Book Image

Full-Stack Vue.js 2 and Laravel 5

By : Anthony Gore
Book Image

Full-Stack Vue.js 2 and Laravel 5

By: Anthony Gore

Overview of this book

Vue is a JavaScript framework that can be used for anything from simple data display to sophisticated front-end applications and Laravel is a PHP framework used for developing fast and secure web-sites. This book gives you practical knowledge of building modern full-stack web apps from scratch using Vue with a Laravel back end. In this book, you will build a room-booking website named "Vuebnb". This project will show you the core features of Vue, Laravel and other state-of-the-art web development tools and techniques. The book begins with a thorough introduction to Vue.js and its core concepts like data binding, directives and computed properties, with each concept being explained first, then put into practice in the case-study project. You will then use Laravel to set up a web service and integrate the front end into a full-stack app. You will be shown a best-practice development workflow using tools like Webpack and Laravel Mix. With the basics covered, you will learn how sophisticated UI features can be added using ES+ syntax and a component-based architecture. You will use Vue Router to make the app multi-page and Vuex to manage application state. Finally, you will learn how to use Laravel Passport for authenticated AJAX requests between Vue and the API, completing the full-stack architecture. Vuebnb will then be prepared for production and deployed to a free Heroku cloud server.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Introducing Vue.js

At the time of writing in late 2017, Vue.js is at version 2.5. In less than four years from its first release, Vue has become one of the most popular open source projects on GitHub. This popularity is partly due to its powerful features, but also to its emphasis on developer experience and ease of adoption.

The core library of Vue.js, like React, is only for manipulating the view layer from the MVC architectural pattern. However, Vue has two official supporting libraries, Vue Router and Vuex, responsible for routing and data management respectively.

Vue is not supported by a tech giant in the way that React and Angular are and relies on donations from a small number of corporate patrons and dedicated Vue users. Even more impressively, Evan You is currently the only full-time Vue developer, though a core team of 20 more developers from around the world assist with development, maintenance, and documentation.

The key design principles of Vue are as follows:

  • Focus: Vue has opted for a small, focused API, and its sole purpose is the creation of UIs
  • Simplicity: Vue's syntax is terse and easy to follow
  • Compactness: The core library script is ~25 KB minified, making it smaller than React and even jQuery
  • Speed: Rendering benchmarks beat many of the main frameworks, including React
  • Versatility: Vue works well for small jobs where you might normally use jQuery, but can scale up as a legitimate SPA solution