Show HN: Laravel 4 - This framework is revolutionizing PHP.

misterjinx 12 years ago |

I don't know why everyone it is so excited about this framework. I've had a quick look over the documentation a few months ago, when there was this hype around this new kid from the block thinking that there must be something really interesting.

I stopped reading the minute I saw they are using a template engine for rendering the views. I simply don't get it. Why would someone use a separate template engine when PHP itself is a very good one to use ? Why to add an extra layer to the app ?

We don't have to recreate anything, the views should be pure PHP, not code written in some <insert template engine name here> that is then translated to PHP.

yowmamasita 12 years ago | |

It is stated in Laravel's homepage that you can use either native PHP or Blade in your views

misterjinx 12 years ago | | |

hmm...so in the docs they say about pure php views, but in the quick start guide they mention only about blade. since this is what I read, this has to be the cause for letting me believe the only way you can create views is with the template included in the framework.

bpicolo 12 years ago | |

The templating is very much optional just for people who are used to templating.

bdclimber14 12 years ago |

I used Laravel for a small project for the past couple months. Although I started web development in PHP, I am strictly a Ruby/Rails developer right now and I have to say working in Laravel felt very natural and right at home. I'm not saying that being Rails-like is merit in it's own right, but I had that same feeling with Laravel as I did when I first started using Rails. I'd highly recommend trying this framework and hope with more projects we can see some solid documentation grow.

daGrevis 12 years ago | |

The way I see it is that the problem with Laravel is it's core — PHP. If you want to use Rails-like framework — use Rails and you get Ruby for free!

askar 12 years ago |

I was heavy on CodeIgniter before and ever since I launched another website with Laravel I don't feel like going back to CI. In fact if I get time I wanted to relaunch my other sites with Laravel. If you closely follow the MVC frameworks and the way they are moving forward Laravel sounds like right on the track which CI lags big time. Give it a serious try and you will know. I got completely hooked with its robust Routing system.

ryhanson 12 years ago |

Very glad to see this on the front page. This is by far the best PHP framework out there. It still blows me away what it is capable of.

BaconJuice 12 years ago | |

Hi, I'm currently a heavy codeigniter user, looking for a switch. Can you please give me some of these examples you speak of that blow you away? Thank you.

moneyrich1 12 years ago | | |

one that got me was in a controller you can:

     return Model::Find('asdf=1');

and it outputs a json serialized array as html. so your ajax action is like one line of code, yay. or you can $row = Model::Find('asdf=1'); and manipulate in php from there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSt9rBa_oUM this guys series on laravel is really good.

deefour 12 years ago | | |

> and it outputs a json serialized array as html

Actually, it renders a raw JSON response - a single object of 'unguarded' attributes (all by default) for the model with Content-Type: application/json set. It has nothing to do with HTML.

Your syntax is invalid too. To do what you want you'd actually call

    return Model::where('asdf', 1)->first();

T3RMINATED 12 years ago | | |

lets just say im a ex-CI user that wrote a huge app in CI and abandoned CI and went w/ Laravel the move cost 4 months of devs and about 20K... it was worth it.

with no leadership and clear vision CodeIgniter is screwed... L4 follows PHP-Fig standards and it uses composer packaging, it has great leadership, community and is growing...

JesseObrien 12 years ago |

Great work by Taylor and everyone else involved. PHP hasn't seen a framework quite like this before and it's refreshing using it.

Braunson 12 years ago |

Such an awesome framework, many great features, fills in voids left by it's predecessors.

bndr 12 years ago |

Really sorry to say this, but my eyes hurt from the text contrast. Maybe you should consider changing the font size?

chipotle_coyote 12 years ago | |

I'm pretty sure it would be fixed by changing the CSS font-weight directive; Lato is a great font, but they need to use 400 weight as normal, not 300, unless they're going to bump the font size up. (Personally I'd also darken the text color just a little, but it becomes surprisingly readable just by changing the weight with the Chrome/Safari CSS inspector.)

T3RMINATED 12 years ago | |

same issue reported by 9 others. i think they will fix soon.

tpsc 12 years ago |

A new podcast on Laravel: http://laravel.io/

two 12 years ago |

I don't get why this was removed from the front-page?

ryhanson 12 years ago | |

Kinda lame... Not sure why either.

powertower 12 years ago |

> Just got four times better...

How?

BaconJuice 12 years ago | |

I think its some sort of pun to the fact that it's Laravel "4"

btamilio 12 years ago |

congrats, L4 team!

zfran 12 years ago |

what's so revolutionizing about it?

chipotle_coyote 12 years ago | |

While "revolutionary" is awfully subjective, Laravel 4 -- along with Composer, the package manager that it's using -- goes an awfully long way toward making PHP nice to use. Yes, that's also subjective, but I suspect that's unavoidable. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a long-time PHP developer who grew to like Ruby on Rails and really like Flask and Django in Python.

As for the facade that lets you make a lot of static calls, y'know, I don't think that does significant harm, and it makes it possible to write Laravel code that's almost as easily readable/understandable as Flask and Sinatra.

dxm 12 years ago | |

Nothing. They use the word "artisan" which makes me think it's made for hipsters rather than programmers. Almost everything is static, libraries are named like "Illuminate" and "Elloquent", it's as if an art student has worked out how to write static classes.

krapp 12 years ago | | |

The naming conventions are a bit pretentious, sure but it's being all static is apparently not so clear cut: https://tutsplus.com/lesson/when-they-say-laravel-shouldnt-u...

DesignerDon 12 years ago | | |

You really think that's what it is?

T3RMINATED 12 years ago | |

it gets you laid

T3RMINATED 12 years ago |

"CodeIgniter is dead" - Phil Sturgeon