With the advancement of technology, we can see that there are more and more programs that allow you to develop websites and web applications, such as WordPress, Laravel…
However, these become a bit complex when you want to perform certain tasks due to their limitations.
Because of this, new tools began to appear to help simplify processes and eliminate these conditioning, so that the development experience is given in the best possible way.
In this post, we present one of them: Laravel.
What is Laravel?
Laravel is an open source framework that allows you to build and develop applications and websites. It uses the PHP scripting language and helps to assimilate its codes and syntax in a simple way.
What differentiates the scripting language from the programming language is in the ease of use and the speed of execution of the first, since the amount of coding needed is minimized.
Now, what is a PHP framework? Basically, it is a scheme or structure of work, both conceptual and technological, from which software can be organized and developed.
This structure, based on pre-programmed functionalities, allows you to build modern sites and applications quickly and in a personalized way.
Laravel offers both tools, components and utilities very well-ordered, which allow a simple, safe, powerful and streamlined work through a beautiful, elegant, creative and fun to use interface.
The initial requirements to start using Laravel will be: to have a database, a web development environment and PHP libraries.
Regardless of your experience in the field of development or the type of project, you will see that Laravel is the ideal software tool to carry out your ideas and their daily development thanks to the fact that it is very easy to understand and learn.
Characteristics
As we mentioned, the main objective of Laravel is to facilitate the tasks in your web projects and create and order code in a simple way. In this way, the so-called “spaghetti code”, a complex and incomprehensible code structure, is avoided.
All this is done through multiple functionalities with a diversity of purposes and possibilities. Next, we will talk about some of them:
Modular and extensible
It has a modular and extensible code for the management of databases.
Modular as it promotes the separation of files with a correct and defined order.
Extensible because you can add the packages you need through its Packalyst directory.
The Laravel route system
It has a fast and efficient routing system. This allows us to relate what the user enters with the different parts of our application. In short, what it does is make the routes between the source and destination host shorter.
On the other hand, Laravel has a folder called “routes” where all the paths of the application are located. In this way, the route management is very intuitive and easy to identify.
Cache system
Adjustable cache system that allows your app to load quickly by reducing processing times. In this way, it helps to improve the experience of your users.
Users
User authentication natively and includes the option to “remember” the user. It also allows us to know the number of sessions, to know if our users are active, and stores information about them.
Eloquent ORM
It includes Eloquent ORM, which is a relational data mapping system. Allows the relationship between objects and the data they represent. This is very intuitive, so it facilitates and simplifies the processing of data.
Laravel Template System
It has Blade, the most complete plate engine for PHP. This allows you to make personalized and visually striking and powerful pages, without having to implement your own configuration system.
By providing these foundations, you’ll save time on all programming tasks and be able to focus on what really matters.
MVC Architecture
It uses an MVC (ModelViewController) architecture, which is a software architecture pattern that separates code according to responsibilities to facilitate development.
Eloquent participates in the creation of Models. Blade favors clean code in Views. The Controller is the conduit between the Models and the Views.
This architecture works as follows:
- The user interacts with the interface.
- The driver receives the user action and updates the model based on what is requested.
- It sends the data obtained from the new model to the view to generate the appropriate interface that reflects the changes that occurred in the model.
- The sequence is repeated for each interaction made by the user.
Migrations
Migrations allow databases, their fields, and their keys to be generated and updated from PHP code. These help in the destruction or recreation of databases, by keeping track of their modifications over time.
One of the great advantages of migrations is that they facilitate teamwork.
Artisan
Laravel features a command-line interface called Artisan. It provides useful commands when building your app. It also allows you to create your own commands for automatic or scheduled tasks.
Security
One of the reasons why Laravel is considered a secure application is because it allows you to encrypt your data.
On the other hand, the CSRF token, which is random and changes every few seconds, provides high security in all the forms sent by each login of the users.
Other qualities
- Laravel includes a Middleware, which is responsible for analyzing and filtering incoming HTTP requests on your server.
- It allows you to easily and quickly develop micro-services and high-performance APIs for your projects.
- Extensions with a variety of functionalities.
- The framework is installable and upgradeable through Composer.
- Allows you to generate work queues and processes in the background.
- Facilitates pagination by allowing you to group content in a certain space.
- Built-in PHPUnit, which helps check if your page is working properly.
- Error management, that is, it generates messages when any inconvenience occurs.
- You can send emails from events, handlers or commands thanks to one of the Blade templates.
What uses can we give to Laravel?
Laravel can be used for any project you want to do in PHP, some examples are:
- Websites.
- Intranets.
- Blogs.
- Customer areas.
- Feedback.
- Login systems.
- Creation of posts.
- Payment method systems.
Laravel Growth and Community
Since its creation in 2011, Lavarel has only grown and this is due to several factors.
It is thanks to all the amazing features mentioned. We can say that Laravel brings together all the functionalities of the competition.
In turn, it is one of the easiest frameworks to use and learn for its simplicity, which is somewhat difficult to achieve with PHP languages.
In this way, it allows those developers who wanted to obtain more complex results in their projects, to achieve it in the best way and without having complications when using new commands.
Moreover, it is one of the most used PHP frameworks. Having a large and active community, it is easy to solve doubts anytime they arise, not only for its tutorials but also for the consultation forums created by the developers who use it.
This large number of users means that it is continuously in maintenance and updating.
Another advantage is its online documentation. Laravel has many examples of use and learning resources aimed at both beginners and more experienced developers.
Latest Laravel Update
Laravel is about to release its latest version with new features and fixes: Laravel 9. This will require symfony 6.0 and PHP 8.
Several of its new features have already been unveiled. Some of them we mention below:
- New way to create migrations to avoid name collisions.
- New design of route lists for greater readability.
- Trial coverage option.
- New query builder interface, for type suggestion, refactoring, and static analysis.
- Start using Symfony Mailer for mail transport.
- Upgrades the flysystem upstream dependency to Flysystem 3.x.
- New way to define Eloquent accessors and mutators.
- New design of Ignition, the open source exception debugging page.
- Adds the ability to add custom rules to the default password validation rules.
- MergeIfMissing request method.
- Affirmation of batch counts in tests.
- Add help functions.
- Paging views created with Bootstrap 5.
Conclusion
If you are looking to develop applications quickly and easily, but that require some complexity, you should consider Laravel as your first choice.
In addition, it is perfect for those people who want to enter the world of frameworks from scratch, not only for its ease of use and intuitive interface, but also for the great support that its community provides for those who are learning.
The experts will be allowed to carry out any project they imagine in a fluid and safe way.
Laravel makes things so easy through its libraries and pre-programmed functionalities, that you can dedicate yourself to what really matters when it comes to starting your project.
About the author
Gina Parente
Member of the team of Materialesdefabrica.com and Habitium.com professionals
