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I just completed the PHP7 & Laravel Master Course by Joe Santos Garcia. For years I have been a loyal subscriber to Joe’s youtube channel; Codingphase. I highly recommend anyone interested in learning web development to go over and check out his channel. I have gained so much knowledge and inspiration from this youtube channel alone.

He also has a website: codingphase.com, where you can subscribe and check out his huge variety of courses on web development. This was the first course I have taken of his so far, with that being said, let’s get into it…

First Section-PHP Refresher

When you first start the course, Joe swiftly covers PHP syntax as a refresher. I think this is great for this type of course because most of the people choosing to take this course most likely know the basics of PHP, but it never hurts to review the basic PHP syntax. Laravel is a back-end framework using PHP, which is what this course focuses on. So not too much time was taken to cover the syntax.

Variables And PDO

Then Joe goes on to cover variables and how they factor into your projects, and a few tips and tricks for the big project later in the course. Next, he shows you how to build a simple CRUD website using PDO and MySql. This section really helped clear up a few things for me as in connecting to a database with PHP using PDO. This was very useful, especially considering you use this information in the big project later on in the course.

Laravel Basics

In the next section, you start learning the basics of Laravel. He goes over how to set up your database tables using migrations, which was way easier than I thought it would be. Setting up the migrations and database taught me a lot as I was a complete framework newbie when I was taking this course. Side Note: This course helped me learn the terminal very well as you use it a lot in developing an app with a framework such as Laravel.

MVC Framework

He then goes over the model/view/controller relationship and how you use it to control everything about how your app functions. As a newcomer to MVC frameworks, this section really opened my eyes to the possibilities and why these frameworks are so important.

After that it was more detail on creating blade templates which are your views, these are the files called from your routes and controllers that display the HTML to the page. At the end of the section, he starts showing you how to work with Eloquent in Laravel, which is an easier way to communicate with your database.

Full Stack Project

The last section, which is the largest and takes up the majority of the course, is building a full-stack application with Laravel. I loved this project because it really challenges you but explains the process well along the way.

In this section, you build an app called: DesignStorm. It’s an app that connects to the Behance API to retrieve artsy images that the user can search for and then save in projects under there own account.

You first go through and set up your database with MySQL. Then he shows you how to set up authentication so the user can register and log in within the app. This alone is valuable information to know how to do with Laravel, or with any framework. Every full-stack app needs authentication.

From there you set up your routes and controllers, and then slowly piece together the functionality of your app. It may take you a while of going back and forth from your code to google or stack overflow to solve some problems along the way.

Just remember in web development this is the normal workflow. Even the best developers have to look up solutions every day. No human can remember everything, especially within programming. Just be patient and persistent, as the results and knowledge you gain are always worth it in the end.

Full Stack App Complete

At the end of this course, you have a beautiful ly styled app, very modern and cool, and you have acquired a lot of valuable information about how to use Laravel and how to use it to build an app. Learning how to connect to an API, especially in the scope of building a full-stack application like this, is very valuable information.

I feel like after completing this course I leveled up my skillset so much, which increased my confidence. I then started to develop great ideas for future projects I could create using this technology.

Points of Improvement

I will say there are parts of this course that are somewhat incomplete and near the end, it seems to skip over a few important steps. I was able to look at his finished course files and compare them to mine to fill in the gaps. Though he should make another video near the end to explain those few steps, I used it as a challenge and through the process of figuring out the problem I learned a lot along the way. Besides this one thing, I have zero complaints and I think it is a great course.

Learning The Workflow

Going through these processes really helped me understand how L aravel works. Its a lot of back and forth when building an app like this and a lot of testing. Programming, in general, can be very frustrating at times, especially when you are taking a course and something doesn’t work as it does on the video you are watching.

The key to this is learning to use google and stack overflow to find solutions to your problem. Every bug I have ever come across and had to research to solve it, I have always learned at least a few new concepts along the way, or at least new search terms to use and different ways to approach solving a problem. After you get everything functioning correctly it is well worth the effort in knowing you built the app yourself.

Conclusion

I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn the Laravel framework. It is very comprehensive and details the important points you need to learn.

Joe also does a great job not only teaching concepts, but also explaining why you are doing what you are doing, and how it relates to other sections within your project.

You can buy this course direct from Udemy with this link: PHP7 & Laravel Master Course by Joe Santos Garcia

Now with this new tool under my belt, I plan on building a project from scratch using Laravel. I will make an update when I complete this project.

Please leave any questions you might have in the comments, and if you like this content please give it a share. Thanks for reading. Remember to be persistent and always be leveling up your web development skills.