In this episode, Jake and Michael catch up on life, family, and tech.

Michael shares proud stories about his son Eli turning into a “soccer terrorist” on the field, while Jake recounts his own stint as a stand-in soccer coach. They dive into Laracon AU updates — from speaker announcements and Road to Laracon podcasts, to quiz night and swag planning.

Other highlights include experiments with AI-generated artwork, Bruce’s new social media adventures, sponsor promotion, and even a tangent on coding tools like PHPStan and how AI can help fix issues in the background.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Road to Laracon
• Bruce on X
• Laravel Live Denmark
• Boost

In this episode, Michael and Jake reflect on their recent time at Laracon US 2025 in Denver - catching up in person after six years, reconnecting with the Laravel community, and sharing behind-the-scenes stories from the conference floor.

They also cover:

• Why this Laracon felt like a true “homecoming”
• Building Laravel meetups and fostering community
• The book (and tv show) Station Eleven (and how different things might have been)
• The value of attending conferences, particularly as a non-speaker
• Continued discussion on the complexities of handling roles and permissions

The episode weaves together community highlights, technical challenges, and personal reflections.

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 at the conference hotel. Michael reveals his precise coffee scouting for the Vib by Best Western hotel, determined not to survive three days on Starbucks alone.

• Should you define middleware in a controller’s constructor?
  Michael explains why he avoids it - preferring to keep all middleware in route definitions for better visibility and maintainability. Jake explores the pros and cons and why he’s still tempted to use it for certain edge cases.
• Dynamic permissions vs. static definitions:
  We switch gears to talk about the balance between flexibility and clarity when defining permissions for applications, especially when it comes to handling user roles, teams, and complex business rules.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Laracon US travel plans
• Vib by Best Western (the hotel coffee and tacos!)
• Laravel middleware usage
• Permission handling in apps
• Travel gear for developers on the go