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Laravel has a vibrant community of people teaching and sharing what they've learned. What makes a good tip? Should you tweet or blog or both?
- 00:00 Why blogging is beneficial
- 02:43 Slowing down before you publish
- 04:30 Tips that provide value
- 08:11 Platforms can go away
- 09:36 Silly bit
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Creators & Guests
What is No Compromises?
Two seasoned salty programming veterans talk best practices based on years of working with Laravel SaaS teams.
Joel Clermont (00:00):
Welcome to No Compromises, a peek into the mind of two old web devs who have seen some things. This is Joel.
Aaron Saray (00:08):
And this is Aaron.
Joel Clermont (00:16):
I am in the presence of a longtime blogger, Mr. Aaron, and I know over the years you've enjoyed sharing, teaching, mentoring, all these different things. And one of the ways you've done that is through your blog. And you've kind of done less of that, if it's fair to say that, maybe on social media. And that's a common place where people share hot tips or something new they learned. I just thought it might be interesting to kind of talk through your thought process and things you found valuable over the years and share that with everybody.
Aaron Saray (00:50):
Yeah. I think one of the reasons why I have a long-running blog, and mind you this is... I've written, I guess, over 500 entries, probably 600 now. I've been writing for over a decade, probably 15 years. First, a little aside, if you go back and look at some of the really old ones, it's embarrassing how sure I was.
Joel Clermont (01:10):
Now I'm going to.
Aaron Saray (01:12):
Yeah, see that was my evil plan. Get more readers.
Joel Clermont (01:14):
Oh, boy.
Aaron Saray (01:15):
"You better not read this. It's embarrassing."
Joel Clermont (01:17):
Content marketing expert.
Aaron Saray (01:20):
But I kind of started it out because, especially back then, there was a lot less resources. There wasn't a Stack Overflow or something like that. But I wanted to make sure that I shared and taught things. And the reason is because I learned a long time ago that when you teach stuff is how you really learn it. You can know something but when you force yourself to teach someone that thing, then you have to maybe sometimes relearn it again or learn the why or be for sure that that's how it works. Because if you're going to tell someone you shouldn't just be making up stuff. So that was one of the tools that I also did to kind of cement the learning in my head. When I learned something new or whatever, I would write a blog entry about it. A little bit more of a long form. I would explain, "Here's the issue, here's some code examples," and maybe "Here's why this is a good idea."
Joel Clermont (02:15):
Yeah, I've experienced that. I think back to when we had the PHP Meetup in town here and we'd present. It'd be something that I knew inside and out, but then when you're organizing your thoughts you sort of anticipate questions that people might ask you. And it does force you to go deeper and to make sure you really understand it and you aren't just parroting something that you heard somebody else say. And you did, but you don't really know why you do it. I like that, that's a good approach.
Aaron Saray (02:43):
Yeah. It actually kind of saves me from, what I would consider, embarrassing little faux pas and wrong things online as well. Is, I was going to go on Mastodon or Twitter and tweet about something I just saw. I was like, "Oh, this is really cool and this is how it works." I was writing a tweet or a toot, and I was like, "You know what, this would actually make a good blog entry." So I stopped what I was doing and I started writing the blog entry and I was detailing out and I ran everything. I wrote everything. I was on three-quarters through the blog entry, and I'm like, "Wait a second. Oh, that's not how it works."
Joel Clermont (03:24):
Oh, okay.
Aaron Saray (03:25):
I basically "understood" how it works. Wrote a whole entry about it, at very last step of doing that thing, I was taking screenshots and code samples and stuff, it did something unexpected to me. It turns out it was the way it was working and I just misunderstood it and I was just lucky all the way through my blog entry that the way I misunderstood it was still lining up with what it was actually doing. I think I ended up deleting that blog entry then that draft because I'm like, "Wow, this isn't what it does." And now that I understand what it does, this is a little bit different. It's a little bit outside of what I specialized in, it's not something I want to talk about and share, but at least now I know it. And I'm so glad I did that because otherwise I could have went on Twitter or Mastodon and shared out something, and I would've been wrong because I misunderstood how the tool works.
Joel Clermont (04:17):
Yeah. Again, we know we're not perfect so we will make mistakes. But there's a difference between making an unavoidable mistake. And it sounded like your process here kind of helped you, led you, to realize, "Oh, I didn't fully understand this." Maybe a bit of an aside, but I just want to throw it in here because I've been thinking about this lately. Is, I love the impulse to share, to try to... Especially in the Laravel community, there's a lot of people sharing tips and tricks and little code screenshots and hot tips and fire emojis and all that good stuff. And that's fine. I mean, that's great. I've enjoyed those. I know I've shared them with you and then you're like, "Shut up, Joel. I already knew that."
But one thing I've seen and I'm trying not to be critical here, but I'll just share it because I've been thinking it. Which is, some of them are really great. You know, "Oh, I didn't know that," or, "That's an interesting take on it," or, "Hmm, that's a way I haven't considered doing something before." But then there's a bunch of them that literally look like somebody printed out the Laravel manual, threw a dart at the wall and it hit like a collection method. And they're like, "That's a hot tip." I get that people are at different steps in their learning journey. And especially if they haven't read the docs, they might not know that. But the ones I find especially valuable are tips that clearly came out of somebody learning something, using it and having an 'aha' moment themselves. Like, they weren't just trying to generate a tip to share. This was genuinely interesting to them and they felt compelled to share it. Am I alone in this Aaron? Come on, bail me out.
