According to Statista, PHP is expected to reach a market share of more than 45% by 2023, entailing its wide usage as a programming language; accounting for more than 77% of all websites. Laravel is one of the most dependable PHP frameworks favoured among developers for its free and open-source solution. The framework has gained massive popularity and trust for its reliability.
This article delves into the complexities of Laravel, covering basic and advanced techniques for incorporating it into your PHP projects. Let’s get started.
What is the purpose of using PHP Laravel?
For server-side programming, Laravel, a PHP framework, is the preferred option for minimizing the coding workload. It eradicates the need for programmers to manually create commonly used code snippets.
Before the advent of Laravel, developers had to spend a significant amount of time constructing authentication, routing and HTML templating from scratch. This framework simplifies these tasks, providing pre-built functionalities. Laravel employs the Model-View-Controller (MVC) paradigm, enabling code separation into models, views and controllers.
Laravel is widely recognised as one of the best PHP frameworks and is user-friendly, even for those with minimal experience in PHP or other programming languages. While there are several JavaScript-based alternatives, such as React, Vue, and Angular, Laravel remains the top pick for those who require PHP for their backend development.
How Effective is the PHP Laravel Framework?
Laravel is an open-source PHP framework aimed at simplifying the development of web applications. It integrates essential features of existing frameworks like CodeIgniter and Yii, allowing code reuse for enhanced development efficiency.
Laravel can benefit PHP developers of all levels of expertise in improving development efficiency. This framework supplies pre-built libraries and modules that allow developers to expand their application’s functionality without creating a solution from scratch.
What Does the Laravel Framework for PHP Do?
Laravel’s broad set of features is a significant factor in its position as the top PHP framework. This section covers some of the essential capabilities the framework offers.
Flexibility
Laravel comes with over twenty pre-built libraries and modules that can be leveraged to augment your website’s functionalities. Each component includes the Composer dependency management system, simplifying the process of updating individual modules.Routing
In Laravel, mapping web application pathways is simple. Enhancing the application’s performance can be accomplished by scaling its size, which is facilitated by more efficient routing.Configuration Management
Laravel offers a dependable and efficient methodology for deploying web applications in multiple environments, each with their own unique prerequisites.Email Functionality
Laravel’s mail class offers a convenient approach to send emails from a web application, including those with intricate formatting or attachments. Integration is easy, eliminating the necessity of custom coding.User Authentication
Users can access all of an online application’s features by creating an account and logging in. To guarantee application security, user authentication is essential. Laravel’s registration, password recovery, and email reminder services simplify authentication design.Task Queueing
Queueing is a vital feature of Laravel, enabling the integration of functions such as batch emailing and task activation using Cron jobs. It also allows tasks to be executed in stages, rather than waiting for completion of one job to start another.Schema Generation
The schema builder is in charge of maintaining and updating PHP-based database definitions and schemas. It also logs any database changes that occur during the migration process.Event-Driven and Command-Based Network Interface
Laravel 5.1 introduced this feature, which simplifies issuing commands and sending notifications.Testability
Laravel comes with testability enabled by default, making it an essential aspect of the system. This capability empowers developers to conduct thorough testing to ensure that the code is up-to-date and of the highest quality.
What sets Laravel apart as the leading PHP framework?
1. Built-In Authentication and Authorization
Laravel facilitates the integration of authentication and authorization features in applications with a minimal amount of coding. By utilizing just a few artisan commands, the authentication and authorization processes can be secured within a web application.
2. Supports Multiple Storage Formats
Laravel simplifies switching between cloud and local storage usage. It supports several cloud storage services like Amazon S3 and Rack Space Cloud Storage, and their APIs are compatible with Laravel. This makes it easy to create a web application that can seamlessly access data from both local and cloud storage.
3. Built-In Task Scheduler
Laravel’s Artisan console is an invaluable tool with a broad range of functions. It enables seeding databases, creating boilerplate code for models, controllers, and migrations, and publishing package assets. Additionally, Artisan can be extended with user-defined commands, expanding its capabilities even further.
