Laracast - Not Impressed

I'm sorry you feel that way.

To your point #1, the series you linked to in point #2 starts with installing Laravel 5.

https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-5-fundamentals

When you signed up, your welcome email linked directly to this series to get you started.

To your second point, there are two different ways to handle routes. One is through a closure, the other is to reference a controller action. We cover all of this. I recommend working through the videos in that series. Once you do, you'll feel more comfortable with Laravel.

Hello @CarlosJa!

I think you're feeling that way because you've just started. Learning a framework from scratch can be challenging for some people (okay, people like me and probably you!) even if it's more welcoming than other frameworks and it takes time to put all the parts together. I think that's your issue here, you feel kinda lost.

I suggest you to learn by watching the whole series, not just separate lessons. https://laracasts.com/series

I also suggest you to diversify your learning experience. I mean, Jeffrey is a great teacher but as you said, there might have been some changes in the docs or you can get stuck as I always do :P

You can ask your questions here, I'm sure you'll get some great answers.

Hi @CarlosJa It can indeed be hard in some cases to follow a video, well, might be the case for me because I prefer to read docs or search for tutorials instead.

Make sure to understand what and how MVC works, it will make things a bit easier when learning. You might as well use basic routes in the beginning like: .... Route::get('view/{id}', 'ArticleController@show'); Route::post('test/store', 'ArticleController@store'); ....

After you have a basic understanding, you might want to do something more advanced with routing, well, I'm not that far either :P

Might be confusing in the beginning, Like I said, get a good understanding what MVC is, and follow some small tutorials and use basic things first, before going to deep.

I never actually used Laracast, because I do not have the patience to watch an episode full of talking, but I can imagine that it can be pretty complex and confusing, when you do not have a basic understanding of it. You can do a lot of things with routing alone, while that it's still a small part of a big system.

I'm sure in the end you'll love Laravel! Good luck.

@CarlosJa

First off i'm a newbie with Laravel but not with php development There's no lesson that starts from Installing Laravel, to getting familiar with it. If there is one obviously its not easy to find.

Phu-leez.. Current stable version of Laravel is 5.1 and this is something you probably downloaded from the site or by composer if you're not newbie in php world. Therefore if I were you I would use search laracasts feature and type 5.1 which the very first hit leads me to beginner lessons that give a nice overlook of the framework changes since 5.0 and help to get familiar with it. Assuming you've found and watched 5.0 fundamentals that's all you need to start. Really. I mean really. Especially if you have php experience.

You whine that there is no organization in videos which is debatable. It's your opinion and it's fine. I agree to disagree. Everyone has opinions and I have mine too. The problem with sites like Lynda is they build a confidence that all you need is to watch videos mindlessly and skills miraculous will be given to you. Praise the Lord! But guess what? They won't. What Jeff does and I appreciate doing him so is showing the way so to speak but you're the one who needs to explore it. Sure enough he presents topics, explains new features, shows whole projects - but for me the most valuable thing is that he gives me tons along the way. He jumps to source code, shows how to find answers by myself, refers to documentation which is what you should read in the first place. So my point is that laracasts are fine, complementary information of the framework. They won't replace doing your job which is reading, playing with the framework and getting your hands dirty. And lastly - snap judging the site because you couldn't find something or you've found the apparent contradiction which you wouldn't if had read the docs first... well it just doesn't speak well about you.

Patience is a virtue. Common sense is not common. I actually think you did an amazing job Jeff! Seriously thank you. I enjoy the way you present the material, it's easy to follow and explained well. I'm still at that new level. Sure i have played with computers my whole life and messed around with learning various coding languages at beginner and some intermediate level. I however have never used, setup, or coded with a framework. After exhausting research on trying to learn laravel and watch videos and read forums etc...etc.. i came across laracasts. I have never subscribed to anything like this, always been a order the book kinda guy. Sure code was different in some videos, sure some ways you did things at the command line was different than some are used... sure I still had to look things up... User::where didn't work for me... wasn't till i figured out using laravel 5 i had to use App/User::where... but isn't that part of coding? I spent a day on like the second video when you switched the route from the main view to about... pretty url's didn't work.. Apache 2.4 required setting up things... all things I didn't know... a few days ago I knew nothing about Apache other than install and stick files in www folder..., now I have it configured hosting multiple laravel sites in development. For me being new watching the Laravel 4 from scratch series helped get me started, along with some effort on my own. Thanks again Jeff for all your hard work, I have learned a lot.

