OpenLampTech - Developer Interview with Sam Anglin
Web application developer Sam Anglin shares insight and knowledge in this OpenLampTech developer interview.
Welcome to this OpenLampTech text-based developer interview.
Although Sam Anglin started programming later on in life, he quickly scaled his learning and knowledge with Laravel and PHP.
I had to get Sam on OpenLampTech for a developer interview after he kindly recommended the OpenLampTech newsletter on Twitter/X.
Thank you, Sam!
I'm very excited Sam shared a lot of useful information for the community, along with some of his developer journey.
And now without any further ado, on to the interview.
Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us what you currently do for a living.
I am a web application developer living in the south of Spain but originally from London, England. I started working in the field quite late-on in life, 30+, which left me feeling weird about being called a junior, so I worked extra hard for the first few years and got myself up to mid level as soon as I could. I have worked as part of a small team of developers creating bespoke web applications for medium to large businesses for most of my time and am, at the time of writing this, about to make a change and join another team based in the UK who are responsible for building and maintaining a PIM for one of the UK’s largest supermarket brands. It’s an exciting time!
Q: What PHP framework(s) and/or CMS(s) are you interested in the most or currently using (if any) and why?
My bread and butter for building applications is Laravel. I started out learning it before I even really understood PHP by itself. It’s a great framework for rapid application development and despite what some might say, it really does scale if you handle it properly. All the features and functionality it has right out of the box allowed me as a learner to just get on with building things, and later when I understood things a little more I could go back and read through the code and see how and why things worked. It taught me a lot.
If I need to put together just a static website I’ll go for something nice and simple like Hugo. My personal/portfolio/blog is a Hugo-generated site and all I do is write some MarkDown from time to time and BOOM, new article published.
Q: Do you think it is important for developers to know some SQL and not rely solely on an ORM? Why or why not?
I really do. ORMs are great for writing fluent code in your apps, but SQL is an absolute superpower if you know how to harness it. I feel like ORMs overcomplicate to simplify and usually only suit 90% of your CRUD use cases. When the queries get complex or the data gets huge, you are definitely going to see performance benefits if you can use SQL to analyze your data structure and then use raw SQL statements to make the most of indexes, joins and the ultra-fast calculation functions at your disposal.
Q: What is one piece of software that you just cannot live without and why?
I feel like the obvious answer is Google, or DuckDuckGo if you’re worried about that sort of thing. In this day and age speed is very important. You need to be able to find information quickly for almost everything that you do. Every problem I solve with code is the result of innumerable Google searches.
Q: You type all of your code in which IDE/Text Editor/Software?
VSCode. It’s fine. A few add-ons here and there. Probably struggle to write PHP at a respectable speed without Intelephense (licensed version) and need another one for working on a remote server via SSH.
If I ever do feel retro, I’ll have a go with nano. Only ever really do that when I’m trying to drill a programming concept into my head so I’m forced to write everything out and keep track of it all in my head.
Q: How has working as a web developer/designer/professional benefited you other than the obvious paycheck and monetary value?
I got into this because I had previously worked a job that was physically gruelling and actually caused me a number of health problems. So my main benefit is that if my back hurts while I’m working, I can just take a break and do some stretches and I’m good to go!
Also having the opportunity to work remotely is such a blessing. I get to spend time with my kid every day doing amazing stuff out in nature or in the skate park that I never had the chance to do with my dad when I was growing up. Also on the subject of family, it allows us the flexibility where we can travel to visit extended family and friends in our home countries quite often.
Q: Do you have a book, newsletter, blog, podcast, or other resource you would recommend to other developers?
Of course OpenLampTech! Hit that subscribe button!
Otherwise, I’d say read a wide range of books and blogs. Fundamentally this work is about solving problems and having a broad spectrum of reading material will help you to develop that wide-angle-view that can really help with creating solutions effectively. To solve problems for others you need to be able to understand their points of view and reading fiction is great practice for developing the needed empathy.
Technical resource-wise, the O’Rielly books have always been eye-opening for me. They have a knack for author selection and I found that my programming ability saw an overall benefit even when I read only the first half of a book about writing Go. I also hear great things about their React book for anyone tempted to improve their front end skills.
Q: What hobbies or activities do you do for fun?
Lots. I live in a place where it’s summer for 75% of the year and have a super energetic 7-year-old to keep up with. We skate a lot (I’m on aggressive inline skates and he’s on a scooter) and we ride mountain bikes a lot. Probably the coolest thing we did recently was a cable car ride up a mountain in Benalmadena with the bikes followed by a very long and very fast descent. Of course, full protective gear is worn at all times, because parent.
Q: Where can readers go to learn more about you and any projects you may have going?
I’m on twitter: @mizouzie
Or you can check out my site: mizouzie.dev where I have any articles I write published, some technical but mostly just thinking out loud.
Q: Anything else you'd like to add or share with the OpenLampTech readers?
One cool project that I’m involved with is No Sweat Cloud which is getting closer to being ready for launch as the days go by. We’re still accepting applicants for early access to the beta version, so give me a shout if you’d like an invite.
Even though I’ve already plugged my site, I can’t miss the opportunity to point to one of my most popular articles on there and encourage any senior developers to give it a read. I would hope it will remind you that you are appreciated for all you do in bringing juniors up to higher levels of skill and understanding. Also, it’s what I would say to any junior that is looking for a mentor to look out for in a great senior developer. Find the article here.
Finally just to encourage people to reach out to others whenever it strikes them to do so. The best things that have happened to me were down to either me or someone else doing that. Programming is cool and all, but there isn’t much point without collaboration.
That being said, I’d like to extend my sincerest gratitude to Josh for all the work he puts into this platform and for reaching out like he did. Probably made my week and I’ve actually had a much better-than-average week as it is! Big up Josh!
Thank you, Sam Anglin, for sharing your knowledge and insights with the OpenLampTech newsletter readers and community!
Thank you for reading. I hope you have a great rest of your week.
Take care.
Josh Otwell