The attention required and the complexity involved in developing advanced web applications and projects are quite high. Developers try to come up with various possibilities of using framework to create the web applications and  PHP framework stands out among them all in terms of well-organized and secure development possibilities. Laravel application framework, over the past 4 years has become one of the most popular PHP frameworks and has shown authoritative superiority over other platforms. One main reason for this exponential  rise is the ease at which the developers were able to use it.

Laravel Framework

The real potential of this framework, lead to the creation of many Laravel development services who were able to create unassailable and advanced web applications. The benefits that Laravel framework brought to the table were enormous. Let's discuss the important ones.

MVC Architecture for Code Organization

Laravel framework uses an MVC architectural pattern (model-view-controller) that separates and handle specific development aspects of any application built. This methodology increases performance and also enables the Laravel developer to write clean and legible codes, which helps in better documentation.

Lightweight templates

With an inclusion of dynamic content seeding, the splendid layouts created by Laravel' s lightweight templates can build simple yet efficient web applications. It also includes a huge collection of widgets with solid-structured CSS and JS codes.

Built-In Tools

Like many other frameworks out there, Laravel comes with multiple built-in tools that enhances and streamlines all the common tasks. Important functions like authentication, routing, and caching and may more are built into the framework.

Extendible & Modular Framework

The whole Laravel framework is built over 20 different libraries that are further classified into separate modules. The Packalyst directory enables you to add more than 5500 packages for an enhanced Laravel development process. This modular package system makes sure that you built highly responsive web application in the most time-efficient way possible.

Lean Development Services

This is the most exciting feature of the Laravel framework. Lumen a micro-framework, that works on the same principles of Laravel but with a focus on lean development.  It enables to create micro projects quickly and with ease. With integrated features at a minimal configuration, Lumen helps you to migrate to Laravel' s full framework  by just copying the code.

incorporated authorization libraries

The incorporated authorization libraries help Laravel facilitates various development settings and self-adjusts based on the platform the application is running. It also comes with a unique “auto complete” feature, that no other leading frameworks have.

Unit testing

The unit testing feature ensures that no new changes will create an issue by running numerous tests. Even though a considerable amount of time is needed in the development of the unit testing, it empowers the application to work without problems.

Conclusion

The proven dominance among all frameworks has made sure that the future of the Laravel framework is bright and prosperous. More and more developers are switching over to Laravel and are happy doing that. At the end it all comes down to the fact that a tested framework helps in building an advanced application and Laravel is the ideal option out there that lives up to all the expectations.

Are you having a cheaply designed API which is not unified properly, and look terribly complex? The use of a Facade pattern may assist you to solve the issue. Laravel, now stands as a popular PHP framework utilized by web developers all round the world. A Laravel development company can make use of excellent facade patterns provided by the framework, and create APIs that look well-arranged and flawless. The Facade pattern used in Laravel can be linked with other frameworks.

What is a Laravel facade?

It is a basic class in Laravel platform having an interface similar to static services within the container. A facade works like a proxy for collecting the critical applications of the services that a container offers. The title can invite many doubts in the minds of developers, but it will be so simple to understand a Laravel facade, if you take it as a basic class.

Implementation of facades in Laravel 

Like most of the other PHP frameworks, Laravel maintains a unique name for each of the services it has in the container. APP::make() is the function which we use in applications to get a service straightly from the container. Together with the make(), we just need to include the specific method name, as well. While using Laravel, for getting things done in a perfect way, we need to specify the code,  //someService::methodName();//.

Every service in Laravel enjoys the prerogative of a facade class, which forms a part of the support package. A laravel developer has to use the getFacadeAccessor() for  restoring the specific service name in the container. Let us take the case of above mentioned code to mention the functioning of a Laravel interface. The term, someService used in the codes indicates the facade class. methodName() is actually highlighted by a class called someService. Thus,the code works without any interruption by maintaining certain amount of clarity.

Base Facade

Actually Laravel implements facade with the aid of base facade. There is a private property titled as $app, and it holds a reference of the service container. If a developer uses setFacadeApplication(), he can also utilise the facility of a Laravel facade with other frameworks. For invoking static methods that are not in reality, the base facade in Laravel has an excellent method, namely ‘callStatic’. This method will automatically trace out the corresponding services in the container for the implementation of the base facade class in Laravel. callStaticmethod() is a vital snippet to be implemented for the smooth functioning of the facade in Laravel. Every facade class enhances the base class. For the returning of service titles from the container, developers need to invoke the getFacadeAccessor() method.

