The Laravel framework is one of the most popular PHP frameworks for web development. The question is, “why?”
Laravel has been highly successful for several reasons, but one of the key ones that I believe is that Laravel developers are true professionals in their field.
They’re not just developers who decided to learn PHP and Laravel. They are PHP professionals who have real-world experience building, maintaining, and designing large web apps.
So how can you differentiate someone like that from a fly-by-night developer charging $50 an hour? Here are some questions to ask when you want to hire a laravel developer. These questions will help you understand the developer’s understanding of the framework, skill set, and experience and allow you to gauge his character and professionalism.
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What is your preferred way of building Laravel applications?
This question allows you to understand how the developer thinks and works.
You want to know if they will create their custom ORM, build their router, or use Eloquent out of the box. Also, you want to know if they will abstract away all framework logic into reusable components or leave it all in a single monolithic controller/model class. More importantly, you want to understand what methodology they use and why they choose it.
A good approach is to ask the developer to create a small application for you. Ask them to build a “Blog” application using the default Laravel 4 structure and only using Eloquent and authentication.
A bad answer is that they will use a PHP framework inside Laravel, constructing their components and logic, resulting in an unprofessional code base. This shows that he may not have an understanding of what makes a good framework from a user’s perspective.
A good answer is that they will use a reusable class for all query building, one for all pagination logic and another for security logic. These classes can be instantiated individually or combined as needed when constructing the application. This ensures a quality code base that is well organized and consistent.
Another good answer is that they will use popular PHP libraries such as Zend Framework 2, Slim Framework 3, or Doctrine 2 to build their own ORM or Query Builder classes. This shows the developer has a working knowledge of the industry and knows what’s good and bad in terms of frameworks.
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What should I be aware of when using Laravel?
This question will allow you to understand how much experience a developer has with Laravel and whether or not he is familiar with common pitfalls and issues that others have experienced.
These are some common answers you may receive for this question:
“Always run PHP artisan optimize on a production server.” You should always run this command on a production server. It will clear the cache to reduce unnecessary file writes and free up memory for other tasks. Development environments can easily handle the overhead of cache and cookies. “Don’t use prepared SQL statements unless you need to.” Prepared statements can help prevent SQL injection attacks, but they also make it harder to optimize queries and can cause issues when migrating databases between servers. “Always include your Composer autoloader.” This will ensure that class files are loaded properly and do not have issues due to improper folder structure. “Set the session driver to the database and the session location to /tmp.” This will eliminate any file locks as well as improve performance.
These answers should be reassuring, as they indicate that he has a working knowledge of Laravel.
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What ORMs are you experienced with?
This question will help you understand his experience with object-relational mapping.
A bad answer is if he has no experience with any. A good answer is that he is familiar with at least one or two ORMs and why he prefers them over others.
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What ORMs do you prefer to work with?
This question goes along with question #3, but it focuses more on his preferences towards specific frameworks/tools.
Here, a good answer could include Doctrine 2, Propel ORM, or Illuminate Query Builder.
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What version of PHP and MySQL do you recommend?
This question will help you determine the level of experience and knowledge a developer has and his security philosophy and practices.
A good answer is that he will use PHP 5.4 or greater, with the OPcache extension enabled and APCu installed to optimize performance.
He should also have his own optimized, production-ready database schema backed by InnoDB with all indexes created properly.
A bad answer is that he will use an outdated PHP version or MySQL version. This shows that he may have a bad idea about what’s safe and secure to use, potentially leading to security issues.
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Where did you serve your previous Laravel code?
This question will explain how the developer works and protects their codebase.
A good answer is that the code was served from a local server to prevent security issues.
A bad answer is that the code was served from an external server because they don’t have a local server. This shows that they may not understand the importance of having an isolated development environment, which will lead to issues in maintaining and updating the application.
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What tools do you use for security and defence?
This question will help you determine his level of knowledge in the core Laravel areas involved in application security.
A good answer could include:
Laravel Forge (for development) – allows you to create custom database schemas, clean up database tables, and even secure your server without modifying core files. This can help prevent SQL injection attacks by reformatting existing database tables using a schema definition file.
Laravel Collective – The LaravelCollective is a repository of packages and tools that help you optimize your applications. It provides everything from coders to mailing services, allowing you to bundle external libraries into your projects easily.
Laravel Scaffolding – Scaffolding makes it easy for developers to build entire databases, create controllers to handle requests, and more with little effort. The framework comes included with all the basic components that most applications require, such as authentication and CSRF protection.
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