25 April 2022

Nowadays, computer technology has become ever-present in our lives. Today there are apps for practically anything, and there are different technologies that make those applications possible. Programming languages and frameworks are some of those technologies. Software and app developers use them to build their creations.
Programming languages are a set of symbols and codes that programmers use to interact with a computer to instruct them on what they have to do. This is how programs and applications are made. Now, when it comes to “Frameworks”, they are work environments designed to make the programming process easier. They make the program process faster, reduce the number of errors, assist the programmer while doing the job, and they help achieve a better result overall.
Of the many different frameworks available in the market, Laravel is one of them. It has been available for quite a while and it’s widely used across the industry. If you want to know more about Laravel and how it can help you improve your web application development process, keep reading.
Are you ready? Let’s go.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is an open-source framework available for programmers. One of the most important characteristics of Laravel is how accessible it is to developers and the easy learning curve it offers to people that approach it for the first time.
Because of that, it has become a mainstay for all PHP developers around the world. The PHP development process is very intuitive and gives programmers a big library of files that are always evolving.
Another main feature that distinguishes Laravel from the rest is the fact that its syntax is very expressive and elegant, the code is easy to read for other programmers. It is really powerful when it comes to alleviating common tasks that are used in many different web development projects.
Laravel has powerful scalability and that makes it possible to work on really big projects without breaking a sweat. That’s why it is very popular when it comes to developing custom solutions for different companies. Plus, it’s compatible with macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Uses of Laravel

It is important to know that Laravel has many different uses where it shines. However, two of the applications where Laravel is more popular are:

Full-stack Framework

It is used to route and render the application and render the interface using Blade templates or another hybrid technology like Inertia.js for single-page applications. This is one of the most popular applications of Laravel as a Framework. When doing this, you will also need to use Laravel Mix to compile the CSS and JavaScript of the projects.

API Backend

You can use Laravel as an API for backend development for a JavaScript page or app. It has authentication and storage permissions, and data manipulation for the application while providing other useful tools like lists, emails, notifications, and many others.
laravel-php-framework

https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/what-is-laravel/

How can Laravel help your development process?

Laravel has many useful qualities that can empower the development process of a web application. It will make the process easier and way more effective. These unique characteristics are:

Blade Templates

These are compiled as simple PHP code and stored in cache until they are suppressed or modified. Because of this, Laravel adds no overhead to your development, increasing performance. Since they are compiled into PHP, you can also work using plain PHP.

Authentication

It has an authentication system composed of guards and providers. Guards define how users will authenticate, and providers will define how stored data for any given user will be retrieved.

Authorization

Laravel provides a way to authorize the permits for a given user to perform certain actions using different resources. For example, it can limit the power of authenticated users, facilitating in this way the creation of roles within the application.

Artisan Command Line Interface

Laravel has its own CLI, located at the root directory of the project. It provides a series of useful commands for the developer to assist him in the development process.

Database Compatibility

Almost every application nowadays operates by interacting with a database. Laravel has built-in functionalities to make this operation extremely easy. It is compatible with non-processed SQL, ORM, and other types of queries. Laravel has top support for 3 different types of databases which are some of the most used today: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and SQL Server.

Eloquent

This is an object- relational mapper that makes it easier to interact with the database. When Eloquent is used, every database table will have a model that will be an intermediary to interact with the correspondent database table. Using Eloquent models you can query, insert, update and delete records from any given table in a database.

Wrapping It Up

As you can see, Laravel is a pretty powerful framework when it comes to developing web applications. It offers many different alternatives and tools that will make the life of the programmer easier. When it comes to choosing a framework for developing web applications, this is a strong contender. At Sanmark we are experts in Laravel and are available to help you create your next project, no matter how big or small it might be, get in touch with us, and let’s get to work.