11 Facts About Laravel

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Laravel is widely used. It is likely that if you have been involved in PHP development for any length of time, you have either used it, thought about it, or been encouraged to do so by an associate who cannot stop talking about it. And with an excellent cause. What began as a side project for one developer has become a worldwide trend that is gradually impacting many websites and services. However, why is the fan community for Laravel so devoted? What built-in features of the framework keep developers interested? There are likely certain aspects within Laravel that you were unaware of, regardless of how long you have been using it or how inexperienced you are to it. These 11 facts, which do not sound like a sales pitch, demonstrate how flexible and well-designed Laravel is.

1. Laravel Was Created By Taylor Otwell in 2011: As an individual effort to overcome the drawbacks of CodeIgniter, Taylor Otwell founded Laravel in 2011. PHP frameworks at the time were either too basic or too complicated; Laravel found a happy medium. At an age where lots of developers continued to be forced to physically wire things up, it brought in contemporary functionality. Individual annoyance? Otwell desired improved support for functions like sessions, routing, and authentication without having to patch everything at once. Does that sound familiar?

2. Laravel Was Originally Built on Top of Symfony Components: A lot of individuals do not realize this, but Symfony components fuel Laravel's internal workings. This implies that whenever you use Laravel, you are also depending on some of the most tried-and-true PHP code out there, however with Laravel's more straightforward, expressive syntax on top. It is comparable to operating a powerful vehicle with an understandable dashboard. Although the engine is complicated, you can get wherever you intend to go without messing with it.

3. Laravel Includes a Built-In Task Scheduler: One tool that was included in Laravel 5.0 and continues to save developers time is the integrated task scheduler. Eliminate the need to set up numerous cron tasks or edit disorganized crontab files. Everything from email reports to housekeeping chores can be scheduled from within your Laravel code. For instance, would you like to send out a daily email reminder at midnight? Just a single line of code. A sysadmin degree is not necessary.

4. Laravel Uses Eloquent ORM For Database Interaction: Database work typically appears monotonous and fragile. That has been changed by Laravel's Eloquent ORM. Clean, readable PHP allows you to work with your data without writing complicated queries or raw SQL. It is difficult to overestimate how much simpler everything is now, particularly among those who find SQL syntax laborious or annoying.

5. Laravel Supports "Zero-Downtime" Deployments Through Laravel Forge & Envoyer: Large-scale systems are typically the only ones that can deploy updates without requiring your application to be offline. However, Laravel makes this available through two official tools that automate deployments: Laravel Forge and Envoyer. This is exactly the kind of tool you would have liked to have known about earlier if you have previously released an update that caused your website to stop functioning.

6. Laravel Routes Can Be Cached For Better Performance: Efficiency has the potential to build or destroy a business. Thankfully, Laravel allows you to cache your routes with a straightforward Artisan command as follows:

   php artisan route:cache

   The above command reduces the amount of time your application uses determining where to deliver a request by compiling all of your route definitions into a quicker version. Particularly on larger apps, you will notice a difference.

7. Laravel Supports Job Queues Out of The Box: Are you processing uploads, sending emails, or performing background tasks? You may postpone laborious tasks with Laravel's queue system, saving customers from having to watch loading spinners. You have fine-grained control over retries, delays, and failure handling with Laravel, which supports a variety of queue backends, including Redis and Amazon SQS.

8. Laravel Includes a Powerful Testing Suite With PHPUnit Integration: PHPUnit is preconfigured whenever Laravel is delivered, and it comes with utilities that facilitate test writing much easier. Laravel promotes test-driven development without requiring it, whether it is through feature testing (such as clicking a button) or unit testing (such as verifying a helper function). Are you annoyed by shaky applications? You may begin writing code with certainty because of this built-in support.

9. Laravel Mix Abstracts Webpack Configuration For Asset Compilation: Webpack can be difficult to understand, particularly for those who are not front-end developers. The majority of the complexity has been taken away by Laravel Mix. You can compile your JavaScript, Sass, as well as Vue or React components with a straightforward configuration file. This is a welcome change for anyone who has previously spent hours addressing a malfunctioning asset pipeline.

10. Laravel Provides a Blade Templating Engine With Built-In Inheritance: The Blade templating engine in Laravel is clear, understandable, and features custom directives, control structures, and layout inheritance. Without incorporating an excessive amount of PHP into your HTML, it enables you to create reusable, maintainable views. Particularly if you have previously struggled with templating in outdated frameworks or CMS systems, it feels natural.

11. Laravel Includes "Policy" & "Gate" Systems For Authorization: While the majority of frameworks provide basic role-based access control, Laravel goes above and beyond. You may specify precisely who can do what and where through gates and policies. Laravel provides you with the capabilities to elegantly control an operation based on role, permission, and possibly resource ownership.

Summary: Laravel’s Quiet Brilliance

Laravel does not aim to please everybody. However, its intelligent features, developer-first mentality, and clear code structure are what draw users in. Laravel simplifies the challenging aspects of web development for a lot of developers. It is not magical. It is simply a clever design created by somebody who thought sufficiently to address the issues with contemporary PHP programming. The above 11 facts are a very good indication that Laravel could possibly be the tool that you have been lacking if you are still unsure about whether it is worthwhile learning.