All right, so check this out. When I'm done programming for the day, and I switch back to dad mode, I have a seven-year-old and a five-year-old, by the way, my kids really love it when we do these code-breaking exercises. And trust me, code-breaking goes in quotes here. It's something like this, and you probably did it a hundred times in elementary school. So you have some kind of secret message that you have to break, where each letter in the message corresponds to a symbol. So in this case, I'm reading through the paper, but it's star, square, smiley face for the first word.

So in this case, I'm reading through the paper, but it's star, square, smiley face for the first word. So, of course, the kids then have to reach for the legends, and if I were really mean, there would be no legend, and they would have to figure it out on their own and actually code-break. But of course, they'd fail every time. So they have a legend here, and yeah, they would do what you expect. All right, so the first letter is star. They would have to find, oh, star corresponds to the letter T. And then they would go up here, and of course, as adults, we're smart enough to know.

They would have to find, oh, star corresponds to the letter T. And then they would go up here, and of course, as adults, we're smart enough to know. All right, three-letter word starts with a T. It's going to be the, right? But nonetheless, kids will find all the stars, write a little T underneath until they bust the message or they code-break the message. Now, here's the truth, though. It actually takes a long time to prepare these. It's funny. You think you know various patterns and symbols.

It's funny. You think you know various patterns and symbols until you have to represent them using the alphabet, and it takes a really long time as you sit there and think, all right, what other pattern could we do? How about a squiggly line? How about a rocket? How about a three-wavy line? You know, it just takes a really long time, and it's kind of annoying doing it over and over every time they want a new message. So in this mini-series, we're going to automate it.

and it's kind of annoying doing it over and over every time they want a new message. So in this mini-series, we're going to automate it. We're going to build a very simple little web app using Livewire and Laravel and Tailwind, mostly for fun, that will allow us to type a message and then instantly print out, effectively, the equivalent of what you see here. All right, so I think it should be kind of fun. It's a bit different than what you usually see.

All right, so I think it should be kind of fun. It's a bit different than what you usually see. And, yeah, let's get started.