Laravel for Beginners: An Overview of the PHP Framework

If you’ve dabbled in PHP development and want to dive in deeper, you might have come across the word ‘Laravel.’ It’s one of the crucial words you would have heard in circles of web developers and PHP app developers. Even by keying the term “Laravel” in any search engine, it would lead you to the PHP framework.

But you might wonder what the framework does, why it is so popular, and why over 700,000+ websites use it for development. All these questions and more will be answered in this article. Let’s get right to it.

What Is Laravel?

At its most basic, Laravel forms a key open-source PHP framework-based tool that simplifies website building. It is popular for its diverse range of features and consistent updates, which make development simpler and more intuitive. At its core, Laravel leverages components from various frameworks, including CodeIgniter and Yii, thus enabling users to get the best of different platforms in one place.

Prerequisites for Learning Laravel

Developers might have to go through a steep learning curve if they do not know a few languages and concepts. So, before you jump into the deep end, ensure you’re clear and adept with the following: 

1. PHP is the base language on which the Laravel framework is built. So thoroughly understand PHP concepts such as OOPS, functions, arrays, and more. 
2. Database designing and management are essential parts of Laravel. So, learn the basics of SQL, which will help you understand how to store and retrieve data along with performing intricate operations.
3. Laravel follows an MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture, wherein the complete system can be broken down into three components. So, understanding this design pattern is crucial.
4. PHP has several dependencies which are managed by a PHP Composer. So, learn how to use this tool right from its installation and setup to updating its packages and using them.

These are a few important concepts you must be aware of before learning Laravel. Besides these, you must also know the basics of Git and Linux commands. The latter is more important if you’re deploying your website to a Linux server and needs to be managed.

Features of Laravel

Application Security

Laravel has different security features, including hashed and salted passwords, encryption of passwords, and protection to prevent SQL injection. This elevates the security of applications and websites developed with the Laravel framework.

Built-In Functions

The framework has several built-in functions which simplify the development process for engineers. These include sharing an estimated time to create an object, regulating access to resources, reforming authorization policies, and more. These help developers create applications that are flexible and scalable. 

Template Engine

Laravel offers a wide range of basic templates that combine the capabilities of CSS and JS. These can be used to create different layouts that are seeded with content. The developers can also use widgets to create certain parts of the layout with relative ease.

Object Relational Mapping

Usually, database management requires PHP developers to know SQL code, the ORM feature eliminates this tedious process. Now, developers can write various SQL queries in PHP language without requiring in-depth knowledge about SQL.

Above and beyond these, there are several other features, including modular functionalities, dynamic libraries, database migration, unit testing, automation of programming tasks, and more.

Conclusion

In summary, Laravel is an increasingly popular PHP framework that makes website development simpler, intuitive, and more secure. Learning to build web apps using this is a necessary skill that several IT organizations look for in the current industry scenario. So, what are you waiting for? Get started with Laravel today.