Modern Laravel tour

Recent versions

Laravel ships a major release roughly once a year, and every example in this course targets the shared core that recent versions have in common: routes, controllers, validation, Eloquent, and Blade. Learn the core once and version numbers stop feeling scary.

Run a modern PHP 8 line under the framework and keep dependencies fresh with small frequent updates. Big jumps across several versions at once are where upgrades turn painful.

Starter kits concept

Starter kits scaffold the boring parts of a new project: registration, login, password reset, and profile pages. Generate a kit, study what it created, then keep only the pieces your app needs.

Start every learning project from a kit rather than an empty folder. Reading real login code teaches faster than admiring a blank screen.

Livewire and Folio

Livewire builds interactive pages with PHP-first components: the component holds state on the server and swaps small HTML fragments instead of full reloads. Reach for it when a form needs dynamic behavior but a separate JavaScript app feels like overkill.

Folio takes the opposite shortcut for simple pages: files in a pages folder become routes automatically, with no route file to maintain. Landing pages and blogs stay tiny while the complex screens keep their classic controllers.

Upgrade notes

Upgrades follow a fixed ritual: read the upgrade notes for your version jump, update dependencies, run the full test suite, and click through the critical paths by hand. Small apps finish in an afternoon when tests already cover the core.

composer update

Packages updated, now run the test suite

Next: Hero roadmap: the whole course on one page

Article author: Arthur Isaev