Laravel/PHP Experience

How would you rate your skills with PHP and/or Laravel before joining Laracasts?

Php fairly high skill, but came from java. I used laravel 4.2, so beginning with ver 5.0, I had to get used of namespacing. I caught on to the older 4.2 pretty quick, but 5.0 was a bit of a learning curve.

How long were you learning before you felt comfortable making a high quality application using Laravel?

I had used another framework prior, so once I learned proper namespacing and correctly using "use" statements I felt pretty good. My first framework was older and didn't have routes or namespace. It used the front controller.

Remember many of the beginning videos are free.

@jlrdw

lol, Didn't realize thumbs up gave you a best answer. What framework were you using prior to Laravel?

My skill level before joining Laracasts was fairly low. I had studied basic computer science on my own for about a year and knew a bit of python, c, php, and html/css. I knew about object oriented programming, but didn't fully understand it and why it was useful. I had made a couple basic static/php sites following tutorials, but had no experience using a framework.

Ive been watching Laracasts videos for about two years now. My skill level has definitely increased and without question Laracasts has been the number one driving force behind that increase. I started feeling pretty confident about a year ago, but looking back, I think that confidence was premature. I feel even more confident now, but I'm guessing that in another year I'll again feel that this is premature. I think thats just how it goes.

I landed my first development job last month so starting May 1st I'll be developing professionally. When I was in the job hunting process, I constantly had people complement my code quality and tell me how rare it is for self taught programmers to write tests. I learned all that right here.

Note that I didnt just simply watch the videos though. I was also coding at least three hours a day every day and reading everything I could get my hands on. Laracasts was my main learning tool, but without practice and a strong desire to learn, you won't get far.

Pretty high I'd say. I had a good 18+ years of programming under my belt, 8 of that professionally. I found laravel to be very easy to understand and get up to speed with in a productive manner pretty much right away.

All of the videos here though have definitely helped me better understand some concepts I simply never bothered with or had come across previously. I've definitely leveled up considerably since joining laracasts about 2 years ago, and having watched basically all of the videos. :)

The doing is definitely more important than the watching and learning though.

@willvincent @zachleigh

Thank you both for excellent responses. I notice a theme of needing to write the code and implement it yourself to really learn the framework. I'm familiar with setting up servers/dev environments both local and remote and happy to say my favorite way to learn is through action. Can't wait to see how far I can progress on here.

Thanks again!

@ultrabeam your reply

I notice a theme of needing to write the code and implement it yourself to really learn the framework.

and happy to say my favorite way to learn is through action.

Is refreshing. Seems so many new to laravel folks wants entire blocks of code written for them. Nice to hear from another "hands on" go getter.

Edit: Watch @Snapey he uses big words sometimes I have to look up.

Pretty low skills when it came to php and laravel, after joining laracast my php and laraveskills increased alot, also my javascript, css and html, bootstrap skills etc increased since I started working on my projects using laravel.

After just 7-8 months here I am building my own CMS. If you told me before I signed up I would be doing this I would tell you no way, I will never be able to do that, its just so complicated, today I feel I could build anything.

For my first ever project I built imgur.com clone and that is after 1 month of being on laracasts.

Here is a sneakpeak of an upcomming Laravel based CMS that I will opensource.

I'll finish by saying I love Laravel and thanks God for Laracasts.

Learning PHP and Laravel is an amazing experience, as it enables me to build my ideas. I am a frontend developer/designer by trade, so being able to add PHP/Laravel to my skillset is just amazing, Laracasts has been a huge part of this (without a doubt the biggest contributing factor)

@maxnb you should thank Jeffrey instead of God for Laracasts ;)

God made Jeffrey but sure @JeffreyWay thank you ;)

@maxnb

Pretty amazing that after such a short time you're ready to tackle a big project like this. Please send me a beta version when it's ready. I'd be thrilled to do some testing for you and provide feedback.

@Reached

I'm in a similar position. Great to hear this is enabling you to smoothly transition into the back end. The clarity of lessons has helped me understand how to utilize MVC architecture more quickly than any others.

and yes, thank you! @JeffreyWay

@ultrabeam sure I'd love to have some beta testers to give me feedback, right now I have blog(posts, tags, categories), pages, media managment(images, galleries), user managment(users, roles, permissions), form creator (using my own coded designer that you saw in the screenshot), comments (native or disqus, and if native can be nested up to 5 levels).

Currently working on settings and implementing that, here is a screen:

@maxnb happy to help, let me know when you need some testers.

My php was decent before I came here. From using Laravel, I have learned so much just by the way the framework allows you to code. I'm amazed by how neat Laravel code is. So eventually you pick up good habits.

The lessons thought on laracast are amazing as well. I remember last year I had an interview with a credit card company for web dev work, their feedback was that my PHP was a little too basic. Had I had access to laracast back then, I would have been eligible because i'm seeing lessons here on everything they basically was looking for in a dev.

@maxnb What is the colour scheme for the admin panel, if you don't mind? I'm building a website of my own with similar backend (posts, pages, media, users etc) and I like the colours of the photo you have there.

@Jenry

Thank you for the response. That's encouraging. I'm currently trying to amp my skills up myself. One step at a time.

I am also very impressed with the elegance of Laravel. I'm only in the basics of MVC and can tell I'm going to enjoy working with this framework.