Explore By Video

Jobs, Queues, and Workers

As your application grows, long-running work doesn’t belong in the request cycle.

In this lesson, we take a deep, practical dive into Laravel Jobs & Queues by moving survey email notifications into background workers. You’ll learn not just how queues work — but when and why to use them, and how to operate them confidently in production.

No hand-waving. No “just install Redis and hope.”
This is queues the way real applications use them.


🎯 What We Cover:
- Refactors & cleanup from the email implementation
- Why queues exist (architecture & scalability)
- Choosing queue drivers for dev vs production
- Managing queue workers locally and in production
- Supervisor configuration for long-running workers
- Monitoring with Horizon, Pulse, and Telescope
- Handling failures, retries, delays, and backoff
- Creating and dispatching a real job
- Job chaining, batching, and advanced queue features


🧠 Hands-On Implementation - You’ll build and dispatch a real job:
- SendSurveyInviteJob
- Retry and backoff strategies
- Sync vs async dispatching
- Delayed and deferred jobs
- Error handling and manual failures

All wired directly into the survey invite workflow.

🕒 Up Next - Scheduling Tasks & Jobs:
- Laravel Scheduler
- Automated notifications
- Time-based workflows

💥 About the Series:
Pragmatic Laravel focuses on building real applications with Laravel — emphasizing clarity, maintainability, and thoughtful design decisions instead of shortcuts or magic.

#Laravel #PragmaticLaravel #PHP #CleanCode #TekCasts

jQuery - History & Syntax Sugar

Before React, Vue, and modern frameworks, jQuery ruled the web. 🌐✨

Back in the early days, browsers didn’t always agree on how JavaScript should work. Every developer fought with quirks between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. 😩 Enter jQuery — a library that smoothed over the chaos by providing a standardized abstraction. With $(), developers could write code once and trust it to work everywhere.

In this video, we’ll explore why jQuery was such a big deal, from DOM selection and chained syntax to event handling and AJAX requests. You’ll see how it simplified cross-browser headaches, why it became the backbone of web dev for a decade, and where it’s still used today (👋 WordPress plugins & legacy apps).

Finally, we’ll look at its modern replacements: native JS APIs and frameworks that now handle what jQuery once did.

Laravel Pulse: Install & Deploy to Production (Step-by-Step Tutorial)

🚀 Learn how to install and deploy Laravel Pulse in a production environment using Laravel Forge and Envoyer!

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through:
✅ Installing Laravel Pulse in your Laravel project
✅ Configuring it for real-time performance monitoring
✅ Deploying Laravel Pulse to production with Forge & Envoyer
✅ Best practices to keep Pulse running smoothly in production

🔧 Tools Used: Laravel Forge, Laravel Envoyer, Laravel Pulse

If you found this video helpful, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more Laravel content! 🔥

📌 Links & Resources:
👉 Laravel Pulse Docs: [https://pulse.laravel.com/]
👉 Laravel Forge: [https://forge.laravel.com/]
👉 Laravel Envoyer: [https://envoyer.io/]

#tekfoundry #tekcasts

Laravel Starter Kits & Fortify

In this video, we take our survey app to the next level by introducing Authentication, discussing installation options, and laying the groundwork for protected views and user-based access.
Along the way, we also apply several refactorizations to keep the codebase clean, flexible, and scalable.

🛠️ Refactorizations Completed
Before diving into authentication, we improved core structures:

📱 Added a mobile menu using npm install flowbite + import "flowbite"
🎨 Updated mobile menu styling
🧩 Created navigation, table, and form components for DRY code
🗂️ Moved layouts into Blade components (@extends('xxx') ➜ )
👥 Added new layout shells: empty and guest


🔐 Authentication vs. Authorization

Authentication = Who are you?
Authorization = What are you allowed to do?

📘 Laravel Docs:
👉 Authentication — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/authentication
👉 Authorization — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/authorization

⚙️ Installation Options
Depending on your project setup, Laravel gives you multiple ways to integrate auth:
For New Apps

🚀 Laravel Starter Kits (React, Vue, Livewire)

For Existing Apps

🌬️ Laravel Breeze
🛡️ Laravel Fortify

Useful Links:
🔗 Starter Kits — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/starter-kits
🔗 Breeze — https://github.com/laravel/breeze
🔗 Fortify — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/fortify

🛡️ Laravel Fortify Setup (Summary)
Installation
1️⃣ composer require laravel/fortify
2️⃣ php artisan fortify:install
3️⃣ php artisan migrate
Configuration

