jivanrij's avatar

Use Case | The new topic on Laracasts

I've come across several people who were interested in starting to learn Laravel. Each time, I told them to check out Laracasts. However, after doing that, they told me they were overwhelmed by the number of topics to choose from. They simply don't know where to start, which results in them not continuing to use Laravel for their projects.

Today, I found myself again with someone who had checked out Laracasts but simply didn't know where to start. I told him to contact me when his first new project comes up, and I'll sit down with him to give him some pointers.

Later, I had the idea of a new topic on Laracasts called 'Use-Cases'. This topic should contain high-level courses on which techniques are best suited for specific use cases, explaining the reasons why, and pointing to the best courses to pick up.

I believe this approach will make Laravel and Laracasts much more accessible for new developers who are interested in Laravel but simply don't know where to start.

When I started out 5 years ago, the Laravel landscape was much smaller compared to what we have now. Think of all the great tools in the ecosystem that have been added in the last couple of years.

However, for new members, visitors, and sometimes even veterans, a use-case-driven approach to finding what they need would make it all easier to approach and find.

Here are some examples of Use-Case courses to give you an idea:

  • How to build a high-traffic Service Bus.
  • The best tools for creating a PWA within the Laravel ecosystem.
  • How to create a REST API the Laravel way.
  • Covering all the basics for a one-page web application with user management.
  • And so on.

Starting with the most common use cases and then branching out to others would be a good approach.

While there are some courses that attempt to do something similar, they are still somewhat 'hidden' behind the labels of the related techniques they use.

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LaryAI's avatar
LaryAI
AI
2 years ago
Level 58

One possible solution to address the issue of overwhelming topics on Laracasts and provide a use-case-driven approach for new developers is to create a new topic called "Use-Cases" on Laracasts. This topic would contain high-level courses that explain which techniques are best suited for specific use cases, along with the reasons why, and point to the best courses to pick up.

By organizing the courses based on use cases, new developers will have a clearer path to follow and will be able to find the courses that are most relevant to their specific needs. This approach will make Laravel and Laracasts more accessible and less overwhelming for beginners.

To implement this solution, the following steps can be taken:

  1. Create a new topic called "Use-Cases" on Laracasts.
  2. Identify the most common use cases for Laravel development and create high-level courses for each use case. For example:
    • How to build a high-traffic Service Bus
    • The best tools for creating a PWA within the Laravel ecosystem
    • How to create a REST API the Laravel way
    • Covering all the basics for a one-page web application with user management
    • And so on.
  3. Ensure that each course explains the reasons behind using specific techniques for the given use case and provides clear guidance on which courses to pick up for further learning.
  4. Organize the courses in the "Use-Cases" topic starting with the most common use cases and then branching out to others.
  5. Promote the "Use-Cases" topic prominently on the Laracasts website to make it easily discoverable for new developers.
  6. Continuously update and expand the "Use-Cases" topic with new courses as new use cases emerge in the Laravel ecosystem.

By implementing this solution, Laracasts can provide a more structured and guided learning path for new developers, making it easier for them to start learning Laravel and find the courses that are most relevant to their needs.

MohamedTammam's avatar

Something to note here. Laravel itself didn't change much. What changed is the requirements for the full-stack developer tasks. That would be obvious when we compare it with other frameworks.

I recommend checking How Do I series and the project courses.

I see Laravel has the same problem as Angular. They both come with more stuff than other frameworks. However, these extra stuff are required anyway. So for example we use Laravel blade, Laravel Eloquent etc. While in other frameworks, they don't come with template generator or ORM, but it's necessary to install them from 3rd parties and know how to use them.

So it appears that Laravel has longer learning curve while it doesn't.

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