OpenLampTech - Developer Interview With Davor Minchorov
Software engineer Davor Minchorov shares a fantastic developer interview with the OpenLampTech newsletter readers.
Welcome to this OpenLampTech developer interview with Davor Minchorov.
Davor collaborates with startups, enterprise businesses, and other clients to build custom software solutions using Laravel.
Davor also creates technical PHP-related content on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and X.
Needless to say, I am very excited Davor shared many insights, tips, and information in this developer interview for the OpenLampTech newsletter audience and community.
And now without any further ado, on to the interview.
Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us what you currently do for a living.
A: Hello, my name is Davor Minchorov, I am from Skopje, Macedonia and I am an experienced software engineer who collaborates with startups, scale-ups and enterprise businesses, helping them improve their business processes by building custom software solutions.
I work remotely and I find my clients and long-term contracts primarily via an international platform / tech community called Adeva which I am also a brand ambassador of. They connect experienced technical talent with clients who need developers, designers, DevOps, managers etc for their products.
I am also a technical content creator who creates content related to PHP on X, Linkedin or articles on my website.
I also love helping people, discuss different ideas and experiment those ideas on my personal projects.
I wouldn’t say that I am a speaker but I’ve spoken at a local PHP meetup and possibly do more speaking in the future.
Q: What PHP framework(s) and/or CMS(s) are you interested in the most or currently using (if any) and why?
A: I am currently using Laravel for the client project, as well as for my personal website.
I have been using Laravel for most of my career and I like what it has to offer.
I am also interested in Symfony and its surrounding ecosystem.
I had a chance to work with Symfony on one project, had a chance to get to know the ecosystem and I like it well.
I’ve used Laravel Nova (briefly for a client project), Statamic (Laravel, for my personal website) and Sonata Admin Panel (Symfony, client project)
I’d love to try out Spiral Framework with Roadrunner at some point to learn more about the differences in working with it compared to Laravel or Symfony.
FrankenPHP is also on my things and tools to try out wishlist.
Q: Do you think it is important for developers to know some SQL and not rely solely on an ORM? Why or why not?
A: Yeah, knowing SQL is more important than an ORM because raw SQL queries are more performant and you need to know how to debug them when you get to work on complex projects (or any projects really).
ORMs are great and can do a great job by helping you with some things but they can be very limited in terms of performance which can generate not-so-optimal SQL queries behind the scenes if you are not careful. They are not so readable when you use them to write a complex query like a Facebook or an X post timeline for example.
Raw SQL gives you full control and visibility of what’s going on. It also makes you a better software engineer overall who can work on bigger and more complex projects, and can elevate your career to higher levels more than ORMs ever will.
Q: What is one piece of software that you just cannot live without and why?
A: I don’t really have a favorite one but for development I use MacOS with:
Warp
Arc (trying it out) and Google Chrome
PHPStorm
Docker (OrbStack)
Postman (trying out Paw from time to time)
The Database component (DataGrip) in PHPStorm
Discord / Slack for technical communities and help
Q: You type all of your code in which IDE/Text Editor/Software?
A: I use PHPStorm ever since I discovered it (I think it was version 7 when I started using it) and I love it because of the refactoring tools, intellisense and all of the integrations with things like Docker, the Database component, the plugins etc.
I use the new UI with one of the Material UIs and I do use either Menlo, Roboto Mono, Fira Code or Jetbrains Mono for the fonts. I do switch themes and fonts from time to time.
I’ve tried using Sublime Text, Atom and VS Code for PHP but I can’t really get used to them since they are mostly built for text editing trying to be IDEs but they will never get to the level of a JetBrains IDE.
I use VSCode as a notepad or a code previewer sometimes.
Sometimes I use Webstorm for JavaScript but that’s for non-PHP projects only.
Q: How has working as a web developer/designer/professional benefited you other than the obvious paycheck and monetary value?
A: I can think of a few benefits:
Becoming a better personal overall
Trying to find and figure out solutions
The network of friends and colleagues, learning something new from them
Soft skills, communication skills, sales, marketing, personal branding and psychology (which are a must if you want to have a successful career, especially as a contractor like me)
These may not be tied to software development at all but they are indirectly important.
Q: Do you have a book, newsletter, blog, podcast, or other resource you would recommend to other developers?
A: I do have a personal website and blog at davorminchorov.com and I started a newsletter recently with my latest website redesign mainly for the content I create.
I wrote a few articles with a ton of PHP related resources and I do plan to write more resource related content, as well as even add a resources page on my website at some point.
I don’t have a book yet but it’s one of the things that I am considering writing on the topic of Building Maintainable PHP Applications which is a series of articles that I started recently on my blog.
Q: What hobbies or activities do you do for fun?
A: The few hobbies I can think of are:
Hanging out with friends and family
Lifting weights
Learning technical and non technical stuff
Creating technical content
Experimenting ideas on personal projects
Q: Where can readers go to learn more about you and any projects you may have going?
A: Everything can be found on my personal blog davorminchorov.com
Currently, I don’t have any projects but I am planning 2 projects (which will be related in a way):
LearnHub.dev (SaaS, the all in one platform for self-learning)
LearnHub.academy (the platform for premium tutorials related to software architecture and design)
I have social media profiles for them almost everywhere
Q: Anything else you'd like to add or share with the OpenLampTech readers?
A: Let me know if I can help you somehow, the contact form on my website does work.
Thank you, Davor Minchorov, 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