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Introduction of Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel is the most popular PHP framework. Just like any other PHP framework, Laravel is free to use and is licensed under open source. It was created by Taylor Otwell. The aim behind the creation of the framework is to make it easy to develop web frameworks that utilize Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. Laravel is seen as one of the easiest frameworks to work with, and it does come with all the modern features that you should expect from a modern framework. Few key features of laravel are modular packaging system, multiple ways of accessing relational databases, different utilities, and much more.
At the time of writing, i.e., November 2016, Laravel is the most used PHP framework and dominates the market. You can find the source code for Laravel on GitHub and uses MIT License.
Laravel History
The development of Laravel started when Taylor Otwell started to find an alternative to the famous Codeigniter framework. CodeIgniter framework, at that time, didn’t offer features such as user authorization and authentication. Let’s go through the key events in the Laravel history below.
- June 9, 2011 - Laravel’s first beta was released. A month later, Laravel 1 was released to the audience. Laravel 1 came with all the major features including routing, sessions, views, localization, support for authentication, etc.
- September 2011 - Laravel 2 was released. It improved over the first release and came with features such as support for controllers. It also became complete MVC compliant and introduced new templating system known as Blade. In this release, they removed the support for 3rd party packages, making it harder for developers who rely on them for app development.
- February 2012 - Laravel 3 was released. It contained new features such as command-line interface(CLI), database management systems support, new packaging system called bundles and much more.
- May 2013 - Laravel 4 introduced more features and is codenamed Illuminate.
- February 2015 - Laravel 5 was released. It contained a lot of internal changes.
The latest stable version of Laravel is 5.3.9 and, it is continuously growing in the right direction.
Laravel Tools
Let’s go through some of the best Laravel tools that will help you get the best out of your work process.
- PHPStorm: is one of the well-known PHP IDE in the market. It works well for any framework and also supports Laravel. It includes code compilations, code productivity, code refactoring and much more.
- Laravel IDE Helper: is a great package for Laravel developers. It helps them to work with Laravel code, and it can be used with any IDE to help them save time.
- Blade syntax highlighter plugin: A simple and easy to use syntax highlighter plugin enables you to use blade templates easily. It is available for PHPstorm.
- Aura: If you ever want to improve your PHP framework then you can choose Aura, a free to use package that contains multiple tools.
- Net Beans: Net Beans is a very popular IDE for PHP development and works well for the likes of Laravel.
- Laravel Homestead: If you want to get started with Laravel development, then you need to check Laravel Homestead, a ready-to-use box that works on top of any Ubuntu framework.
- Laravel repository: Packages are the most important part of any framework. Laravel is no different. You can find thousands of packages free in Laravel repository.
Laravel Best Books
Wondering where to start learning Laravel? These books will help you start Laravel learning. There are tons of Laravel tutorials in the books. If you think that the books are not able to fill the learning gap, you can learn laravel online and create a powerful laravel application.
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Laravel Starter
by Shawn McCool
Welcome to the Laravel Starter. This book has been specially created to provide you with all the information that you need to get started with the Laravel web development framework. You will learn the basics of Laravel, get started with building your first web application, and discover some tips and tricks for using Laravel.
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Laravel 5 Essentials
by Martin Bean
This book is intended for PHP web developers who have an interest in Laravel and who know the basics of the framework in theory, but don't really know how to use it in practice. No experience of using frameworks is required, but it is assumed you are at least familiar with building dynamic websites in PHP already.
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Getting Started with Laravel 4
This book is ideal for web developers who want to get up to speed with Laravel quickly. You are expected to have some experience with the PHP programming language - or any C-like languages such as JavaScript, Perl, or Java - along with some understanding of basic OOP concepts. Any experience with MVC frameworks such as ASP.NET MVC or Ruby on Rails will certainly be beneficial but not required. Lastly, some familiarity with command line interfaces will also help but is not essential either.
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Learning Laravel's Eloquent
Learning Laravel's Eloquent starts off by taking you through setting up your first project and guiding you in creating a perfect Laravel environment. You will learn how to build the right database structure with the Migrations system and the Schema Builder class. Next, you will be introduced to the main element of Eloquent: the model. After treating the model as a single, isolated entity, you will learn how to create relations between them.
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Laravel Design Patterns and Best Practices
by Arda
With the recent release of its 4th version, Laravel has turned into an advanced PHP framework for web artisans. It uses various design patterns over MVC architecture, and saves developers' time and effort in building and maintaining high-quality web applications. Laravel helps developers by making the common tasks such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching look simple and easy. It also makes use of a few well-established and uncomplicated design patterns that help developers to reuse object-oriented code, thus making their lives easier.
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Mastering Laravel
If you are an experienced novice or a capable PHP programmer who has a basic understanding of the concepts in modern PHP (at least version 5.4), this book is ideal for you. Basic object-oriented programming and database knowledge are expected. You should already know the way around Laravel, or have at least experimented with the framework.
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Practical Laravel 5
by Alex R. Young and Lukas White
Build a fully-fledged, feature-rich application from scratch using Laravel. You'll learn by doing, not simply studying. At the end of each step, not only will you have learned a new skill, trick or technique – but you'll have built another feature of your first hand-crafted Laravel application. You'll go beyond the Laravel framework itself as we take a look at some of the skills any professional developer needs, to take your career – or indeed hobby – to the next level.
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Learning Laravel 4 Application Development
Laravel 4 is a clean and classy framework for PHP web development. It attempts to ease the development of web applications by simplifying the common tasks required in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.
Laravel Projects
October CMS October CMS is an open-source solution that is built using Laravel PHP framework. It can self-hosted.
Dingo API is a tool which can be used with conjunction of Laravel to create more API.
A simple to use Laravel debug bar. It can be used with your Laravel project.
Awesome Laravel is a collection of books, videos, and other content that can help you.
Laravel-4-Generators is a simple Laravel package that contains multiple generators to speed up your development.
Laravel Community
Laravel offers one of the biggest communities around the world. It is one of the fastest growing PHP framework and it offers an excellent opportunity for anyone to learn and work with Laravel.
- Larachat: A slack channel to talk with the brightest minds of the community.
- Laravel Collective: A great place to search for dead Laravel components.
- Laravel.io Community Portal: Laravel.io community portal works on the contribution regarding Laravel. It is an open source community and anyone can participate into it.
Laravel Gurus
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Bill Condo:
Bill Condo is an open-source contributor, a DevOps consultant, and a Web Engineer. He also loves to hack hardware and is mainly focused on tuning, accelerating and refactoring projects.
Linkedin -
Frank de Jonge:
Frank de Jonge is a core contributor for Laravel. He is also a member of The PHP league. His work consists of Flysystem. He has also spoken in many conferences including SymfonyCon, LaraconEU, and PHPBenelux.
Twitter
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Nicolas Widart:
Nicolas Widart is a freelancer. His main work contributors to Laravel. He has contributed to the core and has brought many changes for its betterment.
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Ryan Winchester:
Web developer by day – web developer by night! PHP was a hobby of mine for 15 years before I got serious about it and started absorbing and learning everything I could about it. I am passionate about learning and doing and currently employed as a full-time web developer.
Website
Laravel Conferences (Reference)
Laracon is a conference centered around the Laravel framework, covering its development, uses, and related general software development practices. Laracons are taking place in both United States and Europe, organized primarily by UserScape with additional help provided by a number of sponsors.