Laravel changed my perspective on PHP

On Learning Laravel as a JavaScript Developer

I wouldn’t describe starting to work with PHP as particularly exciting or glamorous, but working with Laravel has changed my opinion. Almost two years ago now, I took on a new job with a new company where I moved away from being a React/JavaScript-only developer and had to take on PHP, and Laravel specifically.

The lovely thing about Laravel is that it is beautifully well-documented, and it is wonderful, but it’s also extremely intimidating. I’m going to share with you some of the things that have helped me to take my Laravel development to the next level.

Get programming basics down

Laravel is a framework built on PHP — if you don’t know HTML, loops, conditionals, and at least basic PHP you’re gonna have a hard time. If your foundation is still shaky, then Laravel is not for you yet.

Get back to basics, and do a few projects so you can learn how to step through code and not get stuck on syntax errors. It will help massively if you have working knowledge of SQL as well. You probably don’t need to know everything off the top of your head, but knowing the differences between joins and unions, how to perform CRUD operations, aggregate functions — all of this will carry over and help you…