Best Alex Morrell Podcasts (2025)

1
Storing Files in the Database w/ Bogdan Kharchenko and Skyler Katz 1:09:46

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3M ago1:09:46

1:09:46

Sometimes you have files or other large chunks of data that you need to associate with a record in your database. It might be convenient to just store that as base64-encoded data or HTML in a "longtext" column, but that can eventually cause issues—especially as the table grows. What other options are there? In this episode of Over Engineered, we go…

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Kilopixel Retro w/ Ben Holmen + Joe Tannenbaum 1:11:20

4M ago1:11:20

1:11:20

At the beginning of August, after six years of working on it on-and-off, Ben Holmen took his Kilopixel project live. It's a 1000 pixel display, where each pixel has to be manually toggled by a custom CNC rig, and it's whimsical and impractical and took the internet by storm. In today's episode, Chris chats with Ben and Joe about the whole project a…

1
(Actually good) browser testing w/ Nuno Maduro 1:54:19

5M ago1:54:19

1:54:19

Up until now, browser testing in Laravel has felt… bad. Dusk was a huge step over nothing, but it's been slow and flaky and just waiting to be replaced with something better. And with Pest 4, Nuno's cracked it! In today's episode of Over Engineered with dig into the technical details of what makes browser testing in Pest 4 both very fast and much m…

1
Fostering Community w/ Alex Hillman 1:41:41

6M ago1:41:41

1:41:41

Alex Hillman has been thinking about and actively supporting communities for decades. In this episode, Chris and Alex talk about lessons he's learned along the way that can help meetup organizers tend their local tech communities, and brainstorm about ways that we can organize together to support meetups in general. Links: tiny.mba stackingthebrick…

1
Native PHP w/ Simon Hamp 2:18:45

8M ago2:18:45

2:18:45

Simon Hamp and Marcel Pociot have been working on NativePHP for a number of years, and Simon just surprised with world at Laracon EU with a NativePHP for Mobile announcement. In this episode, Simon and Chris get deep into the the NativePHP innards, explore sustainable open source, and generally just have a good time for <> over two ho…

1
The next era of Larabelles w/ Zuzana Kunckova 1:20:17

9M ago1:20:17

1:20:17

Zuzana Kunckova started Larabelles five years ago, and over that time it has grown into an important part of the Laravel community. In today's episode, Zuzana and Chris talk about the future of Larabelles now that she has more time to dedicate to it. Links: Larabelles Sponsor Larabelles on GitHub Sponsor Larabelles on Patreon Other ways to support …

1
PHP × NYC Chaos-Cast™ 1:11:21

9M ago1:11:21

1:11:21

What happens when you get a bunch of Laravel podcasters + a bunch of mics in a room? Chaos, apparently. Recorded live after PHP × NYC with Ben Holmen, John Drexler, Daniel Coulbourne, Chris Morrell, Ian Landsman, Dave Hicking, and Joe Tannenbaum.By Chris Morrell

1
Running Small Teams w/ Dan Matthews & John Rudolph Drexler 1:34:57

9M ago1:34:57

1:34:57

There's lots of advice out there for running software teams, but much of it comes from large organizations with dozens or hundreds of developers. Smaller teams have different needs. On today's episode, we pick up from a question Dan asked on Bluesky and talk about how best to approach running a small development team. Links: Dan's Bluesky Post Thun…

1
Event Sourcery w/ Shawn McCool 1:52:31

1y ago1:52:31

1:52:31

Shawn McCool has been talking about event sourcing for years, and recently started a new series of streams on the topic. In this episode, Chris and Shawn talk about event sourcing, Verbs, and community (among other things). Links: Shawn on Twitch Event Sourcery VerbsBy Chris Morrell

1
Design Patterns w/ Mary Perry 1:15:39

1y ago1:15:39

1:15:39

Design patterns can be very useful, but can also be weaponized as a way to "prove" that someone is doing something the "wrong" way. Mary has been thinking a lot about the good side of knowing design patterns, so we sat down to chat about them.By Chris Morrell

1
Terrifying Real Encounters 23:22

1y ago23:22

23:22

In this episode, we will be looking at 4 different personal encounters sent in by the audience, where each one details their experience with the supernatural. From a werewolf to a ghostly presence, these are the stories that remind us, not all monsters are in our imaginations.

