Top Reasons Why Laravel Should Be Your First Choice for Building Web Applications

Laravel is a key player in modern web development, known for its elegance, simplicity, and powerful features. Originally designed to make PHP development smoother, Laravel has grown into a robust framework that helps developers create advanced web applications with ease.

At its core, Laravel focuses on using clear and easy-to-understand code. It simplifies common tasks like setting up web routes, handling user authentication, caching data for faster access, and managing user sessions. This not only speeds up development but also makes it simpler to maintain and scale applications over time.

Moreover, Laravel offers developers a straightforward coding style and syntax that are user-friendly. Below, I'll explain these aspects in more detail.

Route Definition

In Laravel, routes are typically defined in the routes/web.php file for web routes or routes/api.php for API routes.

We define a GET route /posts that points to the index method of the `PostController` class.

// routes/web.php 
use App\Http\Controllers\PostController; 

Route::get('/posts', [PostController::class, 'index']);        

Controller Method

Controllers in Laravel handle incoming requests and generate responses. Let’s define the index method in the PostController:

• We define the index method that fetches all posts from the database (Post::orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->get()).
• Then, we pass these posts to a view called posts.index using Laravel's view helper function.

// app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $posts = Post::orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->get();
        
        return view('posts.index', ['posts' => $posts]);
    }
}        

Explanation

Route Definition:

• Route::get('/posts', [PostController::class, 'index']); defines a GET route that responds to requests to /posts by invoking the index method of PostController.

Controller Method (index):

• index() method retrieves all posts from the database ordered by created_at descending.
• It then passes these posts to a view called posts.index using Laravel's view rendering system.
• Post::orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->get() uses Laravel's Eloquent ORM to fetch posts ordered by created_at in descending order.
• return view('posts.index', ['posts' => $posts]); passes the retrieved posts to the view, making them available for presentation in the user interface.

Additional Features of Laravel

Eloquent ORM: Laravel’s Eloquent ORM simplifies database interactions by enabling developers to manage database tables and relationships using PHP objects and methods. This abstraction reduces the need for writing complex SQL queries directly.

Blade Templating: Laravel employs Blade, its own templating engine, for generating views. Blade simplifies the process of presenting data in HTML format, allowing developers to incorporate minimal PHP code directly into their views for enhanced readability and maintainability.

MVC Architecture: Laravel adheres to the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern. MVC promotes the separation of data logic (Model), presentation logic (View), and application logic (Controller), resulting in a well-structured and maintainable codebase. This separation enhances code organization and facilitates easier collaboration among development teams.