Laravel Development using Herd
For Absolute Beginners — Part 1
Before we can start — we need to get our tools in order. Like I said.. absolute beginners! PHP can be overwhelming since there are so many tools (Laragon on Windows, Homebrew for Mac, XAMPP for Windows, Etc.) to choose from. I am on Mac and we will be using the 1-click solution for PHP and specifically Laravel apps = Laravel Herd.
⚙️ Head over to https://herd.laravel.com/ and click on Download for macOS, drag the download to your Applications, and open it up.
⚙️ Once you open it up, you will be prompted for your password. It will download PHP and ask if you want to upgrade to pro. You do not need to do this, the free version will have everything you need to complete this project.
⚙️ After you hit skip for now, you will notice that you now have binaries for herd, php, larval, and composer.
⚙️ You will see a new Herd icon at the top of your screen. Here you can see any processes that are running, switch versions of PHP installed, or update multiple versions to run simultaneously. If you go into general you will also see a list of paths that Herd will search for potential PHP projects.
⚙️ Lets get started! Open up your terminal and go into your home directory listed above.
⚙️ We are going to use the Laravel binary that was included out of the box with Herd. We are going to tell Laravel to generate a new project and give it a name using the command laravel new projectname .
⚙️ After we select no to the kit, we will choose the default options for framework and no to a Git repo. It will then start to pull in all of the dependencies.
⚙️ We will start with the basics for database — SQLite which is a file based DB.
⚙️ Once that's finished, we will list the files and see our project name that we created in the beginning- cd into your project and list the files again to see the Laravel framework.
⚙️ The best part?? We can view this application instantly in the browser using the name of the folder.test. Try it out for yourself… pretty cool right?!
⚙️ Everything is configured and ready to get started! Meet me in part 2 here!!⚙️
*I have been following Laracasts with Jefferey Way*
