Open source software is wonderful for many reasons. One of the best is we can see and inspect the software for vulnerabilities. But, far too many people actually do this. Let me demonstrate, using a Laravel package, how this lack of review might backfire and cause you grief. (more…)
All entries of my technical and business blog.
Expression #1 of SELECT list is not in GROUP By clause
This MySQL error isn’t as hard as you might think to solve. Let’s find out why it’s happening and what we can do to fix it. (more…)
I Didn't Launch My Start Up - and That's OK.
I deal with a lot of start-up founders. One thing that I’ve noticed from a lot of them is that they feel like no one understands the struggles they’re going through. A lot have talked about being lonely or trying to find people to count on. Because of this, I had an idea - I wanted to help them with an online tool. I came up with the idea for StartUp Tribe. (more…)
2019 Goals: What am I Working On?
2019 was a great year, learned a lot. Unfortunately, The Dev Manager and StartUp Tribe are no longer active. (more…)
Test Coverage is Not as Good of a Metric as You Think
There are a lot of debates about trying to achieve test coverage of 100%. Some people swear you need to do this. Others say, get 80% or more… the rest doesn’t matter. Each side has strong arguments. (more…)
Filter User Input Before Validation in Laravel
Sometimes it makes sense to filter user input before it goes to validation. If you’re using controller-based validation in Laravel, this is pretty easy. But, if you’re doing your validation in request classes, your approach needs to be different. (more…)
SPA No Framework, API No Database
The average webpage seems to contain tons of bloat and increase in size - and this is no good. I decided that I wanted to create a proof-of-concept website that would act like a single page application that didn’t require a framework like Vue or React. I only need to support the latest evergreen browsers. (more…)
Try Your Process Before Tooling Your Process
I’ve known a lot of programmers who give a lot of concern to making the best product they can. They follow best practices, create amazing programs and demonstrate both quality and accuracy. It’s quite amazing. But when you look at their internal tooling, it’s garbage. What gives? (more…)
Two Gotchas in Laravel Unit Testing
There’s a struggle to balance the easy-to-use Laravel helpers and functions with very verbose, complicated methods in unit tests. As I’ve been relying on Laravel’s way of doing testing more, I’ve ran into a couple of gotchas that I should share. (more…)
Managers Should Welcome Side Projects
I worked with a client one time who didn’t like when their employees had side projects. “If they have free time, they should be spending it on our project! That’s why they are salary!” (more…)