Laravel development basics

If your business is looking for increases in marketing performance, inventory management efficiency, and customer service quality, web applications can provide them, plus many additional benefits. Using a framework or collection of tools that make development faster and easier is one way to build these applications.

Here we explore Laravel so you can understand the basics before making your choice. We will cover what it is used for, main features, benefits and learning options.

What is Laravel?

In the early 2000s, most PHP-based code was in the form of scripts, which were difficult to use. As time passed, they became even less manageable, without any logical organization. Sir Taylor Otwell created Laravel to solve this problem, releasing it in July 2011.

Designed to work with PHP , Laravel has all the tools you need to develop right away. Laravel development provides a structural foundation for applications and helps speed up the process.

What is Laravel used for?

You can use Laravel to build a wide range of applications, from the simplest to the most complex. Specific types include:

• • Data-related software solutions
  • Content-driven sites like news and blogs
  • Enterprise software, including CRM and CMS
  • E-commerce based software
  • Social networking sites

Laravel can handle the high level of complexity required for enterprise applications that require backends, including user accounts, exports, and order management systems. It can also help beginners create more maintainable and stable core applications.

What are the main features of Laravel?

Laravel includes a range of powerful features that make it a valuable PHP framework:

MVC architecture support

Laravel uses a model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern. These three main parts of the framework work together:

• 1. Most of the processing is done in controllers, which are responsible for user interaction and data operations.
  2. Controllers connect to models to get, create, or update data.
  3. Views, which contain the HTML structure, display the results.

MVC separates models from views, reducing the number of dependencies between them, so changes made to one layer will only have minor impacts on other layers. The resulting code is more organized, less brittle, and easier to debug.

Blade shaping mechanism

Blade, Laravel's powerful and easy-to-use templating engine, helps you design unique and stunning layouts. Blade views are compiled and cached until later modified, which reduces load times and improves search engine rankings.

Automated Testing

Laravel's built-in automated tests make it easy to eliminate bugs. Actions include unit tests for controllers and classes and feature tests for the codebase. The tests included in Laravel development can simulate basic user behavior — such as clicking links and filling out forms — which simplifies and speeds up the process.

Authentication

Writing authentication code for web applications can be a time-consuming process. Laravel simplifies this with a ready-to-use authentication configuration file that includes many options, allowing you to build a fully functional authentication scheme using one easy command. It also provides convenient documentation for developing your own authentication system.

Craftsman command line tool

Laravel comes with dozens of pre-built commands in its Artisan command-line tool, which you can use to create models and controllers and avoid repetitive and tedious tasks. You can also write your own commands to extend Artisan's reach.

Modular packaging system

With Laravel's modular packaging system, you can easily add functionality to applications without writing them from scratch. You can create your own packages for the code you routinely use, or install packages out of the box.

Database Migration System

You can create and modify database tables with Laravel's database migration system. Allows you to expand the database structure without recreating everything, reducing the chance of data loss. Developers can also easily share databases with other team members using database migration.

What are the benefits of Laravel?

The Laravel PHP Framework offers a wide range of general benefits, including stability, scalability, reliability, and high performance. In particular, it provides:

Rapid development

Using Laravel development speeds up the creation of web applications, with faster server-client authentication systems, routing and caching activities. It delivers results accurately and quickly, allowing you to build faster and more successful web applications.

Easy to use

With Laravel, you get all the tools you need right out of the box. The versatile, easy-to-use interface simplifies time-consuming and complex programming tasks and makes the process smoother and more efficient. Tasks such as routing, authentication and caching become easier to perform.

Security

Laravel development offers an intuitive way to generate more secure web applications. Instead of plain text passwords, it saves all passwords as a hash using BCrypt. It also offers a significant level of security parameters not available in other frameworks, specifically addressing threats and vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks, cross-site request forgery, and cross-site scripting.

Efficiency

Laravel caches almost all information to reduce processing time and increase efficiency. Caching moves information to a temporary storage site, making websites faster and contributing to better SEO scores and greater user satisfaction.

Is Laravel popular?

Laravel's features and benefits have made it the most popular PHP framework among experienced and beginner developers. Its popularity has grown in recent years, while that of other PHP frameworks has been declining.

This popularity makes sense, given that Laravel makes developing web applications simpler, faster and more comfortable, giving access to advanced features and essential tools that improve efficiency. It allows expert developers to complete complex and sophisticated applications while remaining accessible to beginners for more basic projects.

How to learn Laravel

Laravel has a short learning curve and many resources are available to help you learn from scratch, including podcasts, videos, written tutorials, and a vibrant support community.

Laracasts

This webcast learning site includes specialized learning and practice tools, free tutorials, and paid tutorials from experts. The following video provides an overview:

Supportive community

A vibrant and extensive community of Laravel development experts can help you if you get stuck during the development process. You can seek assistance from this community to resolve your concerns quickly, reducing the incidence of long delays.

Documentation

Laravel comes with detailed documentation, which is regularly updated to reflect new features.

Consider Laravel for Web Application Development

Learning the basics of the Laravel framework can help you decide if it is the right choice for your web application projects. Its ease of use, scalability, and speed have helped make it the most popular PHP framework.