North Meets South Web Podcast

Jake Bennett and Michael Dyrynda conquer a 14.5 hour time difference to talk about life as web developers

North Meets South Web Podcast is a technology podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 200 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts North Meets South Web Podcast, a technology show with 200 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #198

  Lobster rolls, boom parties, and crashed workers

  Aug 13, 202647 min

  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, conference logistics, Aaron Francis stepping into Laravel’s VP of Marketing and Community role, and a reminder to make room for silly software. Jake shares his work rebuilding Boom Party , the fast-paced Bomberman clone his team used to play after stand-up, along with hosting decisions and a creative workflow involving Claude, Gemini, and Suno. Michael closes things out with what was supposed to be an easy Pest 5 upgrade but turned into a much bigger test-suite adventure: converting old PHPUnit-style tests, untangling inheritance, tracking down mysterious parallel test failures, discovering the pain of stray exit statements, and ultimately getting repeat runs across an approximately 18,000-test suite down to just eight seconds. Show links Pomplamoose Spindrift IZZE Laracon US Aaron Francis Sidecar Whimsy-driven development by Christina Martinez Boom Party Fly.io

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  Episode #197

  Wildfires, Fitness Tracking, and CCTV

  Jul 17, 202647 min

  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 Point, then the conversation moves to how a Laravel Cloud weekend challenge inspired Michael to build Fitrack, a personal app for coordinating training around a single fitness goal. We then move on to home network and security upgrades, including a larger rack cabinet, a new NAS, locally accessible alarms and CCTV, Power over Ethernet cameras, Home Assistant, HomeKit, RTSP feeds, and using Claude to handle unfamiliar smart-home configuration. We also discuss Kitze hacking his NordicTrack treadmill and Michael’s experience connecting his own treadmill with Apple Fitness. Finally, Michael and Jake look ahead to Laracon, discuss conference merchandise and accommodation in Boston, and finish with a conversation about donuts, candy, and the lengths parents go to when quietly disposing of their children’s leftover sweets. Show links Cedar Point Laravel Cloud Taylor’s Laravel Cloud weekend shipping challenge Edwin’s Google Meet alternative Fitrack David Hemphill Home Assistant Aqara cameras Kitze's treadmill hack Caleb Porzio on code imprinting on our brains Laracon US Moxy Boston Downtown

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  Episode #196

  Better API docs, customer support lessons, and cannoli

  Jul 2, 202645 min

  Jake shares lessons from rebuilding a permissions system around flexible roles, temporary permission leases, and delegated user management. He also discusses adding Apple Pay and Google Pay, plus designing automated text-message payment flows that use numbered choices instead of complicated keywords. Michael talks about building lender integrations, the importance of adding real context to API documentation, and using Claude to turn JSON specifications into PHP DTOs and enums. He also reflects on his team’s new helpdesk rotation, where direct exposure to users has uncovered long-standing bugs, inefficient manual processes, and opportunities for developers to better understand the people using their software. They finish with the challenges of parenting teenagers, preparations for Laracon US in Boston, including a search for coffee, donuts, bagels, and cannoli. (00:00) - Club World Cup surprises and sports talk (03:12) - UFC, LeBron and basketball moves (06:33) - Rebuilding roles and permissions (08:39) - Permission leases and delegated management (10:02) - Apple Pay, Google Pay and text-based payments (11:50) - Lender integrations and better API documentation (14:08) - A new developer and the helpdesk rotation (17:13) - Automated tickets and failed queue jobs (18:54) - The address autocomplete bug (19:58) - When tiny code changes create hidden failures (23:02) - Why support requests need a real ticket (25:17) - Developers learning directly from customers (27:53) - Cross-department training and business context (30:51) - Building trust beyond Slack (32:02) - Weekly stress, workload and personal check-ins (35:18) - Parenting teenagers and setting curfews (37:10) - Planning for Laracon US in Boston (40:00) - Australian and American school calendars (42:51) - Vacations, PTO and wrapping up

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  Episode #195

  Ten years of the show, conference ticketing, and database access

  Jun 18, 202657 min

  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 early Laravel community connections to the friendships, conferences, and recurring topics that have shaped the show over nearly 200 episodes. A large part of the episode focuses on Michael's work-in-progress event ticketing platform inspired by the challenges of running Laracon AU. He explains the limitations of existing conference ticketing systems, the difficulties of collecting attendee information for multiple conference-adjacent events, and his vision for a more attendee-centric system that manages profiles, dietary requirements, event registrations, and conference networks across multiple Laravel events. To wrap up, Michael and Jake discuss giving developers direct database access, the security implications of SSH access, database permissions, and Laravel filesystem configuration, including why enabling exception throwing for filesystem operations can help avoid silent failures. Show links Laracon AU Laracon US TicketTailor Transistor Laravel News Podcast No Plans to Merge Notes on Work Talking Businessly Larabelles LaraProm WalletWallet Laravel filesystem throw on fail

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  Episode #194

  Fast Laravel with Jason McCreary

  Jun 4, 202656 min

  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 focused on edge caching and application performance. Jason shares how Laravel Shift has evolved alongside AI-assisted development, why recent Laravel releases have changed the upgrade landscape, and why he still believes there's value in keeping applications aligned with the latest framework conventions rather than simply running composer update. The conversation explores how AI tools are influencing developer workflows, the future of upgrade automation, and new ways Shift is integrating with agentic coding tools. The second half of the episode dives deep into Fast Laravel, Jason's course on making Laravel applications dramatically faster using Cloudflare edge caching. Drawing on decades of web development experience, he explains why page caching remains one of the most effective performance techniques available, how Laravel's default stateful behaviour can prevent effective caching, and the practical steps required to achieve cache rates approaching 99% on real-world applications. Show Links Laravel Shift Shift AI Skills Fast Laravel Separate `static` middleware Managed queues on Laravel Cloud Laravel Cloud

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