1
Side Projects w/ Joe Tannenbaum 56:21

1+ y ago56:21

56:21

Joe Tannenbaum is thinking about starting a podcast about side projects. So we took an afternoon to talk through what that might look like.By Chris Morrell

1
The Art of Pairing with Strangers w/ Ben Holmen 59:48

1+ y ago59:48

59:48

Ben Holmen started his Pair-amid scheme as an experiment in meeting new people and experiencing new code. He shared his calendar with the world, and booked pairing sessions with 15 complete strangers. The outcome? A bunch of new friends and new experiences. In this episode, Ben and Chris talk about pair programming, side projects, and how to find f…

1
The Men In Black 32:45

1+ y ago32:45

32:45

Who are these shadowy figures rumored to appear after UFO sightings, silencing witnesses and erasing evidence? Are they simply a myth, or is there truth behind the tales? We'll explore historical encounters, chilling eyewitness accounts, and the possible origins of these mysterious agents. Join me as we separate fact from fiction and uncover the da…

1
ReactPHP + Event Loops w/ Len Woodward 1:15:18

1+ y ago1:15:18

1:15:18

ReactPHP is a low-level library for event-driven programming in PHP. It lets you write code that's much closer to the async/await style of JavaScript in PHP. In today's episode, Chris and Len talk about our experiments with ReactPHP. Links: ReactPHP Whiskey Community Prompts Conductor DawnBy Chris Morrell

1
Code standards w/ Matt Stauffer 1:26:35

1+ y ago1:26:35

1:26:35

What set two developers on a quest to build custom tooling to enforce their code style preferences? Today's episode is a story that starts with two independent projects—Tighten's `tlint` and InterNACHI's `laralint`—but meanders to all the right places, including the future of PHP itself, the intersection of bikeshedding and art, and so much more.…

1
Burnout w/ Ian Landsman 1:16:19

1+ y ago1:16:19

1:16:19

Today we take a break from over engineering to talk about burnout. Both Chris and Ian have been working on the same products for multiple decades. We sit down to talk about that and what to do about the kind of burnout that comes from working on the same thing for so long. Links: Brent is Leaving Twitter Join the RTSN.DEV mastodon instance…

1
Let's talk APIs w/ Steve McDougall 1:42:06

1+ y ago1:42:06

1:42:06

Steve McDougall (aka JustSteveKing) is known as the "API guy" on Twitter. In today's episode we start with the question, "what if the best option is just a single page app with a good, RESTful API?" Links: HAL - Hypertext Application Language JSON:API Spec Laravel Sanctum API Versioning Blog Post Steve on Twitter (follow for updates on upcoming cou…

1
Full Stack Javascript w/ Kelvin Omereshone 1:14:48

1+ y ago1:14:48

1:14:48

The internet has been talking (yelling?) about full-stack javascript a lot lately. In today's episode, we sit down and talk about what it means to be "full stack" and whether there are really any truly full-stack javascript frameworks out there (spoiler: there are, but maybe not Next.js or Remix). Links: Sails.js The Boring Javascript Stack AdonisJ…

1
Building prompts w/ Jess Archer 1:50:15

1+ y ago1:50:15

1:50:15

Jess Archer took something that was quite good—the Symfony console output features—and built something that was absolutely great: Laravel Prompts. In today's episode, we dig into some of the gnarly details around building prompts and working with ANSI escape sequences in the terminal.By Chris Morrell

1
The Future of the Laravel Frontend w/ Taylor Otwell 1:18:23

1+ y ago1:18:23

1:18:23

Taylor Otwell has been finding ways to improve Laravel for over a decade, but has only more recently set his sights on the front-end side of things. In today's episode, we sit down and talk about the current state of building UIs in Laravel, and what the future might hold. Links: Laravel Volt Aire Form Builder Laravel “Context” Feature Hooks Packag…

1
Building for the command line w/ Joe Tannenbaum 1:18:05

2y ago1:18:05

1:18:05

Joe Tannenbaum took the internet by storm with his incredible SSH CLI "experiments." In today's episode, Chris and Joe sit down to get into the messy details of parsing ANSI escape sequences and dealing with multibyte strings, but spend as much time talking about programming as art and life as an actor. Links: Joe Tannenbaum on Twitter Joe's "Lab" …

1
Do we really need sprints? w/ John Drexler, Bogdan Kharchenko, and Skyler Katz 1:20:21

2y ago1:20:21

1:20:21

What are the best processes for small software development teams with high trust? In today's episode the InterNACHI software development team sits down with John Rudolph Drexler to talk about whether or not we need to estimate tickets or even bother with sprints…By Chris Morrell

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The Curse of The Bell Witch 11:34

2y ago11:34

11:34

When strange occurrences plague the Bell family in rural Tennessee during the early 19th century, they quickly realize they are dealing with something beyond their understanding. Mysterious noises, violent attacks, and disembodied voices plague their home, driving them to the brink of madness.