Aliases & How facades are ‘aliased’ in Laravel?

For making use of facades, developers should import them, for they are basic classes in PHP. PHP is a platform which has tremendous assistance for the ‘namespaces’ as well as ‘autoloading’ . Only thing we need to make sure is that we have invoked them with the help of correct titles. For implementing aliases we just need to add App\Facades\SomeServiceFacade:SomeMethod(). If we use this in the code script, it will help Laravel to deal with aliasing automatically with the support of an alias loader.

Laravel has a Config.directory, which is a storehouse of alias names in the form of alias array. Notice this array closely, we can find every single alias name mapped to a completely equivalent class names. It gives developers freedom to use titles as they wish for defining a facade class. Thanks for the Laravel AliasLoader which is created in the Foundation package. It aids Laravel for the automated aliasing of facades by invoking related functions, and fully qualified names from the container.

Conclusion  

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, implementation of facades makes your API look so clean as well as to perform well. Thus it proves to be essential for every Laravel development company for the creation of agile web applications.

PHP frameworks are many in fact. It is common that PHP developers make comparisons between various frameworks on the basis of what they offer, their advantages and disadvantages. Many forums are replete with discussions pitting one framework with the other, like as Yii vs CodeIgniter and then Laravel Vs Yii then  mainly Laravel Vs CodeIgniter.

So how do these two frameworks fare? Which is popular than the other? Which framework offers better features? Such questions line up! Here, let us make a brief analysis and know the differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter.

Laravel: Its pros and cons

It is common knowledge that, for web application development, Laravel offers expressive, elegant syntax. Such has been its design. The laravel developer will enjoy the development process. Routing, authentication, sessions are some tasks, which are commonly performed, and are made easier, thanks to Laravel.

Importantly, this framework is designed for the PHP's latest version. Therefore, unit testing support and authentication, which are the base development components, are inbuilt. It is commendable that Laravel framework folds with the blade template engine in a smooth manner.

One area where Laravel outdoes CodeIgniter is it has got exceptions. These, with exceedingly detailed stacktrace aren't available for developers who use CodeIgniter..

Use of libraries and models is easier as Laravel has object-oriented libraries. These libraries are supported with autocomplete feature.

Laravel has its own command-line interface. Called as Artisan, it enables developers to perform abundant tasks. So what tasks? Tasks like migrating databases and seeding databases. Also performed is clearing the cache, etc.

Object-Relational Mapping or ORM in Laravel is simple, eloquent and fast. That said, developers will find it very easy to organize the application's database.

Laravel is best suited for building RESTful APIs. Apart from that, Laravel handles event queuing.

However, Routing in Laravel may be odd at times. Owing to the recent entry of Laravel, it may be a bit tougher if not altogether, to get to find answers. Notwithstanding this fact, the numerous forums and IRC are very much active in helping people find answers.

CodeIgniter: Its pros and cons

It is simple, and also quick to set up CodeIgniter. Just download the preferred version from CodeIgniter homepage. Otherwise, from GitHub. Thereafter, unzip the contents.

Nothing can beat CodeIgniter in terms of documentation, which is clear and very well structured. It is such that all the particular concepts of CodeIgniter which are commonly used are explained clearly, that too, with examples.

CodeIgniter is stable. The popular framework has the advantage of having been tested by the developers in large number. Having said that, the chances of bugs or any other problems going unnoticed is minimal.

The templating engine, which is inbuilt in CodeIgniter, is easy to use and is based on mustache-like templating language. Learning this language is simple even for new developers.

No matter whether you know anything about MVC architecture or not; it is very easy to use CodeIgniter.

CodeIgniter offers output caching. Web pages can be cached so that the loading time can be reduced. Besides, efficiency and performance can be enhanced.

Developers using CodeIgniter can easily seek support. Because this framework has a very big community which uses the framework for smaller projects and also very large projects.

It may be an overstatement to call CodeIgniter obsolete. However, it is to be noted that the framework has been released at the time of PHP 4. Many new features were added later to PHP. Hence, the need for extending code files arises to make this framework work.

Another drawback of CodeIgniter is that it does not offer default modular separation.

Conclusion

Both frameworks, which are unique and similar in many ways have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. However, it is the requirements of the developers that decide which is to be preferred. All that said, if you are a developer working on modern apps, it is suggested you go for Laravel. Every Laravel developer company attributes their ease of web development to this framework.