Hi there, and welcome to the Laravel Bootcamp! This is it—your first step into the Laravel universe, and I'm genuinely excited for what you're about to learn. This course is designed to be your very first look into what Laravel is and what it has to offer when you're building web applications from start to finish.

But before we even start writing any code (I know, I know, you're eager to dive in), let's take a look at what we're gonna be building together.

Meet Your Project: Chirper

We're building Chirper—a friendly microblogging platform where users can post short messages called "chirps," see what others are saying, and interact in real time. Think of it as building your own little Twitter, just with fewer billionaire buyouts and way more learning opportunities.

Here's what makes Chirper special:

• It's a real, production-ready application

• It covers all the fundamentals you need to know

• You'll actually deploy it live on the internet (yes, really!)

• It's complex enough to be interesting, but simple enough to not be overwhelming

See It Live Right Now

Want to see exactly what you'll be building? I've got it hosted on Laravel Cloud right now. Head over to chirper.laravel.cloud ↗ for a real, online, live demo.

Go ahead—I'll wait. Create an account, post a few chirps, get a feel for it. Notice how you can:

• Register a new account (with proper authentication and everything)

• Post chirps—those short, sweet messages for the world to see

• See a real-time feed of chirps from all users

• Edit or delete your own chirps (but only yours—we've got authorization locked down tight)

Pay special attention to that last point. When you're logged in, you'll see you can only edit and delete the chirps you've created. That's not a bug—that's authorization in action, and you'll learn exactly how to implement it.

What You'll Actually Build

Everything you've just seen is what you'll be building as you follow along with this bootcamp from start to finish. And here's the kicker—throughout this course, I'll walk you through how to put your own version of Chirper on Laravel Cloud as well. That's right, by the end of this, you'll have a real web application, live on the internet, that you can share with friends, family, or put on your resume.

Who This Is For

If this is your first time building anything with Laravel—or even seeing any Laravel code—well, you've come to the right place. (Although, if you haven't touched PHP before, you might want to start with the PHP Fundamentals course first, just to get comfortable with the basics.)

By the end of this bootcamp, you'll have:

• A solid understanding of how to build a real, working web application with Laravel from start to finish

• Knowledge of what Laravel gives you out of the box (spoiler: it's a LOT)

• Your own deployed application on Laravel Cloud

• The confidence to start building your own ideas

Let's Start Shipping

So, artisans (that's what we call ourselves in the Laravel community), are you ready? Let's stop talking about it and start building. Let's roll up our sleeves and create your first Laravel application together.

Welcome to the journey. Let's chirp! 🐦