Why Laravel Docs not good as codeigniter

what do you find difficult in laravel doc? or absence of sample code?

You're asking a question where the answer is completely subjective and personal.

I would say you're wrong. The Laravel docs are much better.

Anyway, wait for Laravel 5.1 as Taylor has hacked through all of the docs and improved them all substantially.

@olimorris

I'm not totally disagree with you .

but the Codeigniter docs, the example are pretty common and reflection the all Picture. they are full example (also like Reactjs and Angularjs) .

the Laravel docs you need to guess many many things.

I agree that Lavavel docs would be better with more examples.

I've never read the CI documentation so I can't compare.

For people new to Laravel I'd imagine they are relatively difficult in as to being using random examples through out a page, use php tags when brackets would be more appropriate and leave you with a feeling "how does this work outside of the routes file". However, once you get a hang of how the docs are written they aren't that bad.

The number of examples probably isn't the real issue, I'd say it's more of a "best practices" which most people actually mean to be "How would Taylor or Jeffery do it?". Which I find myself wondering a lot too.

A minor complaint I've seen is about missing features from the documentation. Lots of responses have been to read the code. This is a legitimate answer but in many ways the original complaints are too.

Being here since L4 Beta days I have seen constant improvements in the documentation so I look forward to things getting even better.

The only thing that's not as good, are the examples. This is changing in the master docs if you check. Taylor also tweeted about doing more examples of code: http://laravel.com/docs/master/validation

@bashy

Thanks for pointing that out.

This new form of documentation is soooo much more better. I can see it being too verbose for more advanced users but for those new to laravel, this is a huge plus.

NOTE: I forgot to write, even though I think that things can be better, I should also state that putting effort into docs is possibly just as difficult as writing the code. Well, at least for me it is.

Yeah it's pretty good, sometimes looking at "just override this in FormRequest" means nothing until I've seen it once. This is going towards how people learn and remember things but it should be like this so there's something to go off.

I was cheering in my car listening to the last podcast when Taylor talked about all of the work he was doing on the documentation. Laravel's documentation is some of the best that I've ever read through, and I find myself referencing it quite frequently, but I could have benefited from more complete examples as I learned.

I actually started out with one of the later Version 3 releases and did not really discover resources like Laracasts until I stumbled upon the podcast - right around the 4.2 release. I learned how to develop with Laravel exclusively from the documentation and a few Stack Overflow questions.

Looking forward to 5.1 and the updated docs, keep up the great work!

Having a complete example, like the way it's shown on validation on the master documentation, in my opinion is the best way one can easily learn.

I don't think it is a conspiracy. The video tutorials are second to none and the forum is incredibly active. I get a response within the hour or less

@csuarez That's people that have a "paid" account here though... this is about the Laravel docs, nothing else.

sos99 cited the video lessons:)

Hopefully that was a joke on their end

Maybe this is the business model of Laravel to increase more users for Laracasts ?

hahaha. Okay...

@JeffreyWay

This is written with frustration and cynicism together (After all, I wrote it on the Laracasts Forum) :)

Do not take it seriously or personally!

But I think for newbies the docs is mostly hard to understand.

I have never found the docs to be that difficult to understand however they are certainly going to be much better in 5.1

@jkoech @csuarez @JeffreyWay

For me :

• Docs = Provide the tools (or rules) to know how to build something.

1. examples = I built a product, let's see how I did it (with specific rules).

2. Laracasts videos = Strengthens the self-defense in rules and understand what is not clear enough .

All of things are important and needed , But the Docs is the core ( the Basic ) for all sections.

Although I would say that I found CI a much "lighter" framework that Laravel, plus its more established albeit witha rocky history.

Am I the only one around here who was able to learn most of Laravel just from its docs? What wasn't explicitly given as an example, was easily inferred.

Then again, I read the entire documentation like a book so that I had a mental map of what was and wasn't documented, and if I forgot something specifically, I knew where to go look for it in the docs. The stuff that I just couldn't figure out from the docs, I learned from searches and just looking at the source code.

Laravel docs could be better, but I've never learned a framework as thoroughly as I've learned Laravel, specifically because the documentation was well organized and got straight to the point.

So, so, so many different frameworks start you off with off-topic examples instead of the simplest use cases first. There's a straight-forward logic to Laravel's that makes it easy to learn, and useful as a reference.

You can always submit a suggestion or help with the docs if you find it hard to understand or you think something is missing.

To me the current docs assume you have a solid understanding of PHP OOP programming and I don't think that's unreasonable. I think even with the improved docs Taylor is working on all that is going to happen is those of us who're a little (or a lot) behind the curve are going to have an easier time C&P code into our projects while not really having an understanding of why. All that is likely to change IMO is when the questions arise, not if they will.

That said, better docs are always better!!

I think a large part of the "problem" is that many people are coming to Laravel without even a good understanding of basic procedural PHP - sometimes.

Before you start to learn a framework, you're going to find it difficult if you don't have at least some basic knowledge - and have the capability to read code and understand what it's actually doing.

I agree that the docs could use some enhancements with regards to real examples, but in this age of "too much effort" I often think some people just don't grasp that it does take some effort to learn.

Freaking hell, when I first started you had to buy books, but now everything is at your fingertips with a simple search.

Not everything is handed to you on a plate, although I'm not that naive to realise that it's kind of what some people expect these days.

Codeigniter is run by a team, matter of fact a subsidiary of another company ( was bought again couple years ago?) and hence probably have people to do the docs where as laravel is pretty much a one man show. Hence the differences are going to be significant in the docs. If/when most Jr devs are able, reading the code, API and comments along with the docs solve most issues.

I think the possible issue with examples is like Taylor's books, they can be taken as a bible instead of a possible way to get something accomplished which isn't correct.

Honestly, I think the Laravel docs are better than CodeIgniter's - especially now that Taylor is going through every single page to fix them up and provide more clarity.

@JeffreyWay @Ruffles

Look at

• React getting started
• Angularjs
• Jquery API

mush more readable and "telling the all story".

@jekinney Taylor doing wonderful Job ! I just try encourage the open source Laravel community expert helps for others newbies . my Problem with the Docs don't related to Taylor in any way.

I've been following the master branch of laravel/docs. Taylor is doing some great work and putting in some awesome (and more full, rather than snippet) examples.

I don't think the current docs are bad, though and anything you can't find in there, you can find in the API docs.

Not really sure that the example provided (react, Angular..) belong in the framework documentation.

@Ruffles @JeffreyWay @olimorris

Lets look on very simple subject like seed

How the hell I do it currently ?

how seeding data to foreign key ?

how seeding data to reference id ?

how many 'array' needed to write ? (every column ? )

array( 
(array()
(array()...

or just

array(
'foo' =>'bat',
'foo2' =>'bar2',
)

seed is very simple but with the Docs i don't understand how to do it currently.

class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder {

   public function run()
   {
       $this->call('UserTableSeeder');

       $this->command->info('User table seeded!');
   }

}

class UserTableSeeder extends Seeder {

   public function run()
   {
       DB::table('users')->delete();

       User::create(['email' => 'foo@bar.com']);
   }

}

Docs example don't tell how to do it Because the example do not Cover some type of common situation (foreign key ,reference id , more then one table , etc ) .

and now i'm only taking about "simple subject"!!!

I suppose the problem is, that some people have literally no idea about the basics and just want to build something using examples provided in the docs, instead of learning how the tool can help you.

There's nothing wrong in not knowing, but in reluctance to learn. Epecially nowadays, when you can find pretty much every info in matter of seconds.

Apart from that I find the source to be the best docs out there.