Shows / North Meets South Web Podcast
North Meets South Web Podcast
Jake Bennett and Michael Dyrynda conquer a 14.5 hour time difference to talk about life as web developers
Episodes
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Preparing conference talks, mentoring juniors, and planning projects
In this episode, Jake and Michael catch up on the final preparations for Laracon AU, using AI to build and rehearse conference presentations, and the tools and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Whacking trees, conference operations, and AI tests
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the value of consistency, the final preparations for Laracon AU, and how AI is changing the economics of building…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Home renos, networking the future, and AI software factories?
Michael and Jake celebrate episode 200 in the most outlandish way possible: with no special plan whatsoever. Michael shares an update on his home renovation…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Cash Money AI Power Hour
Jake and Michael are joined by TJ Miller, David Hemphill, and Chris Gmyr to talk about the realities of working with non-technical stakeholders that are now…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Lobster rolls, boom parties, and crashed workers
In this episode, Michael and Jake recap Laracon US Boston, from Malaysian food and an undefeated dodgeball run to Laraprom, the great nachos-with-rice debate…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Wildfires, Fitness Tracking, and CCTV
Michael and Jake catch up ahead of Laracon in Boston, beginning with Michael's increasingly complicated home extension. Jake shares a family trip to Cedar…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Better API docs, customer support lessons, and cannoli
Jake shares lessons from rebuilding a permissions system around flexible roles, temporary permission leases, and delegated user management. He also discusses…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Ten years of the show, conference ticketing, and database access
In this milestone 10-year anniversary episode of North Meets South, Michael and Jake reflect on a decade of podcasting, from their first awkward recordings and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Fast Laravel with Jason McCreary
Michael and Jake are joined by Jason "JMac" McCreary to talk the impact of AI on Laravel Shift and modern upgrade workflows, and his latest Fast Laravel course…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laracon AU CFP, developer storytelling, and audience engagement
Michael shares a behind-the-scenes look at organising Laracon AU 2026, including the new committee-based CFP review process, the tooling built to manage the…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Unused APIs, Passport testing traps, and local AI bottlenecks
In this episode, Michael shares details from a major internal platform shift at work, including the decision to completely remove an underused public JSON API…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Gents on Gent with David Hemphill
Michael and Jake are joined by David Hemphill to discuss David's macOS app Gent, a task runner built on the "Ralph loop" pattern for AI-powered coding…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Flight booking mistakes, Laracon AU, and dead letters
In this episode, Michael and Jake catch up ahead of Laracon and share a wild travel story involving flight changes, third-party booking headaches, and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
OIDC, bastion hosts, and production safety
In this episode, Jake and Michael dive into modern infrastructure security practices, sparked by an annual audit and the painful process of rotating AWS IAM…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Worktree structures, workflow events, and enum metadata
In this episode, we discuss using `claude --worktree` to spin up parallel feature work, and the unexpected friction that can arise when your editor doesn’t…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Charging chaos, corona discharge, and vector embeddings
Michael and Jake discuss Jake's device charging chaos, household optimisation, international power outlets, and vector embeddings. Show links Gitryin Magnetic…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
OpenClaw, Arbor, and horseless carriages
Michael and Jake catch up on what’s been occupying their time lately, from AI tooling experiments to new developer workflows, before closing with a broader…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
When AI clicks, automation at home, and developer workflows
Jake and Michael return for 2026 and talk about their evolving experiences with AI; what it’s good at, what it’s not, and how it’s changing the way they work…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Choose your hard
Michael and Jake open with retro arcade serendipity (a Mortal Kombat cabinet sighting!) and tumble into family bowling, kid-approved card games, and why…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Controllers and Middleware, Grok vs. Claude, and Developer Value
Jake and Michael dive into a wide range of topics, from coding practices in Laravel to the evolving role of AI in software development. They kick things off…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
LawnHub, Saloon, and Salesforce
In this episode, Michael and Jake catch up on life and code. They talk about fatigue, seasonal shifts, lawn adventures, and the return of hay fever. We dive…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Soccer terror, conference swag, and Omarchy (btw)
In this episode, Jake and Michael catch up on life, family, and tech. Michael shares proud stories about his son Eli turning into a “soccer terrorist” on the…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laracon recap, eleven stations, and Laravel meetups
In this episode, Michael and Jake reflect on their recent time at Laracon US 2025 in Denver - catching up in person after six years, reconnecting with the…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laracon, controller middleware, and permissions
In this episode, Michael and Jake kick things off with some Laracon travel talk, sharing their hotel plans, coffee quests, and even jokes about pillow fights…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Flavours of busy, restrained features, and variable static views
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the nuance of being “busy”, saying no to features (and why), handling user feedback early, Laravel-powered static…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Liquid glass, video thumbnails, and children growing up
In this episode, Jake and Michael reflect on parenting, discuss Apple's new Liquid Glass UI, finding smarter ways to use video on the web, plus share thoughts…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Stealth grills, metric takeover, and selecting conference talks
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss Jake's new stealth grill, his eldest son's takeover of the state finals (and metric's takeover of measurement), and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Constant interfaces, nested input, and array access
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss using interfaces as a dictionary of constants, working with and testing inputs passed down multiple layers of the…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laracon AU, queued batches, and leveraging AI
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the ramp up of Laracon AU planning, touch base on Jake's unorthodox usage of Laravel Horizon, and Michael finally…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
New setups, Saloon SDKs, and configuring Horizon
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss Michael's new recording gear, building integrations with external APIs using Saloon, and configuring Laravel Horizon.