Review settings in config/fortify

Example: Registration View Binding

// App/Providers/FortifyServiceProvider.php (partial)
public function boot(): void
{
Fortify::registerView(function () {
return view('auth.register');
});
}


If you're enjoying the series, don't forget to Like, Comment, and Subscribe — it helps TekCasts grow! 🙌

#Laravel #PHP #LaravelFortify #LaravelBreeze #WebDevelopment #FullStack #CleanCode #BladeComponents #Authentication #Authorization #TekCasts

Larvel Installation

Let’s get Laravel up and running! 🚀
In this video, we’ll install Laravel, set up our development environment, and bring in the static HTML mockup we created earlier. You’ll see how to quickly spin up a new Laravel app, configure your routes, and render your first Blade view — laying the foundation for everything that follows in our Laravel Survey App series.

🔍 In this video, we’ll cover:

- Installing Laravel via the command line
- Setting up the Laravel installer and Composer
- Creating a /survey route and Blade view
- Copying our static survey design into Laravel


🧠 What You’ll Learn
You’ll learn how to create a clean Laravel setup from scratch — understanding the directory structure, the power of Blade templates, and how routing connects everything together.

🛠️ Resources
📘 Laravel Install Guide → https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/installation
💻 GitHub Repo → https://github.com/rcravens/laravel_survey_app

💥 About the Series:
Pragmatic Laravel focuses on building real applications with Laravel — emphasizing clarity, maintainability, and thoughtful design decisions instead of shortcuts or magic.

📺 Up Next
Next episode: Blade Templates — we’ll refactor our HTML into reusable layouts, partials, and components to make our app cleaner and easier to maintain.

Logic, Conditionals & Branching

In this video from the PHP for Beginners series, we explore logic, conditionals, and branching—key concepts that control the flow of your PHP programs. You’ll learn how to use if, else, and switch statements to make decisions in your code, allowing your programs to respond dynamically to different conditions.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll have a strong understanding of conditional statements and how to apply them effectively in real-world scenarios.

🔹 Beginner-friendly explanations
🔹 Hands-on coding examples

🚀 Master PHP conditionals and take control of your code today!

Looping Through Arrays

Ready to do something with all those array items? In this episode, you’ll learn how to loop through arrays and apply logic to each value — one of the most common tasks in JavaScript!

🎯 What you’ll learn:
• The classic for loop — great for full control
• The cleaner, modern for…of loop
• The elegant and expressive .forEach() method
• A fun mini-challenge: Loop through numbers and log which are even 🔍

🎥 What you’ll see:
• Step-by-step demos of each loop type
• Code that transforms and filters array data
• A clear comparison so you know when and why to use each loop

By the end, you’ll be confidently cycling through arrays and writing logic that reacts to each item. 🧠✨

Loops

Loops are a fundamental part of programming, allowing you to execute code multiple times efficiently. In this video, part of the “PHP for Beginners” series, we break down the four main types of loops in PHP:

✅ foreach – Perfect for looping through arrays effortlessly.
✅ for – Ideal when you know exactly how many times you need to iterate.
✅ while – Runs as long as a condition is true, great for dynamic scenarios.
✅ do…while – Similar to while, but always runs at least once.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll understand when and how to use each loop, with clear explanations and examples. Whether you’re new to PHP or need a refresher, this video will help you master loops in no time!

Middleware Basics

In today’s video, we’re digging into one of the most important — and most misunderstood — parts of the Laravel request lifecycle: middleware.

If you’ve ever wondered how Laravel transforms an incoming HTTP request into a response… or how authentication, sessions, CSRF protection, and even custom logic happen automatically — this video is for you.

⭐ What You’ll Learn
In this lesson, we break down the core concepts behind Laravel middleware, including:
- How middleware modifies request and response data
- How it can short-circuit the request lifecycle
- Where middleware fits inside Laravel’s 5-step request lifecycle
- How route files are registered inside bootstrap/app.php
- How to attach middleware to individual routes, route groups, or out-of-the-box groups like web and api
- How to explore your middleware stack using: php artisan route:list -v

We also walk through real examples showing how middleware groups (like auth, verified, and password.confirm) cascade to define route behavior.

🔗 Resources
• Request Lifecycle — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/lifecycle
• Routing — https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/routing

💥 About the Series:
Pragmatic Laravel focuses on building real applications with Laravel — emphasizing clarity, maintainability, and thoughtful design decisions instead of shortcuts or magic.

