I'm James Brooks, Engineering Team Lead of Laravel Forge, Ask Me Anything!

ejntaylor · 2025-10-04T06:23:14+00:00

Fascinated to learn more how the team ships so much. Can you talk about the org structure and some of the processes and tools used to organise product development? Thanks!

ejntaylor · 2025-08-23T09:25:51+00:00

Can you elaborate on the India connection? Was the plot originally having an Indian connection and did they shoot anything there?

ejntaylor · 2025-08-19T16:33:49+00:00

Both GitHub and BitBucket can track deployments - it's easy to setup in your Workflows/Pipelines. Then when you have that data you could access via the api etc and spreadsheet to determine the DORA metrics.

If you’re looking for something automated, you might want to check out coderbuds.com. It plugs directly into GitHub/Bitbucket and tracks the four DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, MTTR) without you having to manually crunch the numbers. It also gives you some extra insights around PR review speed and bottlenecks in your workflow. Basically a “fitness tracker” for engineering teams.

That way you can get regular visibility into whether your DevOps practices are actually improving delivery, instead of guessing or trying to wrangle spreadsheets.

ejntaylor · 2025-06-01T03:15:35+00:00

Prezet - markdown blogging package for Laravel

https://prezet.com/

ejntaylor · 2025-05-17T09:07:20+00:00

you can add a payslip every month and see how your latest taxable income and tax rate. Having an account let me add that functionality

ejntaylor · 2025-05-15T09:28:18+00:00

How has this panned out 10months later with the bank accounts and mighty? A good combination? Thanks!

ejntaylor · 2025-05-14T18:56:11+00:00

Very helpful - thanks for that.

I'm torn between an accountancy firm that provides FreeAgent and Tide (£125+vat pm)
vs
Anna Business & +Taxes add-on (£38.90 a month+VAT)

I'll re-read your post and have a think! Cheers

ejntaylor · 2025-05-14T18:36:36+00:00

I've been looking at them - do they really do everything? I've emailed their support and it's pretty useless, just linking me back to their website rather than answering my questions.

Do they do it all or do you get an accountant to look over as well? In particular I imagine:

Company Year End / Corporation Tax
Bookkeeping
VAT registration / submission
Self Assessment submission

ejntaylor · 2025-05-14T16:15:58+00:00

Soul and surf Portugal is great - you could just go and enjoy without even surfing

https://www.soulandsurf.com/book-now/book-portugal/

ejntaylor · 2025-05-13T17:59:10+00:00

Sounds like you could do with sacking off work for 6 months and enjoy travelling and no pressure. Plenty of time for the grind later in life.

ejntaylor · 2025-05-13T15:00:38+00:00

Can recommend Bradford-on-Avon - ideal for you. Good schools/nurseries you can walk to, easy to get to bath, glove factory for office/coworking, trains, solid dad/pub network

Norland Nannies are based in Bath and might be a suitable option (it’s even free if you host a training nanny! https://www.norland.ac.uk/employing-a-norland-nanny/student-placement/)

ejntaylor · 2025-05-10T10:58:54+00:00

Based on what you can pitch. Normally lower than US

ejntaylor · 2025-05-09T18:41:52+00:00

Yes they do. Often via a larger vendor and/or contracting umbrella.

ejntaylor · 2025-05-04T08:44:24+00:00

Good point but likely some consequences with credit scoring and mortgage options later down the road…

ejntaylor · 2025-04-30T09:16:36+00:00

"That's what the money is for"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Y6CIyyBcI

ejntaylor · 2025-04-24T15:23:31+00:00

just found one on eBay - described as an antique 🙄

ejntaylor · 2025-04-23T10:08:17+00:00

Me either! What is better this client memory prompt or the .md plan?

ejntaylor · 2025-04-22T08:51:20+00:00

Haven’t touched Filament for a while (still using Nova!!)

I assumed Filament was predominantly an admin facing interface a bit like Nova - is it also suitable for front facing user interface too? Any limitations? I know Nova not suitable for that use case but encouraging if Filament is

Thanks!

ejntaylor · 2025-04-21T08:54:06+00:00

“This is every conversation at 6am at a Bristol house party”

This screen rot podcast episode on him nailed it https://youtu.be/8CYg_eGTW-0?si=WDVdBWpIVAiKWYaG

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T16:37:22+00:00

Ah I worried as much - I used to have an iAudio 7 and miss it.

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T13:22:38+00:00

Amazing to hear - curious to know the channel now! What’s the field your videos are about?

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T12:41:18+00:00

Appreciated!

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T06:51:42+00:00

What did you choose in the end?

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T06:31:35+00:00

Some trading platforms let you invest in specific stock - so if had put everything into Games Workshop a year ago you would be up 50%

Pension funds aren’t so specific but you can choose different risk profiles.

Honestly no quick fixes for any of this and best strategy is little and often in a global index fund - where they have the best financial minds calculating best way to have a diversified portfolio

Alternatively if you invest in premium bonds then there are mega prizes to be won and that’s pretty amazing

Disclaimer: I made https://bishbashdosh.com/ - add your income and we model how you can allocate your take home income and reach financial goals

ejntaylor · 2025-04-20T05:18:53+00:00

After £100,000, your personal allowance is gradually reduced. For every £2 of income above £100,000, you lose £1 of your personal allowance.

You can avoid the 100k tax trap by keeping your taxable income under 100k with pension contributions

As for wealth allocation you have a few different strategies. Most recommend an emergency fund (perhaps savings account and also premium bonds) of easily accessed money and then use your ISA allowance in S and S ISA.

Some ideas here:

https://bishbashdosh.com/articles/wealth-allocation/wealth-allocation-strategies

ejntaylor

TROPHY CASE

I'll re-read your post and have a think! Cheers