4. MVC Architecture Compatibility
According to a Works blog post, Laravel offers robust support for the Model-View-Controller architecture pattern, delivering several advantages to developers. These include better management of large web applications, support for asynchronous method invocation (AMI), increased flexibility, faster development time, simplified planning and maintenance, unformatted data retrieval, and support for terse text display (TTD) and test-driven development.
5. Robust Template System
Laravel features the Blade Template Engine, a robust system for templating. This templating system allows developers to combine multiple templates with a defined data model to construct views. Blade has embedded several control structures like loops and conditional statements that are compatible with PHP.
6. Extensive Community Support
Laravel is the most widely adopted PHP framework, as indicated by a Works blog post, making it hugely popular among developers. The framework aims to simplify problem-solving and offers numerous tutorials available across various websites and video-sharing platforms like YouTube, providing an excellent source for acquiring new skills.
7. Caching Functionality
The Works blog explains that caching can enhance the loading speed of frequently accessed data on websites and online applications. Caching aids to temporarily store data within a user’s browser, avoiding the need to reload the web app or website.
Laravel includes built-in caching functionality, simplifying the implementation of caching on your website. In addition to minimizing memory consumption and indexing databases, Laravel incorporates various built-in website optimization techniques. Thanks to its optimized speed capabilities, Laravel is a popular choice for rapidly building search-engine-optimized websites and online applications.
8. Seamless Integration with External Services
Integrating external applications is a quick and secure approach to enhance your website’s performance. Laravel’s simple integration APIs enable hassle-free integration with third-party services like Stripe for payments and Yoast for SEO, making it more straightforward than other frameworks.
9. Simplifies Website Maintenance
To guarantee the optimal performance of your website or web application, it might be necessary to include new features or solve any issues. Implementing Laravel’s Model-View-Controller (MVC) design and Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) principles can significantly simplify the maintenance of your website or application.
The Works blog post highlights that having these components implemented results in a seamless transition for a new developer to take control of the website, easing the process of making improvements without encountering significant obstacles.
10. Cost-Effective Website Development
Laravel is an open-source platform, therefore, it does not require any monetary investment to utilize. Nonetheless, it is advisable to factor in the cost of hiring an adept Laravel developer and monthly hosting fees. Furthermore, Laravel can minimize expenses by simplifying the website creation process.
Getting Started with PHP Laravel
1. Installing Web Server and PHP
To utilize this framework, you need to have a local copy of PHP installed and a web server configured. We suggest installing either Apache or Nginx as they are the most frequently used open-source web servers by developers.
2. Setting Up Composer, Dependency Management, and a Database
After installing the web server and PHP, it is advised to configure Composer for dependency management and a database. You can choose among the three most commonly used Database Management Systems (DBMSs) which are MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.
3. Laravel Installation
After configuring the necessary dependencies, Laravel can be installed via Composer. In the Composer terminal, type ‘composer global require laravel/installer’ (without the quotation marks). Type ‘laravel new blog‘ in the command line to finalize the installation.
This command will create a new folder named “blog” and install Laravel in it. A .htaccess file will also be generated in the new directory. To utilize the .htaccess file and steer Apache towards a designated location, enable “mod rewrite”.
Final Thoughts
Laravel is a remarkable server-side scripting framework for PHP that caters to both novices and seasoned developers. It streamlines website and online application development to produce fast, secure, and user-optimized results. Installation and learning this framework is also a rather uncomplicated process. If you seek a dependable PHP framework, then Laravel is an exceptional option.
Hiring a PHP expert is a great way to elevate your website. At Works, we can help you scale your IT department and reduce the average timeframe by 60%. If you are an experienced remote PHP developer searching for new job opportunities, don’t wait any longer! We are always accepting applications from potential candidates – submit your resume today and secure your dream job.
