into it, 'cause he's still building it
• 43:41
  out. But he built this as, like, a- a next app, um, and, like, all of his stuff, it-
• 43:47
  it does all the analysis, it provides reports, it shows you all these different
• 43:51
  things, that over the last month and a half, two months, he's built himself. Um,
• 43:57
  because he knows, like, what comes out the other side of it, he knows what he's
• 44:01
  expecting there. But if you looked under the- under the hood of all of that code,
• 44:06
  it's not gonna be something that you'd wanna maintain. For that use case-
• 44:10
  -Yeah -... where you're building something that
• 44:12
  -you would not have otherwise had- -It's... Yeah. You could toss-
• 44:14
  -... the time, the capability- -Yeah
• 44:15
  ... the money to- to do, you know, it doesn't matter. But he's pro- providing
• 44:19
  -value in the outcomes. So... -Yeah.
• 44:22
  But as a software engi- uh, I keep saying engineer. As a software developer, I find
• 44:26
  myself endlessly frustrated by what it puts out, um,
• 44:31
  -and I'm- I'm not- not convinced by it. -Yeah.
• 44:36
  Yep. Like I said, it's just... It always... The answer is it depends, right?
• 44:40
  Yeah.
• 44:40
  -As with anything. -Yeah.
• 44:41
  As with anything. All right, my friends. Why don't we wrap it there? Uh, this is
• 44:47
  -gonna be Episode 183? -183.
• 44:51
  -183? -Mm-hmm.
• 44:51
  Thanks for hang- thanks for hanging out with us, folks. Find those show notes for
• 44:54
  this episode at northmeetsouth.audio/183. Hit us up on Twitter, on X, on Bluesky,
• 44:59
  @MichaelDurant, @JacobBennett, or at North South Audio. And if you liked the show,
• 45:04
  rate it up in your podcatcher of choice. Five stars would be incredible. Thanks,
• 45:07
  -folks. Until next time. We'll see ya. -Bye.