Basic Introduction to Laravel

Created by Taylor Otwell, in the year 2011. As per Otwell Laravel was created as an attempt to produce a more advance alternative of Codeigniter, like inclusion of Built-in support for user authentication and authorization.

Till February 7, 2018, Laravel 5.6 version has been released. Laravel is a refined and modish MVC (Model -View –Controller) based PHP Framework, which is free and open source another aesthetic PHP Framework, used for creating web applications, It being simple and elegant it is widely preferred by the beginners in this field of Web Designing.

A glimpse of the detailed features of Laravel can be accessed from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laravel.

Prior to learning Laravel it is highly recommended that you have gained knowledge in basic concepts of HTML/ CSS, core PHP, MVC Framework at least and PHP OOP, abstraction will be of added advantage.

Advantages Of Using Laravel

Generally, the advantages of using Laravel is compared with Codeigniter Framework, following below are some of the remarkable advantages of using Laravel for Web development:

• With the help of Laravel software the Web project can be completed easily with less time.
• As this technology is applicable on any browser and device, it increases the no. of online traffic in your website.
• It will help in simplifying your website and it contains modular packaging system. And it also includes few flexible features the applications.
• As Laravel has features of creating unique URLs related to it, with the same existing routes we can create different routes with the same name.
• Laravel contains auto loading facility, therefore PHP will not require special inclusion for paths and maintenance.
• Also due to inclusion of namespaces and interfaces, Laravel makes it possible to organize and manage resources.

Features of Laravel in Detail

• Laravel features built in template engine called Blade Template.
• Artisan command line utility is used to create boiler plate code for controllers and models. These command units can also be used for performing other tasks such as running units and migrations. In short supports RAD-Rapid Application Developing.
• Auto Loading Features, as discussed in advantages section.
• Incorporated from Symphony Framework Artisan is a command line interface in Laravel which has add-on features for building a web application. This artisan command will help in unit testing. The built in features can perform various tasks like authentication, routing, database managing, sending emails to name a few.
• Laravel has Eloquent ORM (Object Relational manager) framework which helps in implementing PHP active record.
• Laravel has 20 built in libraries and modules that will help in the enhancement of the application, also since all the modules are integrated with Composer dependency manager it helps in making the updates easily.