Outside Readings

The following is an index of the outside readings relevant to each week of the semester.

Week 1

• How to become a better developer by asking questions - Steve Gordon
• Writing the perfect question - Jon Skeet
• This following readings are optional and suggested only for students who are new to command line or Markdown:
  • Command Line Crash Course
  • Mastering Markdown

Week 2

There are no outside readings this week.

Week 3

To help reinforce the topics covered this week, read/skim through the following PHP documentation pages:

• Superglobals
• GET
• POST
• Sessions: Basic usage

Week 4

To begin to familiarize yourself with the Laravel documentation read through the following introduction pages:

• Meet Laravel
  • Why Laravel?
• Installation via Composer
• Laravel the fullstack framework
• Laravel the API backend

Week 5

From Laravel Docs: Routing:

• #basic-routing
• #route-parameters
• Optional: Skim the rest of the topics

From Laravel Docs: Controllers:

• #introduction
• #basic-controllers
• Optional: Skim the rest of the topics

From Laravel Docs: Facades

• #introduction
• #facades-vs-helper-functions
• #how-facades-work
• Optional: Skim the rest of the topics

Week 6

• Logging: Writing log messages
• Views:
  • Introduction
  • Creating & Rendering views
  • Passing data to views
  • Skim the rest of the topics under “Views” to be aware of what other features exist
• Blade Templates:
  • Introduction
  • Displaying data
  • Blade directives
  • Layouts using template inheritance
  • Skim the rest of the topics under “Blade Templates” to be aware of what other features exist

Week 7

HTTP Requests

• Interacting with the request
  • Introduction
  • Accessing the Request
  • Request Path & Method
• Input
  • Retrieving Input
  • Determining if input is present
  • Old input
  • Input trimming and normalization

HTTP Responses

• Redirects

Validation

• Introduction
• Validation Quickstart
  • Defining The Routes
  • Creating The Controller
  • Writing The Validation Logic
  • Displaying The Validation Errors
  • A Note On Optional Fields

Note that there are more topics covered in the docs under Requests, Responses, and Validation which I did not link to above, as they are not specific to the material we’re focussing on. That being said, you should skim through those other topics just to be aware of what other features/options exist.

Week 8

As noted in lecture, frameworks like Laravel abstract much of the SQL used to interact with our databases. However, it’s good to have a foundation in the fundamentals of SQL in order to better understand what these tools are doing behind the scenes.

With that in mind, read the following: Chapters 1 and 2 from Learning SQL

Also, from the Laravel docs, go through the following database-specific docs. I’ve marked each reading as Read, Skim, or Skip to indicate which readings you should be focussing on.

• Database: Getting Started

  • Introduction Read
  • Configuration Read
  • Read & Write Connections Skip
  • Using Multiple Database Connections Skip

• Running Raw SQL Queries Skim

• Listening For Query Events Skip

• Database Transactions Skip

• Database: Migrations

  • Introduction Read
  • Generating Migrations Read
  • Migration Structure Read
  • Running Migrations Read
    • Rolling Back Migrations Skim
  • Tables Read
    • [Creating Tables](Creating Tables ) Read
    • Renaming / Dropping Tables Read
  • Columns
    • Creating Columns Read, paying close attention to “Available Column Types”
    • Column Modifiers Read
    • Modifying Columns Skim
    • Dropping Columns Skim
  • Indexes
    • Creating Indexes Skim
    • Dropping Indexes Skim
    • Foreign Key Constraints Skip - we’ll get more into this in an upcoming week

Week 9

There are numerous reading this week, so a reminder: the goal with these readings is not to master all the information. Instead, the idea is to familiarize yourself with the features that are available. This way, when you’re working on your application and needs arise, you’ll recall reading about it and can revisit the topic in order to dig into it in more detail.

I’ve marked each reading as Read, Skim, or Skip to indicate which readings you should be focussing on.

Eloquent

• Introduction Read
• Generating Model Classes Read
• Eloquent Model Conventions Read
  • Table Names Read
  • Primary Keys Read
  • Timestamps Read
  • Database Connections Skim
  • Default Attribute Values Read
• Retrieving Models Read
  • Collections Skim - We’ll cover this in Week 10
  • Chunking Results Skim
  • Streaming Results Lazily Skim
  • Cursors Skim
  • Advanced Subqueries Skim
• Retrieving Single Models / Aggregates Read
  • Retrieving or Creating Models Read
  • Retrieving Aggregates Read
• Inserting & Updating Models Read
  • Inserts Read
  • Updates Read
  • Mass Assignment Read
  • Upserts Read
• Deleting Models Read
  • Soft Deleting Skim
  • Querying Soft Deleted Models Skim
• Query Scopes
  • Global Scopes Skip (more complexity than we need right now; focus on local scopes)
  • Local Scopes
• Comparing Models
• Events Skip

Query Builder

In addition to the above Eloquent docs, you should also skim through the Query Builder docs. In lecture I noted we’d be focussing on using Eloquent over Query Builder, however, all the functionality that Query Builder offers is available to Eloquent. Thus, being aware of what the Query Builder can do will strengthen your knowledge of what Eloquent can do.

Seeding

• Introduction Read
• Writing Seeders Read
  • Using Model Factories Skim
  • Calling Additional Seeders Skim
• Running Seeders Read

Week 10

Eloquent: Collections

• Introduction Read
• Available Methods Read
• Custom Collections Skip

Misc

• Redirecting With Flashed Session Data Read
• Session: Flash data Read
• Form method spoofing Read

Week 11

Laravel Fortify Skim everything

Service Providers Skim everything

Eloquent Relationships Read the following:

• Introduction
• Defining Relationships
  • One to Many
  • One to Many (Inverse) / Belongs to
• Querying Relationships
  • Relationship Methods vs. Dynamic Properties
  • Querying Relationship Existence
  • Querying Relationship Absence
• Eager Loading
  • Constraining Eager Loads
  • Lazy Eager Loading
• Inserting & Updating Related Models
  • The save method
  • The create method
  • Belongs to relationship

Week 12

• Eloquent relationships: Many to Many
• Testing: Getting started
• Laravel Dusk

Week 13

• Database Testing (Factories)