Why Most Developers Overcomplicate Everything w/ Aaron Francis

This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Aaron Francis about developer education, Laravel vs. Rails, and the evolution of full-stack development. They explore the trade-offs of opinionated frameworks, the practicality of PHP, and why simplicity often wins. Plus, Aaron shares his hot takes on modern web dev trends, and the joys of working from a home-office-that’s-not-home.

In this episode:

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:19) - Meet Aaron Francis
• (03:28) - Whiskey intro and rating: Green River Distilling Co. Full Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
• (14:32) - The home office that’s not at home
• (17:44) - Tailwind vs Vanilla CSS
• (18:52) - Git Rebase vs Git Merge
• (21:44) - Let vs Const
• (25:40) - Rails vs Laravel
• (33:23) - Challenges of full stack frameworks
• (48:18) - Aaron’s staycation birthday present
• (50:38) - Two sets of twins
• (56:56) - Family vehicles
• (59:59) - What Aaron would do if not in tech
• (01:01:20) - Plugs

• Mostly Technical: https://mostlytechnical.com/
• Laravel: https://laravel.com/
• SQLite: https://www.sqlite.org/
• Postgres: https://www.postgresql.org/
• Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/
• Screencasting: https://screencasting.com
• Try Hard Studios: https://tryhardstudios.com/
• Ryan Reynolds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Reynolds
• Green River Distilling: https://greenriverwhiskey.com/
• Norlan: https://norlanglass.com
• Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/
• Taylor Otwell: https://x.com/taylorotwell
• DHH: https://x.com/dhh/
• Tuple: https://tuple.app/
• Ben Orenstein: https://x.com/r00k
• The Car Mom: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCarMom

• Website: https://aaronfrancis.com
• X / Twitter: https://x.com/aarondfrancis
• Mastering Postgres: https://masteringpostgres.com/
• High Performance SQLite: https://highperformancesqlite.com/
• Screencasting: https://screencasting.com/

• Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner
• Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd

• Website: https://whiskey.fm
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/id1552776603
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/19jiuHAqzeKnkleQUpZxDf
• Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiskeyWebAndWhatnot

Enjoying the podcast and want us to make more? Help support us by picking up some of our fresh merch at https://whiskey.fund.

Veteran web developers RobbieTheWagner and Charles William Carpenter III host this informal, whiskey-fueled fireside chat with your favorite web devs. They discuss all things web development including JavaScript, TypeScript, EmberJS, React, Astro, SolidJS, CSS, HTML, Web3, and more. They take a unique approach and focus on getting to know the human side of developers and their hobbies outside of work, all while sampling a new whiskey that they rate on their unique tentacle scale.