PHP is one of the most popular server-side scripting languages that has been around for a few years. This flexible and versatile language was introduced to add logic to the web pages. In fact, PHP is regarded as the king in the field of web development not because it offers amazing flexibility but because of various frameworks, it offers such as Codeigniter, CakePHP, Zend Framework 2, Phalcon, Symfony, Aura, Laravel and more.
Among all the PHP frameworks available, Laravel is a relatively new, free and open source PHP framework that follows the MVC architecture for building web applications. Laravel comes equipped with a wide range of advanced features that make it a valuable asset. If you are planning to build a web application with a PHP framework and not sure whether you should use Laravel for it or not, then the following reasons will help you to make the right decision.
Free and Open Source
Free is always a powerful reason to choose a lot of things, and choosing a framework is no exception. And why you would say no when technology itself is ready to build your web application for absolutely free where you are allowed to customize things as per your needs and requisites? As a matter of fact, when things are available for free, you can at least try them to find out whether or not they are worth your time and effort.
But it may occur to you that whether it is of any good or not. After all, most free things lack a lot of good qualities. However, that’s not the case in the software industry. In fact, a majority of free stuff is the best such as Java, which is an important part of the software industry and used to build Android phones. In a technical jargon, a free software is usually referred to as an open source.
Where free is a good reason to give it a try, it’s not the only reason to choose it, which brings us to the next point.
A variety of separate modules
Laravel is packed with more than 20 libraries that are further divided into different modules. Moreover, Laravel is developed using the modern principles of PHP to help developers across the world to build modular, responsive and user-friendly web applications.
Laracasts support
Yet another reason to use Laravel for your next web application is its Laracasts support, which provides a bundle of free and paid videos that help you get up and running with the platform. Jeffery Way, an expert of PHP, has himself created all the videos. The lessons he has shared in the videos are well-versed, meaningful and well-thought-out. Also, the videos are lessons are planned in such a way that even a beginner can easily get started with Laravel in a matter of few days provided he/she is a skilled PHP programmer.
It also offers tutorials on diverse topics such as introducing VUE.js, mastering your IDE and a series of basics like design patterns and regular expressions. Also, whenever a new feature comes out, Laracasts follows it with a video tutorial.
Routing system and Authentication
Laravel is also built with a routing system which is triggered by the apps with flexibility and better control. In order to match Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), a separate directory is created. Also, it comes with a specific configuration file for authentication placed at config/auth.php and comprises every authentication credential required for examining the authentication services.
User-friendly Syntax
You probably have read Clean Code, a universally acclaimed book, written by Robert C. Martin. The author has written everything about writing a code which is clean, concise and focused to the chore.
Taylor Otwell, the founder of Laravel, has completely adhered to the principles of writing a clean code as mentioned in the book by Robert C. Martin. As an example, AuthController, a feature of Laravel, makes use of named RegistersUsers. Now the feature has two methods, where one shows the registration and the other, registration form.
There are various other examples of clean code in the Laravel PHP framework such as:
$roles = Role::paginate(5);
Or
$role = Role::findOrFail($id);
Blade Templating Engine
Laravel also comes integrated with extremely lightweight and fast templates which can be used to build amazing layouts with dynamic content seeding. The templating engine is so versatile and intuitive, which makes it a lot easier to work with PHP/HTML spaghetti. In fact, it is one of the best features of this PHP framework. It even features a variety of widgets having CSS and JS code with robust structures.
A great example of templating engine is:
@if(Auth::check())
//show the html you want for when the user is logged in.
@else
// show other html when the user is not logged in.
@endif
Often times working with CDN calls and Javascript files can be quite tricky. However, with Blade, it’s seamlessly smooth with a lot of flexibility for using it.
Conclusion:
All in all, the introduction of Laravel has given hopes to many PHP developers and has even proven that PHP isn’t drowning. On a personal note, I would say I have really liked Laravel as it has made me a better developer and helped me write a cleaner code.
I hope you also find this platform extremely helpful and the above-mentioned points persuade you to use it for your next project.