I think part of the problem is the spoon fed, contrived examples that lame sites like Lynda.com provide kind of coddle peoples' brain into mush. A little searching around, some googling, and just flat out breaking things will help immensely. And realize Mr. Way is a master of code editors, so you might want to check out some his videos regarding that. Might want to memorize OO basics.

Dated examples in existence, or not, the ability to think critically is the whole point of Laravel. It isn't for people who want a php equivalent of jQuery. It is brilliant, rather than dumbed down. I feel like I can do anything I want with it after 6 months with it, granted I had OO and PHP experience prior. Good luck and take the strong advice from the stellar coders in this forum.

the ability to think critically is the whole point of Laravel

It's a prerequisite of programming, period.

What I will say on this subject is that I agree there could be some more structure to Laracasts. Rest assured, I'm working with a designer on a completely new Laracasts layout and structure that will take things to the next level. I'm hoping to get this out by October - but it might sneak into November.

I think you'll like it. It's gorgeous.

I was the same like you, but I didn't have a paied subscription, so I watch only the free videos, and seriously I was saying, what he's doing ? his style of teaching is the worst ... But that because I was a very new newbie, but hey, just re-watch the videos, practice more, read the docs, re-watch the videos again, watch other videos even if there are more advanced and you'll get some ideas about where things are going. ... That was what I did, and honestly I feel I advanced some steps t Laravel and PHP dev, I'm not saying I'm a great developer or something like that, all what I'm saying is I feel with a good progress, but that comes with patient. Now this ugly teacher became the #1 teacher, and just now I started to understand the style of lessons he do.

Anyway, this is not a compliment or something like that, it's just the reality, and my point here is that things come with practice and patient, and who knows months after now, you'll find yourself a senior Laravel dev.

Good luck

@CarlosJa 1.) Installation: Episode 1 in Laravel Fundamentals starting at 6:50
Getting familiar: Episode 1 in Laravel Fundamentals starting at 1:58 (but keep in mind that -obviously- he cannot cover all directories and files at once)
2.) Using composer you can install Laravel 5.0 instead of the current release in order to have almost the same setup. If I remember correctly Jeffrey was recording the videos before Laravel 5.0 was released so there might be minor differences. Later on you can still upgrade to Laravel 5.1.

Regarding the structure of the site, yeah, it could be improved. Start with the series and, when you are familiar with Laravel, have a look at the additional lessons.

If you are having trouble with anything, just ask specific questions in this forum and show us what you already tried. There are so many helpful people hanging out here providing insight on everything from even the most basic to very complex questions.

@JeffreyWay looking forward to seeing the new design :-) On a personal note - thank you for all your work. I've been programming since the early 1980's and I don't think my programming has improved as much in 30 years as it has in the few months I've been watching the tutorials on here and exploring the world of ideas it's opened up. So cheers! There's a whisky with your name on it if you ever make it to Scotland :-)

For me laracast is so great. Anyway, I didn't use any framework before. I'm directly started learning Laravel instead of any framework. And from that time, I started loving Laravel because the code is so beautiful. :D As one professional advised me, Start learning Laravel while I'm young and he gave link on how to learn it because I'm more on creating web app in from scratch. This is "Laracast.com" I'm nearly to finish the fundamentals and Mr. Jeffrey is such an awesome teacher. :)

Wow..

I have to agree with everyone, My frustration yesterday was basically learning something new. I did find the video for 5.1 and thanks for the direction. I'm going to spend the rest of my day going through those lessons.

I'm going to start with 5.0 Fundamentals and then hit What's New in 5.1

I hear a lot of great things about Laravel and based on all the research I'm pretty excited to get very familiar with the framework.

I still stand by my organization comment :D I'm going through the site again, if i didn't know to type in '5.1' i would had never known or found out about the lesson.

I was typing in 'Install, Installation, Beginner Laravel, Getting Started, Fundamentals' The videos are organized by date, so if i'm looking for a really newbie video like installation / getting started that was created a month ago. Now i have to dig through a month of videos to get to the video / lesson i'm looking for.

Anyways I'm sure Jeffry knows all this :) I can't wait to see the new structure.