Aaron Saray (05:59):
Yeah, I think you're right. I would adjust what you said. Is, I don't respect the impulse to share, I respect the desire to share.
Joel Clermont (06:10):
Okay. What's the difference in your mind?
Aaron Saray (06:11):
Those are two different things. Impulses. I mean, think about impulsive people. "Oh, just do it then."
Joel Clermont (06:17):
Okay, yeah.
Aaron Saray (06:18):
Whereas desire is, "I really want to share and teach people-
Joel Clermont (06:21):
Sure.
Aaron Saray (06:22):
... but there's a process to that." And usually when you have a desire to teach, a desire to grow or whatever, it's the catalyst to doing something correctly. Where impulsive things are just kind of blasting out to the world and hoping it was right. And then you just add so much noise, you know?
Joel Clermont (06:36):
Yeah.
Aaron Saray (06:37):
Joel is being very nice here. I will be a little bit more grating and say, "I don't think there's any point in looking at the manual, finding something in the manual and tweeting it verbatim." Then just tweet the link to the manual. I understand that not everyone reads the manual straight through like I do because they're not that weird.
Joel Clermont (06:59):
I'd say very few people do that. But anyways, go on.
Aaron Saray (07:03):
But at some point you have to say, "Just look at the source." I mean, I'd say there's a difference between an impulse and desire. I like the desire to teach and learn and share, but make sure it's something, like you just said, which is something that's actually unique, not just plagiarism.
Joel Clermont (07:24):
Yeah. Uniqueness is one part of it, but it's also... I know there's very few original thoughts in the entire world, but there's a difference of something that is manufactured versus something that was almost discovered. So what I try to do when I'm going through the day working on a project, writing code, is just sort of keep my mind open. Like, "Was there anything I struggled with, or was there anything I really liked?" Sometimes, Aaron, you've given me a code review comment. And I'm a little mad at first and then I'm like, "Wait a second, that's kind of nice. I'll share that and it'll be my idea now. And Aaron will get no credit." But anyway that was just a little bit of an aside. I don't want to completely torpedo the discussion, but I feel better for speaking my mind.
Aaron Saray (08:11):
You cranky old man. The last sort of reason why I think blogging, having this long-form content is probably a good idea too, not just being on Twitter or Mastodon, is you never know what's going to happen with those tools. They're owned by someone else. Let's just even talk about Stack Overflow. Which Stack Exchange is actually owned by, currently at time of recording, owned by an investment firm.
Joel Clermont (08:36):
Oh.
Aaron Saray (08:37):
They're not just doing it for the good of the world, they're trying to make money, you know?
Joel Clermont (08:42):
Yeah.
Aaron Saray (08:43):
So you basically build all this content and you put it on there. Which is fine but then you no longer control it. They could just turn off, they could... These systems, like Twitter, could just kick you off and you've lost this whole archive of stuff that you've been working on.
Joel Clermont (08:56):
I can't picture that happening, but okay.
Aaron Saray (08:59):
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use those tools, absolutely you should. That's discoverability, that sharing and stuff. Most of the content that I've shared over the years came from a backing of my blog. Even if the Flavor of the Month tool to connect with people goes away, I still have the core, the source of all this stuff on my website. And also in a source that I could reuse later if I needed.
Joel Clermont (09:24):
Yeah, that's a good point. So you're using the different channels, but kind of what's your base channel? Having it be something you own.
Aaron Saray (09:30):
Yeah.
Joel Clermont (09:36):
We like to talk a lot about food and that's why I was at the grocery store the other day. And there's a product in the refrigerated section, right next to the eggs and the product is called Just Egg. Aaron, if I were to say to you, what do you think Just Egg is? Something called Just Egg? What do you think that product is?
Aaron Saray (09:58):
I would think it was solely and completely an egg.
Joel Clermont (10:01):
Right? But interestingly, this product is completely not an egg. It's a vegetarian substitution for an egg. But I'm like... I get that and I even understand putting it on the shelf next to it because it's where you'd logically look. But to call it Just Egg is like actually the opposite of what it is. Am I dumb or I should...
Aaron Saray (10:24):
Yeah. It should be like Almost Egg or Pretty Much-
Joel Clermont (10:28):
I Can't Believe It's Not Egg.
Aaron Saray (10:29):
Yeah, exactly. .
Joel Clermont (10:34):
You know what, maybe you buy it by accident and it'd be great. Like, I've never tried it so I'm not judging the quality of the product. But here's one I will. I have accidentally bought fat-free whipping cream. If you know anything about dairy, whipping cream is the highest fat content. Like, the most dairy of the dairy. So I can't imagine buying that except by mistake. The package looks identical to the real whipping cream, but it just has a little ribbon that says fat-free. And I did pour that out and it was no good.
Aaron Saray (11:09):
I don't know what that's made of. Like, chemicals and sadness.
Joel Clermont (11:12):
Exactly. Probably more than just cream.
Aaron Saray (11:19):
We're always working on masteringlaravel.io and we've added some more content to it.
Joel Clermont (11:25):
Head over to our site and check out the article section, which features some original articles and some articles from our blogs. Masteringlaravel.io.