Laravel Lessons: Getting Started
Tags: php, laravel, laraveleloquent, bladelayouts
Published: 2020-07-01 08:00:19

---
title: Laravel Lessons: Getting Started
published: true
date: 2020-06-28 19:44:16 UTC
tags: php,laravel,laraveleloquent,bladelayouts
canonical_url: https://medium.com/@stephenjudeso/laravel-lessons-getting-started-c21eb53f7ac9
---

> This article was initially sent as a mail. I had to publish it so that others who didn’t subscribe to the blog series mailing list can follow along.

Hi!

First, my name is [Stephen Jude](https://twitter.com/stephenjudeso) and I have been a PHP/Laravel developer for three(3) years now.

The first thing you have to know is that Laravel is a PHP framework. So everything we are going to be talking about is going to be revolving around PHP(don’t worry, you will be fine).

Now let me walk you through what you are going to need for this series.

### Development Environment

If you have been a PHP developer, you already know about XAMPP, WAMP, LAMP and MAMP. But there is more to setting up a Laravel development environment. Laravel is made up of PHP packages(lots of them) which requires a lot of PHP extensions that also requires lots of configurations. The good news is that all these configurations have been taken care of.​

If you are using Windows like me, just install [Laragon](https://laragon.org/download/). Laragon is a fast and easy way to create an isolated dev environment on Windows. Includes Mysql, PHP Memcached, Redis, Apache and Nginx.​

For Linux or Mac, I recommend [Laravel Homestead](https://laravel.com/docs/master/homestead), an official pre-packaged [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com/docs/installation/) box that provides you with a wonderful development environment without requiring you to install PHP, a web server, and any other server software on your local machine.

After trying [Laravel Valet](https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/valet) on my new Mac Book, I will like to recommend it. It’s quite cool.

### PHPSANDBOX.io

If you are not ready to set up anything on your local machine, [PHPSandbox](https://phpsandbox.io/)is an option for you. Its a playground for PHP and Laravel developer. Just login with your GitHub account and you are good to go. I will be sharing some of my code from there. Thanks to [@Bosunki](https://twitter.com/bosunski) and his team for this awesome project.

### Basic OOP Concept In PHP

An understanding of Object-Oriented Programming in PHP is a big plus for this Laravel series. Forget about the jargon you will see on google about OOP. Just know you will be dealing with **classes** instead of the traditional **functions** you are already used to.

Check out w3school OOP PHP [tutorial](https://www.w3schools.com/php/php_oop_what_is.asp). If you are a visual learner, check out this [crash course](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQxuYRNbL_M) by Traversy Media.

### Road Map​

​Here are the things we are going to be covering in this series:

- [Installation & set up](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lessons-installation-setup)
- [Routing](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lessons-routing)
- [Layouts & Views](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lessons-layouts-views)
- [Controllers, Requests & Validations](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lesson-controllers-requests-validations)
- [Database (Migrations And Eloquent Models)](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lessons-database-migrations-and-eloquent-models)
- [Hosting, Deployments & Error Tracking](http://stephenjude.me/articles/laravel-lessons-hosting-deployment-error-tracking)

### ​Questions

I know you have lots of questions about Laravel. Feel free to send me a DM on [twitter( **@stephenjudeso** )](https://twitter.com/stephenjudeso) or send a mail via [**hello@stephenjude.me**](http://hello@stephenjude.me)