If i wanted to install Laravel 5.0 how do I do that?

Thanks again everyone. I'm definitely impressed with the community :)

@CarlosJa To create a new project based on Laravel 5.0 use the following command:
composer create-project laravel/laravel project-name "5.0.*"
Just replace project-name with the name of your project (and directory).

awesome.. I'm going to give that a try.

Thanks

@CarlosJa maybe programming its not for you try to play Dota :)

Web Programming is really a major pain. To be able to deploy good a website you need to build from the scratchn with a multiple language to learn. Unlike VB5/VB.net creating a button you only need to drag and drop.

I suggest to document everything what you learn and compare their syntax. That's the faster way.

I think one of the problems people are having issues with are changes in the authentication and web middleware, it's making it complicated to get a good install. If it was more like in laravel 5.1 and a good copy and paste example in the documentation it would make it so much easier. 5.1 was very easy to install and get going. Been to many session problems it seems like in 5.2 I think 5.2 needs an overhaul and fix.
Edit: I still don't understand why the web middleware, it should be obvious that the framework is going to be used for a web database application so web should be default. Or done like in 5.1.

@jlrdw The web middleware now is now applied by default. :)

Good I haven't checked the docs lately for them being updated I think some new users are really getting confused. Edit: this example is still in the documentation.

Route::group(['middleware' => ['web']], function () {
    //
});

@TaylorOtwell could you update the documentation.

@thomaskim just saw that - which makes me a happy bunny :-) Although it does still bug me that we've no idea what kind of changes can appear in a point release of the framework... it's a bit worrying :-/

@ohffs you have to read / check the commit history to see what's happening which might not be the most user friendly thing but that's one way of getting up to date with the latest changes. Also, some of the news sites like Laravel News will let you know when something new is happening with Laravel.

I think it would be pretty neat if @TaylorOtwell would put maybe a Redbox in the docs with current changes especially major changes with which version has this red box change. Especially this middleware change it has a Major Impact from one version to the next.

@jlrdw - Good catch. I've submitted a PR to remove that section.

https://github.com/laravel/docs/pull/2239

@CarlosJa I honestly believe that now that the Middleware has been fixed you will find it much easier to learn things for example it will be closer to the way 5.1 works. And I'll be the first to admit the documentation for 5.1 to me was easier than 5.2 because of some cut-and-paste code that Taylor had included. But hey don't give up on this, Laravel is a wonderful framework, flexible and easy-to-use, with a real good Community to help.

I have to say that I failed the two first times that I tried to learn Laravel. That was because I came from a world in that this concepts of routes, controllers, middlewares, views and even SOLID, are unknown!! But now I have to say that thanks to Laracasts I'm making a very good progress and now I can offer really professional solutions to my customers. So don't worry if you can't understand something at the first time, just try again and again, read about it, ask about it.

There are two things that come with Laravel. The framework itself and some (rather extensive) boilerplate for your own app.

Now the problem becomes that most complaining new users have is that they do not like the specific boilerplate or a specific part of it. They want it different. They want to fit their current task better. It cannot. You have no guarantees it will. You should not have any expectations of that specific part of the framework. See it like this:

The framework comes with some boilerplate. Sure it cuts down some development time, but approach it more like a framework capability showcase and not like a one size fits them all thing. It is not.

You are also here, and Laracasts is probably the best place to get insight into how to make the framework work for you, build your own thing on its foundations.

In regards to changes, if you want the most stable interface stick to something like the LTS. If you want the shiniest new features that someone tweeted about and cannot live without them, be prepared to spend a little time upgrading, just a composer update most probably won't do it.

@belisar Good words.

@Ruffles it's more an issue like telling someone 'ah, do XYZ and you're good to go' - 'oh, but only if you're using 5.2.13-22, and if you're using 5.2.23+ then you should ...'. Which would be (sort of) ok if there was some guidance about it - but as things stand we've really no idea if a feature in 5.2.x will change, be add/removed, whatever in 5.2.y. I'm sure there is a rationale behind it - just wish I knew what it was ;-)

@Ruffles i'd agree on this:

you have to read / check the commit history to see what's happening

if we where talking about the master branch of Laravel
but it's v5.2 (or whatever version you want) which is more or less stable and here, undocumented changes where made.
For updates usually there is a changelog file. That would help a ton.