What Is Laravel?
Laravel is a free, open-source PHP web framework used for web application development. It was created by Taylor Otwell and was first released in 2011. Since then, Laravel has become one of the most popular PHP frameworks, due to its elegant syntax and tools for rapid application development.
Laravel is built on top of the PHP language, and it is designed to make it easier for developers to build robust, scalable, and maintainable web applications. It provides a number of features and tools that simplify the development process, including routing, middleware, database migrations, and more.
One of the key features of Laravel is its Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, which is a design pattern used for building scalable, maintainable, and efficient web applications. The MVC architecture separates an application into three distinct components: the model, which represents the data and business logic of an application; the view, which is responsible for displaying data to the user; and the controller, which receives user inputs and updates the model and view accordingly.
Laravel also provides a number of other features to make the development process easier, including:
- Blade Templating Engine: Laravel's Blade templating engine is a simple and powerful tool for creating and rendering views in a Laravel application.
- Eloquent ORM: Laravel's Eloquent ORM is a simple and intuitive tool for working with databases in Laravel applications.
- Artisan Command Line Interface: Laravel's Artisan CLI is a tool for creating and managing Laravel applications from the command line.
- Task Scheduling: Laravel provides a simple and elegant way to schedule tasks to run at specified intervals, such as sending emails or cleaning up old data.
- Authentication and Authorization: Laravel provides built-in authentication and authorization tools to help you secure your application and manage user access.
What's New on Laravel 9
Laravel 9, the latest version of the popular PHP web application framework, was released on January 21st, 2023. Some of the new features and changes in Laravel 9 include:
- Route caching: Route caching is now improved in Laravel 9, making it faster to load routes for large applications.
- Route Model Binding: Route Model Binding is now handled more efficiently in Laravel 9, making it easier to bind models to routes.
- Query Builder Method: Laravel 9 now includes a new query builder method called update or insert, which makes it easier to insert or update records in the database.
- Deprecation of Package Discovery: Laravel 9 deprecates package discovery, making it easier for developers to manage their packages and dependencies.
- Streamlined Command Output: The output of Artisan commands in Laravel 9 has been streamlined to be more readable and easier to understand.
- Improved Blade Components: Laravel 9 introduces improvements to Blade components, making it easier to create reusable UI elements.
- Improved HTTP Client: The HTTP client in Laravel 9 has been improved, making it easier to perform HTTP requests and handle responses.
Overall, Laravel 9 brings a number of performance improvements and new features to the framework, making it easier for developers to build and maintain their applications.
How to Install Laravel 9
Here's a step-by-step guide to installing Laravel 9:
composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog "9.*"
cd blog
php artisan serve