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Cache everything w/ Ian Landsman 1:55:26

2y ago1:55:26

1:55:26

As the saying goes: "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things." So in today's episode we dig into all the ways Ian is taking on one of the hardest parts of programming in his rewrite of their decades-running helpdesk software, HelpSpot. We talk about caching, a little bit of Laravel history, and about…

1
The Electrical Girl 17:48

2y ago17:48

17:48

Angelique Cottin, born in the early 19th century in France, captivates us with her extraordinary tale. Known as the "Electric Girl" or "Mademoiselle Electrique," she gained notoriety for an inexplicable phenomenon that surrounded her - a phenomenon that would mystify both scientists and spectators alike.…

1
Handling complicated view logic w/ Skyler Katz & Bogdan Kharchenko 1:09:07

2y ago1:09:07

1:09:07

Complex view logic can be hard to get right—particularly in server-rendered templates like Blade. We recently had to decide just how much a Laravel Blade component should do, and decided to hash it out on the podcast.By Chris Morrell

1
Mystery of The Alaskan Triangle 26:37

2y ago26:37

26:37

With 1000s of missing persons cases, UFO sightings, and hundreds of unexplainable encounters, we are taking a look at some of the most bizarre tales from the Alaskan Triangle.

1
Modular Laravel Apps w/ Mateus Guimarães 1:31:59

2y ago1:31:59

1:31:59

When applications grow—in scope, sheer lines of code, or the number of team members—how you organize things starts to matter a whole lot more. In today's episode, we talk with Mateus Guimarães about modularization: breaking your application into smaller modules. We explore some of the topics in his new Laracasts course, and talk about the decisions…

1
Building Forms (and Catalyst) w/ Adam Wathan 1:10:04

2y ago1:10:04

1:10:04

It's been said that web development is 99% forms and tables. Today we talk with Adam Wathan about all the decisions that go into creating a great form builder API. Adam and the rest of the team at Tailwind recently launched the developer preview of Catalyst—a React UI library with a robust form system. We take a deep-dive into the API decisions beh…

1
Static site generators & personal websites w/ Aaron Francis 1:03:06

2y ago1:03:06

1:03:06

We all use our personal websites as an excuse for trying something new or over engineering what's usually a simple, low traffic site. In today's episode, Chris and Aaron talk about how to build a great personal website with "just Laravel" and imagine ways that static site generation, markdown editing, open graph, caching, SEO, and more could be imp…

1
Perfecting lifecycle hooks w/ Caleb Porzio 1:16:08

2y ago1:16:08

1:16:08

In today's episode, Chris and Caleb sit down and try to imagine what the perfect "hook" implementation might look like. Laravel, Livewire, and the upcoming Verbs package, all have to allow for hooking into logic at specific points, and each package has to handle this in its own unique way. What if there was a canonical way to hook into the lifecycl…

1
Verbs vacation (part 1?) w/ Daniel Coulbourne 1:24:00

2+ y ago1:24:00

1:24:00

And now for something completely different… In this episode, Chris and Daniel sit down to talk about a new event sourcing package they're working on called Verbs.By Chris Morrell

1
Customizing outgoing email 1:23:23

2+ y ago1:23:23

1:23:23

Most teams have encountered this basic scenario: Your application sends out a periodic report to a specific person in the company. Then, at some later point, either another team member wants to start receiving a copy of the report, or you need to remove the original recipient and add a new one. With a standard Laravel app, you're probably going to …

1
What about event sourcing? 1:31:06

2+ y ago1:31:06

1:31:06

In this episode we indulge in the purest form of Over Engineering—a 90 minute discussion of a completely different application paradigm/architecture. Our team has used event sourcing to some degree, and we're considering using it more heavily in the future. But before we do, we're going to step back and ask ourselves if it's worth it… Some useful l…

1
The dreaded status column w/ Daniel Coulbourne + Cheyne Rood 1:26:46

2+ y ago1:26:46

1:26:46

Over Engineered is all about those things that bug you but you never get a chance to "solve." Today's episode is about the dreaded "status" column. This is another topic that most developers will hit over and over. You have a model. You need to track the status. You add a status column, and then later a status timestamp "accepted_at", and then late…

