Laravel Worldwide Meetup - Vibes vs. Agents: A World Cup Betting Side Project Story

This month we are joined by Laravel Dev Rel Engineer Christoph Rumpel. Christoph will take us on a journey through building a recent side project and a some of the lessons he learned along the way: We all have that side project we've meant to build for years. I finally built mine. The first half by hand, every line myself. Then I stopped and asked whether writing code was still worth my time, handed the keyboard to the agents, and finished it in a completely different way. This talk is about building a real side project in this new era. Vibe coding versus agentic coding, the tools that actually helped, and what it takes to stay the owner of something you didn't write yourself. With a live demo, real numbers, and an honest look at what it felt like to stop writing the code myself. Timestamps: 2:36 - Introduction 3:25 - Community Resources: https://laravel-news.com/ / https://podcast.laravel-news.com/ - Explore the Laravel News site & podcast for the latest updates and discussions https://laravelpodcast.com/ - Laravel and PHP discussions with Matt Stauffer https://larajobs.com/ - The official Laravel Job Board https://laracasts.com - A great platform to check out to build your Laravel skills https://community.laravel.com/ - Find upcoming Laravel conferences and events here https://laravel.com/stories - Laravel is looking to feature developers from every corner of the Community - submit your stories here! 5:14 - Host Sponsor - Reach out at go@vehikl.com || www.vehikl.com 5:32 - JetBrains Giveaway - please use the QR code at the end of the meetup! Enter anytime before September 1st for a chance to win one of two JetBrains coupons 5:44 - Christoph Rumpel's Introduction 7:34 - Do you still write code yourself? 8:08 - A score-prediction game for your group chat 8:43 - The app I always wanted to build 10:23 - Every line, by hand 11:06 - What I wanted to Learn 13:25 - Is writing code still worth my time? 14:17 - Let the agents work? 15:05 - Demo 16:47 - What i actually reached for 21:25 - Check what you see 22:07 - Check the code 22:49 - Three things that stuck 22:58 - Writing code was easy. Reviewing it didn’t 26:17 - Walk My PR 29:13 - Reviewing what you don’t understand 31:17 - No tool is “the one” 32:02 - Trust, but stay the owner 33:37 - Time to sweat the details 36:14 - What building with AI actually felt like 40:02 - Where it stands now 41:40 - A great developer who knows AI has the best seat in the house 42:30 - Start on Vibes. Grow up with agents 43:57 - Q & A with Christoph 1:09:00 - End Slides Links Mentioned Bet Your Goal: https://betyourgoal.com/ ----- Thank you to our guest: - Christoph Rumpel, follow him on X (https://x.com/christophrumpel) and check out his learning platform (https://learn.christoph-rumpel.com/) Sign up for reminders to stay up to date on the latest events @ https://meetup.laravel.com Follow our co-hosts: - Margaret Tavares on X (https://x.com/margarettavares) & LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarettavares/) - Dan Soppelsa on X (https://x.com/dansoppelsa) & LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansoppelsa/) Follow us on Bluesky: - LWWM on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/laravelwwmeetup.bsky.social)