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Laravel is an open-source PHP framework. It also offers the rich set of functionalities that incorporates the basic features of PHP frameworks such as CodeIgniter, Yii, and other programming languages like Ruby on Rails.

Table of Contents

What is Laravel?

Laravel is a PHP framework that uses the MVC architecture.
where,
o Framework: It is the collection of methods, classes, or files that the programmer uses, and they can also extend its functionality by using their code.
o Architecture: It is the specific design pattern that the framework follows. Laravel is following the MVC architecture.

Let’s first understand the MVC architecture.

MVC is divided into three letters shown below:
o M: ‘M’ stands for Model. A model is a class that deals with a database. For example, if we have users in an application then we will have users model that deals with a database to query the table of users if we have users model, then we will also have a users table. We conclude from the example that the model is going to have a table for that specific model.
o V: ‘V’ stands for View. A view is a class that deals with an HTML. Everything that we can see on the application in the browser is the view or the representation.
o C: ‘C’ stands for Controller. A controller is the middle-man that deals with both model and view. A controller is the class that retrieves the data from the model and sends the data to the view class.
Laravel is an open-source PHP framework. It also offers the rich set of functionalities that incorporates the basic features of PHP frameworks such as Codelgniter, Yii, and other programming languages like Ruby on Rails.

Advantages of Laravel

Following are some advantages of Laravel:

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o Creating authorization and authentication systems

Every owner of the web application makes sure that unauthorized users do not access secured or paid resources. It provides a simple way of implementing authentication. It also provides a simple way of organizing the authorization logic and control access to resources.

o Integration with tools

Laravel is integrated with many tools that build a faster app. It is not only necessary to build the app but also to create a faster app. Integration with the caching back end is one of the major steps to improve the performance of a web app. Laravel is integrated with some popular cache back ends such as Redis, and Memcached.

o Mail service integration

Laravel is integrated with the Mail Service. This service is used to send notifications to the user’s emails. It provides a clean and simple API that allows you to send the email quickly through a local or cloud-based service of your choice.

o Handling exception and configuration error

Handling exception and configuration errors are the major factors on the app’s usability. The manners in which the software app handles the errors have a huge impact on the user’s satisfaction and the app’s usability. The organization does not want to lose their customers, so for them, Laravel is the best choice. In Laravel, error and exception handling is configured in the new Laravel project.

o Automation testing work

Testing a product is very important to make sure that the software runs without any errors, bugs, and crashes. We know that automation testing is less time-consuming than manual testing, so automation testing is preferred over the manual testing. Laravel is developed with testing in mind.

o Separation of business logic code from presentation code

The separation between business logic code and presentation code allows the HTML layout designers to change the look without interacting with the developers. A bug can be resolved by the developers faster if the separation is provided between the business logic code and presentation code. We know that Laravel follows the MVC architecture, so separation is already done.

o Fixing most common technical vulnerabilities

The security vulnerability is the most important example in web application development. An American organization, i.e., OWASP Foundation, defines the most important security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, etc. Developers need to consider these vulnerabilities and fix them before delivery. Laravel is a secure framework as it protects the web application against all the security vulnerabilities.

o Scheduling tasks configuration and management

The web app requires some task scheduling mechanism to perform the tasks in time for example, when to send out the emails to the subscribers or when to clean up the database tables at the end of the day. To schedule the tasks, developers need first to create the Cron entry for each task, but Laravel command scheduler defines a command schedule which requires a single entry on the server.

Features of Laravel

We know that PHP is the oldest programming language used by the programmers, and more than 20 million websites are developed by using PHP. PHP is a very suitable programming language as it satisfies the business requirements whether the business is big or small. Laravel is one of the most popular frameworks having a high rich set of functionalities.
Laravel is provided with a well-defined toolbox that allows the developers to write less code leading to less possibility of errors.

Following are the features of Laravel:

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Authentication

Authentication is the most important factor in a web application, and developers need to spend a lot of time writing the authentication code. Laravel makes a simpler authentication when Laravel is updated to Laravel 5. Laravel contains an inbuilt authentication system, you only need to configure models, views, and controllers to make the application work.

Innovative Template Engine

Laravel provides an innovative template engine which allows the developers to create the dynamic website. The available widgets in Laravel can be used to create solid structures for an application.

Effective ORM

Laravel contains an inbuilt ORM with easy PHP Active Record implementation. An effective ORM allows the developers to query the database tables by using the simple PHP syntax without writing any SQL code. It provides easy integration between the developers and database tables by giving each of the tables with their corresponding models.

MVC Architecture Support

Laravel supports MVC architecture. It provides faster development process as in MVC; one programmer can work on the view while other is working on the controller to create the business logic for the web application. It provides multiple views for a model, and code duplication is also avoided as it separates the business logic from the presentation logic.

Secure Migration System

Laravel framework can expand the database without allowing the developers to put much effort every time to make changes, and the migration process of Laravel is very secure and full-proof. In the whole process, php code is used rather than SQL code.

Unique Unit-testing

Laravel provides a unique unit-testing. Laravel framework can run several test cases to check whether the changes harm the web app or not. In Laravel, developers can also write the test cases in their own code.

Intact Security

Application security is one of the most important factors in web application development. While developing an application, a programmer needs to take effective ways to secure the application. Laravel has an inbuilt web application security, i.e., it itself takes care of the security of an application. It uses “Bcrypt Hashing Algorithm” to generate the salted password means that the password is saved as an encrypted password in a database, not in the form of a plain text.

Libraries and Modular

Laravel is very popular as some Object-oriented libraries, and pre-installed libraries are added in this framework, these pre-installed libraries are not added in other php frameworks. One of the most popular libraries is an authentication library that contains some useful features such as password reset, monitoring active users, Bcrypt hashing, and CSRF protection. This framework is divided into several modules that follow the php principles allowing the developers to build responsive and modular apps.