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Concentric circles, eloquent values, and application monitoring
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss circles of influence and information, eloquently handling return of single values from the database, and monitoring…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Succession plans, unused features, and testing living systems
Jake and Michael discuss those features you ship that nobody uses but everybody has feedback for, testing a system where the valid state can change based on…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Luka and AD, Laracon US, and pitching our Laracon talks
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the blockbuster trade of Luka Dončić to the the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, the just-announced…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Old packages, Laravel upgrades, and breaking changes
Jake and Michael recap their Christmas and New Year break, talk through lingering packages, Laravel 11 upgrades, and breaking changes in PHPUnit.
- North Meets South Web Podcast
North Meets South meets Slightly Caffeinated meets David Hemphill Christmas Extravaganza
Join Jake, Michael, David, TJ, and Chris for a merry chat about tech, holiday antics, and the entertaining Wheel of Fortune game! ## Links Engineering…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Loud coffee machines, Prezet, recursion, and staging environments
Join Michael and Jake as they explore noisy coffee machines, dive into documentation challenges with Prezet, and discuss the nuances of sandbox environments…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laracon AU retro, coffee machines, and dynamic directories
Join Michael and Jake as they dive into Laracon AU highlights, reveal new coffee adventures, and discuss dynamic directories and tenant file storage.
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Large file uploads, scrambled spotlights, and preparing for Laracon AU
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss large file uploads without double-handling them, generating API documentation for your app, and the mad rush of the…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Dynamic images, Livewire slots, and API-based file uploads
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss (clever?) ways to generate dynamic images for OpenGraph purposes, how a missing slot variable sent Michael mad…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Fake drivers with Jason Beggs
In this episode, Jake and Michael are joined by Jason Beggs from the Laravel team to discuss the approaches they're taking to fake interaction with third-party…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Tenanted files, testing batch jobs, and enhanced enumerations
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss potential security considerations around segmenting file uploads per tenant, approaches to testing batch jobs in…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Remote pairing around rounding errors with a pint
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss (inadvertently) bathing keyboards, pairing with remote colleagues and friends, using rational numbers to deal with…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with environment config
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss different approaches to configuring a Laravel app, for consistency, security, and shareability among a team and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with bubbly water
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the line between soda and bubbly water, Laracon AU, two-way SMS conversations, and the implications of not knowing…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with feature flags
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss feature flags, particularly the freshly-released before hook, and the perils of incorrect eager loading as your…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
JSON vs Polymorphism and editable index pages
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss whether you should push polymorphism to the database or settle for a simple JSON field, and we discuss options for…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Music, feature flags, and making the new one do what the old one did
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss music we're into at the moment, using Pennant for feature flags in Laravel, and the age old set of requirements: "it…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one about onboarding junior developers
Jake and Michael discuss bowling, onboarding new junior developers right out of college, and the mindset required to be able to teach people the very basics of…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Laravel 11 learnings, nested validation, and the simplicity of Laravel
Jake and Michael discuss some of the gotchas upgrading from a previous version of Laravel to 11.x, integrating a React frontend built in parallel to its…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Verbs, stolen chargers, and Laravel 11
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss Verbs, a take on event sourcing that strives to be simpler and more obvious to grok, children stealing device…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Handling error state, reviewing code, and request data objects
Jake and Michael discuss using state machines to handle accurately and predictably handling error state, reviewing code and having your code reviewed, and…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with Ripples, Forge previews, and Laracon
Jake and Michael discuss another of Michael's podcasts, Ripples, setting up review sites on Laravel Forge with Ryan Chandler's Forge Previewer, and speaking…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one about sending email
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the differences between transactional and campaign email and some approaches to sending them. We also touch on Jake…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with the keyboards and Filament
Jake and Michael discuss their new keyboards, as well as Jake's somewhat secret usage of Filament for building out some of the user-facing aspects of his main…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with the Lumberjack
Jake and Michael get a sneak peek into Laracon AU 2024, discuss Michael's migration to Snowflakes, and Jake's challenge around preventing multiple windows open…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Looking back on Laracon AU
Jake and Michael look back on the return of Laracon AU after a four-year break.
- North Meets South Web Podcast
The one with all the JSON API stuff with TJ Miller
Jake and Michael are joined by TJ Miller to try and untangle their confusion about JSON API, Open API, Swagger, and JSON Schema from last episode. This episode…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
DIY woodwork, React micro-frontends, and confusing OpenJSONAPISchema
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss building your own monitor stand, the mysterious world of React micro-frontends, and get confused about JSON API, Open…
- North Meets South Web Podcast
Dads in Dev, cloud services, and static-site generation
In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss using Airdrop to simplify and speed up your asset compilation and application deployment, restricting access to S3…