Anyone noticing the hype Laravel is getting atm? JS devs are switching to it!!! I wish the CF ecosystem had the marketing nous that the Laravel team has.. https://twitter.com/adamdotdev/status/1655911798233522177?s=20

"there's no pretentiousness" #fakeNews

It's nothing compared to the React/NextJS/Vercel world..

Which is not to take anything from Laravel: it's a very solid product. Slightly too opinionated and "lifestyle-choice" rather than "framework" for my liking, but that suits a lot of ppl. Given the choice we opted for Symfony over Laravel (Laravel's built atop of Symfony anyhow, really), as Symfony's opinions are less egregious than Laravel's.

Php sucks and Laravel is very opinionated, but it works because they have taken the time to think about things and offer solutions. Forge and Laracasts are great for example. Ortus has followed their lead on some ideas, rightly so.

If we're stooping to "my toy is better than your toy" (but... really??): PHP runs rings around CFML. The language, the community participation, the quality of third-party solutions, the general "intelligence" of the community. Every. Thing. Well I guess PHP doesn't have tag islands 😉 And that is not to say PHP is brilliant compared to [anything else out there]. It's not. But one doesn't get to stand in the CFML community and deride PHP. It just sounds stupid. The CFML community should look to the PHP one to draw inspiration (like Ortus does), not knocking it. NB: and absolutely not deriding anything Ortus does: they stand out as exceptions in the CFML community, and would fit right in to more grown-up communities like PHP's seamlessly.

obviously that beard is too short, nobody can take him seriously as a developer

I am a long time PHP and Laravel dev as well Adam. I appreciate what they have done, and I use it all the time. I still find the language annoying. Despite that, Laravel more than makes up for the php annoyances. Cfml is not amazing either and if it wasn’t for Ortus and their products as well as Lucee, I would have dropped it. I am just saying that Laravel and its tools have created a reason in itself to code in php.

\me pulls head in. 😉

So perhaps I need to get off my duff and check out php, which I haven't done for decades. Last I saw it struck me as a bit of a Frankenstein, OO-ish parts and not, but that's what happens when a language exists and is in wide use for a long time. To ask the naive question, what are some better than average resources for learning the PHP and Laravel? (Just to be clear, I have other reasons besides this thread for being interested.)

@Dave Merrill https://laravel.com/docs/10.x and here https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Laravel - In particular this channel - https://www.youtube.com/@LaravelDaily

PHP8 is a different thing from PHP <=5.5 (from say 3-4yrs ago), and it's even a big improvement over 7 As for learning... just google, and let google do the vetting for you. The Laravel stuff will teach you Laravel, and probs not much (modern) PHP. I'd not look @ material written for any version of PHP <7 though. That will weed out a lot of outdated stuff.

@malpaso ColdBox MVC is CF's equivalent to Laravel. You're not going to complete against Laravel's tooling and ecosystem with just plain jane CFML. Laravel is probably branching out because a large portion of the PHP world has embraced it. In the CF world, we have facebook groups where the majority of people actively discourage the use of frameworks in general. It's hard to take over the world, when our own community is slow to pick stuff up. Just something to think about 🙂

you are doing yer best though, Brad.

It's a dark and scary place...

Yeah see I like a bit of a change from "the inside of my own mind" from time to time. Facebook is no help.

pfft, not enough blockchain, errrr web3, errrr AI on FB, try linked in

@bdw429s Completely agree. I've used CF since the Allaire days and Coldbox and CFWheels are my favorite CF frameworks. There is just something on the 'marketing' side that Laravel does very well, whether that's website styling, youtube production or framework services. Also I do acknowledge that a big part of PHP's exposure is the massive open-source app building that happens in that space where the CF community for some reason won't build open-source apps.

Fun fact: cfcasts.com was modeled after and inspired by Laracasts.com