The Artisan Files: Pablo Chiappetti

This week I welcome Pablo Chiappetti to the Artisan files series. Pablo runs the popular Laravel Buenos Aires meetup.

#Can you tell us about yourself? How’d you get into web development?

Hi, I’m Pablo! I’m 26, born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I share my life with Paula, my girlfriend/partner/best friend since we were both 16 y/o. According to degrees, I’m a multimedia Designer, but in real life I’m a web developer who cares quite a lot about design. Currently working with Laravel for every web related project I’m assigned to, and also building a mobile web app to improve urban cycling with some friends in @Bikestorming.

My first experience with coding was at the age of 12, when I started modifying and making little scripts for mIRC, the IRC client in those days. It’s always been a lot of fun for me to build things (Coding > Legos), so whenever I was allowed to use my 56k modem, I went online and spent hours researching on HTML, CSS and PHP. By the time I was in high school I was already making websites for a living, mostly using Joomla, WordPress, and a lot of messy PHP functions ¯_(ツ)_/¯

#How did you first find Laravel and what made you start using it?

I found out about Laravel because Jeffrey made a course about it on Tuts+ when it was still in version 3. It was love at first sight, so I made the switch immediately. What definitely made me start using it was the clear syntax and Eloquent’s powerfulness.

The first website I built (still in v3) was for a company which required an administration section, and it was a bonding experience for Laravel and I. We never looked back and lived happily ever after :)

#You run the Laravel Buenos Aires meetup. Can you tell us about it?

It is amazing! I started Laravel Buenos Aires simply because I wanted to talk with other people (face to face, and in spanish) about Laravel, this tool I was so passionate about. I didn’t know anyone who was using it the way I did, so it really took me by surprise to see how many developers were actually interested in learning and/or using Laravel in their projects, right in my own city!

We are now a community of almost 130 (yes, a hundred and thirty), and we get together once a month in Areatres Labs, a co-working space that kindly hosts us.

We have interesting talks related to Laravel and the best practices it embraces, all in a very friendly environment with the amazing LaravelBA community. I’m so glad I started this meetup and I encourage anyone, everywhere, to do the same.

Also, I will be speaking about Laravel and my experience hosting this meetup in the next PHP Conference Argentina, one of the main IT events in South America!

#What is your typical day like?

I’m usually working on several projects at the same time, so I get to pick which tool I’m into every day, and I love that. This goes from building APIs, CLI tools, full websites with Laravel, back end applications, or even web apps with MeteorJS.

Right now I’m working on Bikestorming’s mobile web app, which is being built with Meteor, a CLI tool built around Symfony/Console, and a website for a real state company using Laravel.

#Can you tell us about your local environment?

I live code on a Macbook Pro 13″, and I rely heavily on shortcuts and aliases to move around my projects and apps. I use oh-my-zsh and from time to time I like to modify my theme, which currently has a hamburger on it. I use iTerm 2, and thanks to a tip I learned from Jeffrey, I hide/call it from anywhere using a single key stroke. I also use SizeUp to easily arrange my windows.

I don’t like OS X’s dock, it takes up much screen in my opinion, so I throw it to the left and set the time it takes to appear to around 10 seconds, so I don’t accidentally call it. I use spotlight and aliases to fire up apps, and I code in both PHPStorm and Sublime Text.

#Do you have any hobbies outside of the computer?

I really enjoy playing football (the real one! :P), and I do it once a week with some friends, religiously. I’m also a huge Boca Juniors fan, so every time we play in La Bombonera, that’s where you’ll find me.

Swimming and traveling are two passions that I try to put together whenever I can.

#If you was stranded on a desert island what three things would you bring with you?

I was going to answer a boat, a compass and a map, but let’s not be all programmer about it. I’m going with dulce de leche, interesting books to read (not development related) and my favourite pair of googles!