You should have a pretty good grasp of php and know your way around the terminal at least a little.
What do I need to know before I even think about watching the "Laravel From Scratch" series?
Here are my reactions to the first video https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-5-from-scratch/episodes/1
-4:57 Not exactly. I don't have any Laravel skills. Is from 0 to 1 considered leveling up?
-4:30 Wait, PHP has extensions? What development environment is that guy using, XAPP doesn't mention extensions. tons of googling later Oh, so they are all pre-installed with that version of PHP, why even bother mentioning them?
-4:27 Whoa! What do terminals have to do with PHP? I'm not on linux!
-4:05 As if I know what that is.
-2:37 OK, I just did it with cmd, and it changed my directory to the roaming appdata, is that laravel installation even permanent, if it is, how do I uninstall it? That's not how I usually install new software.
-2:29 What's a PATH?
-2:01 I have neither of those files.
-0:23 When and how did he even make a new project?
If you've used PHP for a couple of years I guess you know the in's and out's of the basic language - it's more the 'modern php'/laravel side that's confusing you? I'd recommend watching the recent PHP practitioner series - you can probably skip the first dozen or so lessons if you've been PHP/wordpress'ing for a while. But it'll give you a really good path from WP/"plain" PHP to Laravel.
Then maybe go onto the laravel fundamentals and object orientated bootcamp series - those should get you a long way to the main laravel videos - :-)
Please or to participate in this conversation.