Topics i have to Know as a Laravel Developer

Mohammed Samy

5 min readMay 11, 2024

1 - MVC Architecture:

Understand how the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern separates the application into three interconnected components: Model (data), View (presentation/UI), and Controller (logic).
Learn how Laravel implements MVC, where models represent database tables, views render the UI, and controllers handle requests and responses.
Example:
Model: User model representing the users table in the database.
View: welcome.blade.php view rendering a welcome message.
Controller: HomeController handling requests and returning views.

2 - Routing:

Know how to define routes using Laravel’s routing system in the routes/web.php file.
Learn about route parameters, route naming, route groups, middleware, and route model binding.

Example:

// routes/web.php
Route::get('/', 'HomeController@index');

3 - Controllers:

Understand how to create controllers using artisan CLI commands or manually.
Learn about controller methods, dependency injection, controller middleware, and controller namespaces.

Example:

// app/Http/Controllers/HomeController.php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class HomeController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        return view('welcome');
    }
}

4 - Views and Blade Templating:

Explore Blade, Laravel’s powerful templating engine, and its syntax for control structures, variables, and includes.
Understand how to pass data from controllers to views and how to create layouts and partials using Blade templates.

Example:

<!-- resources/views/welcome.blade.php -->
<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Welcome to my Laravel application!</h1>
</body>
</html>

5 - Eloquent ORM:

Learn about Eloquent models, which represent database tables and allow you to perform CRUD operations and define relationships.
Understand concepts such as eager loading, querying with constraints, mass assignment protection, and soft deletes.

Example:

// Retrieve all users
$users = User::all();
// Create a new user
$user = new User;
$user->name = 'John Doe';
$user->email = 'john@example.com';
$user->save();

6 — Database Migrations and Seeding:

Know how to use Laravel’s migration system to create, modify, and rollback database schemas in a version-controlled manner.
Learn about database seeding to populate the database with initial data for development and testing.

Example:

php artisan make:migration create_users_table
php artisan migrate
php artisan make:seeder UserSeeder
php artisan db:seed --class=UserSeeder

7 — Middleware:

Understand middleware and how it intercepts and processes HTTP requests before they reach the application’s routes or controllers.
Learn how to create custom middleware and register it in the HTTP kernel.

Example:

// app/Http/Middleware/ExampleMiddleware.php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Closure;

class ExampleMiddleware
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        // Perform actions before the request is handled
        return $next($request);
    }
}

8 — Authentication and Authorization:

Know how to implement user authentication and authorization using Laravel’s built-in authentication system.
Understand concepts such as guards, providers, middleware, authentication routes, and authorization policies.

Example:

// Authenticate user
if (Auth::attempt(['email' => $email, 'password' => $password])) {
    // Authentication successful
}
// Authorize user
if (Gate::allows('update-post', $post)) {
    // User is authorized to update the post
}

9 — Validation:

Learn how to validate incoming request data using Laravel’s validation features to ensure data integrity and security.
Understand validation rules, custom error messages, form request validation, and validation within controllers.

Example:

// Validate request data
$validatedData = $request->validate([
    'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
    'email' => 'required|email|unique:users|max:255',
    'password' => 'required|string|min:6|confirmed',
]);

10 — Routing and Resource Controllers:

Understand how to define RESTful routes for resources and use resource controllers to handle CRUD operations.
Learn about implicit and explicit route model binding and how to customize resource routes.

Example:

// Define resourceful route
Route::resource('posts', 'PostController');

11 — Form Requests:

Know how to create and use form request classes to validate form data before it reaches the controller.
Understand form request validation rules, custom validation logic, and error responses.

Example:

// Create form request
php artisan make:request StorePostRequest
// Validate request data
$validatedData = $request->validated();

12 — File Storage and Uploads:

Learn about Laravel’s filesystem abstraction layer and how to interact with the filesystem to store and retrieve files.
Understand how to handle file uploads using Laravel’s request object and storage facilities.

Example:

// Store uploaded file
$path = $request->file('avatar')->store('avatars');
// Retrieve stored file
$url = Storage::url($path);

13 — Queues and Jobs:

Explore Laravel’s queue system for deferring time-consuming tasks and improving application performance.
Learn about queue drivers, job classes, queues configuration, and running queue workers.

Example:

// Define job class
php artisan make:job ProcessPodcast
// Dispatch job to queue
ProcessPodcast::dispatch($podcast);

14 — Testing:

Understand how to write tests for your Laravel applications using PHPUnit and Laravel’s testing utilities.
Learn about feature tests, unit tests, HTTP tests, assertions, and testing best practices.

Example:

// Create feature test
php artisan make:test UserTest --unit
// Write test methods
public function testUserCreation()
{
    $user = factory(User::class)->create();
    $this->assertDatabaseHas('users', ['email' => $user->email]);
}

15 — Error Handling and Logging:

Know how to handle errors gracefully and log application events for debugging and monitoring purposes.
Understand Laravel’s exception handling mechanism, logging configuration, and custom error responses.

Example:

// Handle exceptions
try {
    // Code that may throw an exception
} catch (Exception $e) {
    Log::error('An error occurred: ' . $e->getMessage());
    return redirect()->back()->with('error', 'An error occurred.');
}

16 — Localization and Internationalization:

Learn how to localize your application to support multiple languages and regions.
Understand how to use language files, translation helpers, and locale-based views.

Example:

// Set application locale
App::setLocale('en');
// Translate text
__('messages.welcome');

17 — Caching:

Explore Laravel’s caching features for improving application performance by caching frequently accessed data.
Learn about cache drivers, cache tags, cache expiration, and cache clearing strategies.

Example:

// Store item in cache
Cache::put('key', 'value', $minutes);
// Retrieve item from cache
$value = Cache::get('key');

18 — API Development:

Understand how to develop RESTful APIs using Laravel, including serialization, authentication, and versioning.
Learn about API resource classes, API routes, request and response formatting, and API documentation.

Example:

// Define API routes
Route::apiResource('products', 'ProductController');
// Return JSON response
return response()->json(['message' => 'Resource created'], 201);

19 — Deployment

Know how to deploy Laravel applications to web servers, cloud platforms, or containerized environments.
Understand deployment best practices, including managing environment configurations, dependencies, and version control.

20 — Security Best Practices:

Familiarize yourself with Laravel’s security features and best practices for securing your applications against common vulnerabilities.
Learn about input validation, SQL injection prevention, XSS protection, CSRF protection, authentication security, and more.

Topics i have to Know as a Laravel Developer

Written by Mohammed Samy