1
Referencing specific database records in your code 1:00:45

2+ y ago1:00:45

1:00:45

Season 1 continues with a discussion of how to deal with special database records that need to be referenced directly in code. We've all been there before: you've got a specific vendor that you need to write a custom command for, or a certain category that needs special handling, so you either hard-code the ID or slug and shudder slightly before mo…

1
Over-engineering migrations even more w/ Tim MacDonald! 1:16:07

3y ago1:16:07

1:16:07

In the second episode of the podcast we talk with Tim MacDonald about a few other approaches to how you might manage other operations that happen before/during/after a database migration (or really any deploy step). Tim pitches a lower-level approach that spawns a whole new line of thinking. We also touch on some of the responses to episode one, in…

1
The line between migration and…? 1:06:15

3y ago1:06:15

1:06:15

In the first episode of the podcast we explore the boundary between database migrations and other operations that need to happen when the database is being migrated. How do you seed or manipulate data after new tables or columns have been added? In migrations? In one-off commands that you have to run manually? Running seeders in production? In tink…

1
The Sallie House 18:48

3+ y ago18:48

18:48

For the first time on Odd Encounters, I visited the location of a supposed haunted house. The Sallie House is located in Kansas and I spent the night to experience the haunting myself. Find out more in this special episode of Odd Encounters.

1
The Hill Couple Abduction 15:59

4y ago15:59

15:59

When two New Hampshire residents were on their way home, they ended up with a 2 hour gap in time that neither of them could account for. The story that unfolded next has led many to believe that Betty and Barney Hill were in fact abducted by extraterrestrials. Episode Editing done by Voxogos.com

1
The Loudun Possessions 14:36

4y ago14:36

14:36

In the 1600s the Ursuline Convent was overun by demonic activity. A total of 27 people were possessed but who could have brought the evil to Loudun? None other than the parish priest Urbain Grandiere who supposedly made a pact with the Devil.

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Valiant Thor 19:13

4y ago19:13

19:13

President Eisenhower is a name that often comes with a conspiracy theory attached. His involvement with project bluebook has led many to believe he had contacted aliens many times while in presidency. In the 1950s an alien craft landed near Washington DC and the alien visitor inside was house at the pentagon for several years after. This is the sto…

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Odd Encounters (Trailer) 0:46

4y ago0:46

0:46

This is the official Odd Encounters podcast trailer

1
Mothman 16:25

4y ago16:25

16:25

Mothman is a cultural phenomena that still has to be explained. The first evidence of this cryptids existence occurred in the 1960s and was the precursor to the Silver Bridge collapse. Mothman has reportedly been spotted at a vast amount of major tragedies days or hours before they occur. FInd out more on this episode of Odd Encounters.…

1
The possession of Roland Doe ft. The Haunted UK Podcast 19:53

4y ago19:53

19:53

When he thought he couldn't cause any harm playing with a Ouija board, Roland Doe summoned something far more sinister than he could have expected. The exorcism of Roland Doe is one of the best documented cases of a demonic possession and inspired the 1979 movie The Exorcist. Take a look behind the movie screens and into the exorcissm of the real R…

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Listener Encounters 002 9:50

4y ago9:50

9:50

Back for episode 2 of listener encounters! I love reading all of your submissions and on tonight's episode, an encounter with extraterrestrials, a demonic possession, and an encounter with a Navajo legend. If you would like to submit your encounter for the next episode, you can do so on Twitter, Instagram or even email.…

1
Falcon Lake Incident 14:31

4y ago14:31

14:31

One UFO encounter has puzzled researchers for decades. When Stephan Michalak encounter what he claims was a UFO in the Canadian wilderness, he returned to his family on the brink of death with the burns to prove his story. Find out what makes this encounter so unique on this episode of Odd Encounters.…

1
Skinwalker Ranch 17:10

4y ago17:10

17:10

What do you get when you mix UFOs, shapeshifting creatures, and interdimensional portals together? You get Skinwalker Ranch. A beautiful ranch property located in Utah that has had more variations of supernatural activity than almost any other places in the United States. Ill be telling the story of the Sherman family and their odd encounter with t…

1
Listener Encounters 001 12:16

4y ago12:16

12:16

From an abandoned hospital that is seemingly haunted to a case of abduction, these are the listener encounters that make your skin crawl.