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Totally new to Laravel. I know a bit of PHP but most of my web development experience has been with Rails, although I've never done anything overly complicated with it either.
I really like the idea of Laravel because it seems like it would be MUCH easier to deploy than Rails and I'm thinking about taking the plunge and subscribing to Laracasts. So a couple of questions: Is Laracasts worth it? Are there any better, easily accessible learning resources out there? https://poptype.co/pcmag/click-speed-test
Any pre-reqs? Meaning, is there anything I should learn about Laravel first before starting Laracasts?
Is there any sort of roadmap or proper viewing order other than starting with #1?
Yes worth it, start with the laravel from scratch series.
And since you are experienced, I can tell you to study that vendor code to see how Taylor has done things in the background.
And it is a very flexible framework, nothing is forced on you, you can do things your way, choose what to use and what not to use.
Might also be good to note that the Laravel from Scratch series is completely free. So you don't have to worry about subscribing just yet. You can try it out and see if Jeffrey's teaching style fits you.
There are also free starter courses in PHP and Object Oriented Programming if you feel the need anything along those lines to brush up your knowledge.
I'd say it's worth it. The videos are very well explained and at different levels of complexity so you can keep learning for a while.
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