Laravel, a widely-used open-source PHP framework, streamlines the development of web applications. By employing the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern, it encourages the use of clean and reusable code. Laravel offers a suite of pre-built functionalities such as routing, authentication, sessions, and caching, among others, enabling developers to dedicate more attention to the application itself rather than the initial setup.

Preparing Your Development Environment

Before starting with Laravel, it is crucial to prepare your development environment. Laravel Homestead, a pre-configured Vagrant box, is a superb resource that offers a robust development environment without requiring you to install PHP, a web server, or any other server software on your local device.

Starting Your First Laravel Project

Once your environment is primed, it's time to initiate your first Laravel project. Laravel utilises Composer for managing dependencies, so it's important to have this installed. Following this, you can inaugurate a new project by executing the composer global require laravel/installer command, followed by laravel new project-name.

Understanding Laravel's Structure and Architecture

Laravel's directory structure is intentionally designed to be both accessible to beginners and scalable. Key directories to note include app (which contains the application's core code), config (which houses configuration files), database (which stores database migrations and seeds), public (which contains front-end assets such as CSS, JavaScript, images), resources (which houses views and uncompiled assets), routes (which contains all defined routes), and storage (which contains compiled Blade templates, file-based sessions, file caches, and other files produced by the framework).

Conclusion

This article offers an introductory glimpse into Laravel's world. By preparing a development environment and creating a new project, you've already embarked on an expansive journey. The streamlined structure and intuitive architecture of Laravel make it a premier choice for PHP development.