Artisan

Laravel framework provides a built-in tool for a command-line known as Artisan that performs the repetitive programming tasks that do not allow the php developers to perform manually. These artisans can also be used to create the skeleton code, database structure, and their migration, so it makes it easy to manage the database of the system. It also generates the MVC files through the command line. Artisan also allows the developers to create their own commands.

History of Laravel

In 2011, Codeigniter was the most popular framework used in php. It was widely used as it was easy to learn and well documented. Web developers created many projects by using the CodeIgniter framework, but it lacked certain essential features such as user authorization and authentication. Taylor Otwell started the development of Laravel to provide an alternative of the Codeigniter framework.

Versions of Laravel

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Laravel 1

Laravel’s first beta version was released on June 9, 2011, and after the release of a beta version, Laravel 1 was released within one month. Laravel 1 has some in-built features such as authentication, eloquent ORM for database operations, localization, models and relationships, simple routing mechanism, caching, sessions, views, extendibility through modules and libraries, and HTML helpers.
Laravel 1 does not follow the MVC framework, but developers use this framework as its syntax is very clear. After the development of Laravel 1, Taylor Otwell added new features such as validation methods, pagination, a command-line package installer, and eloquent ORM. Due to the addition of the new features, a new version was developed, i.e., Laravel 2, and this version was developed in less than six months.

Laravel 2

Laravel 2 version was released on November 24, 2011. Laravel 2 removes the issues that are raised in Laravel 1, and Laravel 2 follows the MVC architecture. Laravel 2 can be considered as a true MVC framework. In September 2011, Laravel 2 released in-built support for controllers, templating engine called blade, inversion of control principle (IOC). Due to the addition of controllers, Laravel 2 framework becomes a fully qualified MVC framework. The major drawback of this framework is that it eliminates the support for third-party modules.

Laravel 3

Laravel 3 version was released on February 22, 2012. The release of this version includes some essential features such as unit test integration, Artisan command-line interface, database migrations, events, sessions drivers, database drivers, and many more. Laravel 3 was the most stable and simple framework used in various kinds of web applications. Laravel 3 came into the market as the stable release, and many developers started switching to the Laravel framework. After five months release of Laravel 3, creator of the framework started working to create a new version of the framework, i.e., Laravel 4.

Laravel 4

Laravel version was released on May 28, 2013, i.e., a year and 3 months after the release of version 3. Even though releasing new versions is the sign that the framework is evolving, but it is lowering the credibility of the framework. The developers asked for stability, so Laravel 4 came into the market to achieve a bright future in the PHP development.
Laravel 4 was written from scratch as a collection of components which are integrated with each other. The management of these components is done through the dependency manager known as Composer. Laravel 4 has an extended set of features that no other version of Laravel had to offer before such as database seeding, message queues, built-in mailer, eloquent ORM featuring scopes, soft deletes, and many more.

Laravel 5

Laravel 5 version was released on February 2015 as an enhancement of previous version Laravel 4. The new features added in Laravel 5 are scheduling executed tasks periodically through a package is known as Scheduler, an abstraction layer known as Flysystem which allows remote storage to be used in the same way as the local file system, Elixir, simplified the authentication through the use of Socialite package. It also introduced a new feature, i.e., directory tree structure for developed applications.

Laravel 5.1

Laravel 5.1 was released in June 2015. It includes new features such as new directory structure, simplified method injection, and the concept of route caching was introduced.

Laravel 5.2

Laravel 5.2 was released on December 2015, and the features added in this version are authentication scaffolding, array validation, server monitoring, and Laravel cashier.

Laravel 5.3

Laravel 5.3 was released in August 2016. It includes features such as Laravel echo, new notification system, Laravel Scout, and passport.

Laravel 5.4

Laravel 5.4 was released in January 2017. It includes features such as Laravel Dusk, Laravel Mix, Automatic Facades, and provides improvements in Routing.

Laravel 5.5

The Laravel 5.5 version was released in August 2017. The introduction of PHP 7 was introduced in this version to enhance the performance of the Laravel application. It also includes new features such as Route methods and Automatic Package Discovery to add the packages automatically.

Laravel 5.6

The Laravel 5.6 version was released in February 2018. It includes new features such as new blade directives and API controller generation. The new features like Argon and Password Hashing Support are also added in this version. The Bootstrap 4 was released before the release of Laravel 5.6, so Bootstrap 4 was introduced in this version.

Laravel 5.7

The Laravel 5.7 version was released on September 2018 that includes features such as Laravel Dump Server and Laravel Nova. Some additional features are also added in this version like URL Generator and Callable Syntax, and improved error messages.

so, this brings us to the end of blog. This Tecklearn ‘Introduction to Laravel and its History’ blog helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in Laravel Programming. If you wish to learn Laravel and build a career Java Programming domain, then check out our interactive, Java and JEE Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:

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• Installation of Java
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• Editors and IDEs used for Java Programming
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• Object Oriented Programming in Java
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Exception Handling and Multi-Threading

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File Handling in Java

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Java Collections

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Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)

• Introduction to SQL: Connect, Insert, Update, Delete, Select
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Java Enterprise Edition – Servlets

• Introduction to J2EE
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• Setting up a web project in Eclipse
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• GET and POST request in web application with demo
• Servlet lifecycle
• Servlets Continued
• Session tracking and filter
• Forward and include Servlet request dispatchers

Java Server Pages (JSP)

• Fundamentals of Java Server Page
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• Introduction to JavaBeans
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• Introduction to Hibernate
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POJO (Plain Old Java Object)

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