What is Laravel?

Laravel is an open-source PHP web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It aims to make development easier by simplifying common tasks like routing, sessions, caching, and authentication.

Key Features of Laravel

• Routing: Easily define routes and map them to controllers.

• Blade Templating: Simple yet powerful templating engine for building dynamic views.

• Eloquent ORM: Elegant ActiveRecord implementation for database operations.

• Migrations: Version control for database schema.

• Artisan Console: Command-line interface to automate repetitive tasks.

Basic Structure of a Laravel Project

When you create a new Laravel project, it contains the following major folders:

• app/ – Contains your application logic (controllers, models, etc.)

• routes/ – Defines application routes in files like web.php

• resources/views/ – Contains Blade templates for frontend UI

• database/ – Stores migrations, seeders, and factories

Getting Started

1. Install Laravel using Composer: composer create-project laravel/laravel project-name

2. Run the development server: php artisan serve

3. Access your app at http://localhost:8000

Conclusion

Laravel is beginner-friendly and ideal for developers looking to build robust and scalable web applications. Once you're comfortable with the basics, you can explore advanced features like queues, events, broadcasting, and APIs.