Freek.dev

Laravel / PHP / AI

Join thousands of developers

Every two weeks, I share practical tips, tutorials, and behind-the-scenes insights from maintaining 300+ open source packages.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. You can also follow me on X.

Plans for the Next Iteration of Vue.js

– medium.com

In a new blogpost, Evan You, the creator of Vue, outlines the changes and new features coming to the next major release of Vue.

There are greatly improved tools that could enhance our workflow, and many new language features that could unlock simpler, more complete, and more efficient solutions to the problems Vue is trying to solve. What’s more exciting is that we are seeing ES2015 support becoming a baseline for all major evergreen browsers. Vue 3.0 aims to leverage these new language features to make Vue core smaller, faster, and more powerful.

Read more [medium.com]

Comparing Laravel with Zend Expressive

In a post on masterzendframework.com Matthew Setter shares his experiences with building the same application in both Laravel and Zend Expression.

The reason being, is that you can't give a straight yes or no answer. It's like asking: is desktop Linux as easy as Windows? The presumption there is that you want to do exactly the same thing in Linux as you can with Windows.

Well, if you wanted the exact same experience on Linux, as you get with Windows, then use Windows! As you're working with two different systems, two different approaches to solving the same challenge, then the end result may be the same — but how they work will naturally be different.

So it is with Laravel and Zend Expressive. They're two exceptional PHP frameworks which can be used to create similar applications. Yet they were designed with different preconceptions about how an application's should be put together. They were designed for different developer mindsets. And the list goes on.

So, whilst I was able to create the same application, roughly about the same size, the way they were developed was different.

http://www.masterzendframework.com/zend-expressive-or-laravel/

I'm currently perfectly happy in the Laravel ecosystem, so I won't be making a switch soon. But I like to keep an eye out on how other frameworks and communities are doing things to learn from that.

Read more

Let the magic die

The venerable Uncle Bob wrote some thoughts on picking a framework:

Before you commit to a framework, make sure you could write it. Do this by actually writing something simple that does the basics that you need. Make sure the magic all goes away. And then look at the framework again. Is it worth it? Can you live without it?
http://blog.8thlight.com/uncle-bob/2015/08/06/let-the-magic-die.html

I've quoted the end of the post, but you should read it in full, it's worth it. I agree with most things in the article. You should constantly learn stuff and try making the basic functionality yourself to get a better understanding of how things work.

Though there is certainly truth to it I don't fully agree with: "Before you commit to a framework, make sure you could write it." It's good advice when you're very experienced or if you have time enough to investigate lots of stuff. For most people this isn't that case.

When starting out writing PHP almost 10 years ago I made my own little framework because I didn't know any better. I thought I was doing fine. Looking back at the projects I made with it, I'd say they're all horrible.

Zend Framework 1 came out. It sped up my development because I didn't have to do every little thing myself. Did I understand everything ZF was doing behind the screens? Certainly not. Did ZF create value for me right from the start? Hell yes. While using the framework on various projects I read about how it worked and learned a lot about PHP. I thought I was doing fine. Looking back at the projects I made with it, I'd say they're all horrible.

A few years ago I read some positive articles about Laravel. I really liked the syntax and the feel of things. Sure, it was a gamble to choose a framework I didn't know but it worked out really well. While using Laravel I learned, thanks to some excellent learning resources, lots of things on design patterns and best practices.

It's certainly possible that, in the coming years, Laravel will be replaced by a new shiny framework. Maybe I'll then write a post on Laravel saying "I thought I was doing fine. Looking back at the projects I made with it, I'd say they're all horrible." .

Generally speaking I think the following applies to most frameworks and most programming languages:

  1. When you see a framework / language that feels good to you, read a bit a about it.
  2. If you still feel good about it, use it on a small project
  3. If after that project you still feel good about it, use it again, maybe on a bigger project. Learn a bit more how framework and language works.
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you find yourself at step 1 again.
The most important part is the learning in step 3. If you don't do this you'll be a programming cowboy forever.

Of course all of this depends on context. I would never pick a technology unknown to me when starting to work on a large and expensive task. Learn and experiment when working on small projects. Use what you have learned on the big ones.

Read more