#Laravel #PHP #WebDevelopment #LaravelMiddleware #LaravelRouting #PHPTutorials #LearnLaravel #LaravelTips #BackendDevelopment #FullStackDevelopment #WebDevTutorials #LaravelEcosystem #LaravelFramework #CodeBetter #BuildWithLaravel

Mixing Markup & Code

It’s time to take our PHP calculator from hardcoded values to real user input! In this video we introduce an HTML frontend to drive our calculator, making it interactive.

Here’s what we cover:

✅ Creating an HTML form – Allow users to input expressions dynamically.
✅ PHP Superglobals – Understanding $_POST and how to handle form data.
✅ Mixing PHP & HTML – Embedding PHP inside markup to render values and conditionally show elements.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to build dynamic web pages that process user input using PHP—an essential skill for web development!

Model Factories

We simplify the process of generating test data by introducing Model Factories. Model factories allow you to create models and their relationships using expressive, reusable definitions — perfect for seeding your database with realistic sample data.

You’ll learn how to:
✅ Create and use model factories (php artisan make:factory)
✅ Generate models with fake data using make() and create()
✅ Build relationships with nested factories (has())
✅ Replace manual seeder logic with elegant factory-based seeding

By the end of this video, your database setup will be cleaner, faster, and ready for scalable testing and development.

Resources
- Laravel Factories Docs: https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/eloquent-factories

💥 About the Series:
Pragmatic Laravel focuses on building real applications with Laravel — emphasizing clarity, maintainability, and thoughtful design decisions instead of shortcuts or magic.

#Laravel #PHP #Eloquent #WebDevelopment #DatabaseSeeding #ModelFactories #LaravelTips #FullStack #TekCasts #LearnToCode

Modules & Imports

Time to break up the band 🎸—but in the best way possible! In this episode, we’ll see how ES Modules help you split your code into neat, reusable files and then pull them back together with ease.

Here’s what we’ll cover:


📦 What modules are and why they make your code cleaner and more maintainable.
🔀 The difference between named and default exports.
📥 How to import modules into your project like a pro.
🌐 Setting up modules in the browser with type="module" (plus a sneak peek at Node.js).


We’ll walk through a math utility example, exporting functions and constants, then importing them back into main.js for instant reusability.

By the end, you’ll be ready to organize your projects like a seasoned developer, keeping your codebase modular, scalable, and stress-free. 🚀

Modules and NPM

📦 In this video, we explore how Node.js uses modules and NPM to organize code, manage dependencies, and scale projects. You’ll see the difference between CommonJS and ES Modules, learn how to create a package.json, install and use packages like lodash, manage NPM scripts, and keep your project clean by uninstalling dependencies.

💡 Relevant Links

Previous TekCasts series:
- JavaScript for Beginners: https://tekcasts.com/play/javascript-for-beginners-what-is-javascript
- JavaScript in the Browser: https://tekcasts.com/play/javascript-in-the-browser-browser-runtime-environment


Official Docs:
- Node.js Modules: https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html
- NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/
- Lodash: https://www.npmjs.com/package/lodash
- NPM Scripts Docs: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/using-npm/scripts

MVC Page LifeCycle

Your MVC framework is about to come alive ⚡️

So far, we’ve built the parts — now it’s time to see them in motion. In this episode, we’ll trace how every request flows through your application — from the moment it hits the server to the controller logic that shapes the response. 🌐

👉 In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

🚀 Follow the full request/response lifecycle in an MVC app
⚙️ Understand how routing, controllers, and views work together
📦 Parse request bodies and extract parameters dynamically
🧩 Connect the dots between HTTP, Router, and Controller layers

By the end, you’ll see your framework as a living, breathing system — where every part plays its role in delivering dynamic web pages 💻

💡 Relevant Links

Previous TekCasts series:
- JavaScript for Beginners: https://tekcasts.com/play/javascript-for-beginners-what-is-javascript
- JavaScript in the Browser: https://tekcasts.com/play/javascript-in-the-browser-browser-runtime-environment

Official Docs & Resources:
- Node.js Documentation: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/
- MDN HTTP Guide: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP
- MDN JavaScript Guide: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript

Namespaces, PSR-4, and Autoloading

Say goodbye to messy, single-file chaos! 😵‍💫 In this video, we organize and supercharge our PHP projects by breaking them into multiple files. First, we manually load classes using the trusty require keyword 📜—but that’s just the beginning!

Next, we introduce the PSR-4 standard, the industry gold standard for structuring PHP code 🏆. And to make life even sweeter, we harness the power of Composer’s autoloading ⚡—letting PHP automatically find and load classes like magic! ✨

By the end, you’ll be writing scalable, maintainable PHP code like a true OOP architect! 🏗️💻