Welcome to Bludit

Blog Written by Saurabh Mishra - Developer

Have you ever analyzed how a website operates? What all happens behind the user interface that you use? Don't worry, I've got all the reasons and facts as to why Laravel is the best framework in 2022.

As you might be aware, PHP is one of the most popular languages that is used in the back-end server development process.

What is PHP? PHP is a scripting language, short for Hypertext Preprocessor. Now, What does the framework provide? The framework provides a structure to build your applications. Over a hundred and thirty-five thousand websites on the internet today have been built using the Laravel Framework. The reason why Laravel remains the best PHP-based framework is that it functions entirely with the support of the MVC (Model View Controller) and has various other features that not only make it easy to use but also trouble-free coding knowledge when you design a website.

So what is Laravel?

Laravel is a free and open-source web-based PHP framework that was developed by Taylor Otwell in June 2011. With the most recent release of Laravel Version 8, the framework has become all the more powerful and robust with advanced coding techniques being simplified. It is preferred by web development companies world-over because of its stability, robustness, consistency, and usability. Why Laravel?

1. Blade Template Engine

Developing websites mostly requires the use of a template engine that acts as a medium by which many textual data can be handled by web applications. Laravel comes with the Blade template engine. The blade template engine offers to provides a structure for creating and viewing a file containing conditions and loops using easy techniques.

2. MVC Architecture

MVC (Model View Controller) eases the herculean tasks of creating big and small applications by simplifying the structure of the code being used in the development of the website. Laravel is best known for its feature of MVC. Laravel’s MVC comes with a number of integrated features, vast security scalability, and enhanced app performance that makes Laravel apps more powerful.

3. Eloquent ORM

ORM stands for Object Relational Mapping. It is used by PHP developers to write Database Queries using PHP syntax. Laravel is the only framework that uses the Eloquent ORM to construct and modify templates according to the needs of the developer. This ORM is comparatively faster than most of the other commonly used PHP frameworks.

4. App Testing using PHPUnit Laravel offers complete testing facilities using PHPUnit and this helps in building bug-free web design applications. The ability of Laravel to execute multiple tests at once is not offered by any other framework singularly.

Laravel is now being preferred by developers all across the world over all other frameworks. If your website is not built on Laravel, now is the time to move to the new best option in the market.

If you have an idea in mind, we at icrewsystems Software Engineering LLP. can bring it to life. Feel free to write to us at hello@icrewsystems.com and we’ll be more than happy to materialize your idea and mold it into a website.

Do visit our website https://www.icrewsystems.com/ to get an insight of the other features we offer along with a full-fledged zero-fuss website.

Thanks for reading.

Saurabh Mishra,

Developer.

Software testing is a method of determining whether the actual software product meets the expected requirements and ensuring that the software product is free of defects. A properly tested software product ensures dependability, security, and high performance, which leads to time savings, cost effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.

Benefits of software testing 

#1 Saves you money 

 Testing throughout the development process of the software will save you money and time. The longer a bug goes undetected in your software, the more difficult and expensive it is to fix it. By employing software  testing, you will save time and money after deployment.

#2 Prevents catastrophic corporate emergenices 

With corporate software, the stakes are even higher. Bugs in corporate software can lead to system blackouts, missing data, and communication breakdowns. If you are employing software throughout a company or to handle sensitive information, you had better be sure that the software is going to work exactly how it needs to work.

#3 Satisfaction of the customer 

Software testing offers the prerequisite and perfect user experience. The primary objective of the owner of the products is to offer the best satisfaction of the customers. If you fail to give the same, users are going to find another product which will accomplish all the requirements. You can earn a reputation of reliable clients by using software testing.

#4 Easy while adding new features 

Tests counteract the tendency for code to calcify, making it difficult to change. As a new developer, changing older parts of your codebase can be terrifying, but with tests, you'll at least know if you've broken anything important. This helps in making your software stand ahead in the market, and beat the competition.

Types and Levels of Testing

Testing practices can be divided e.g. into white box and black box testing, where the former requires some knowledge of the source code, whereas the latter has only the user interface available. Integration testing is usually executed to make sure that new code added to version control does not break existing interfaces.

Test Automation 

Tests can be executed manually, but repetitive, scheduled tasks should be automated whenever possible.Most common test automation tools are Selenium and Robot Framework. Selenium can be used to simulate user input in several programming languages (Python, Java, Ruby, Javascript), on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. Robot Framework's Selenium2Library utilizes the Python bindings of Selenium to enable using the capabilities of selenium via keywords.

Test Driven Development

Test Driven Development (TDD) is a software development practice that focuses on creating unit test cases before developing the actual code. The primary intention of this technique is to modify or write new code only if the tests fail. This prevents duplication of test scripts and allows developers to obtain optimized code.

Behavior Driven Development

Behavior-driven development is a testing practice that follows the idea of specification by example (e.g., Test-Driven Development [TDD]). The idea is to describe how the application should behave in a very simple user/business-focused language.  BDD’s business-focused perspective on application behavior allows teams to create living documentation that is easy to maintain and can be consumed by all team members, including testers, developers, and product owners.

Conclusion

With the aid of software testing, it is possible to monitor whether the software is compatible with your browser. In case, you gain success in finding any error, you will be able to rectify the same. This means that you will gain a high prominence slowly but gradually.

The entire staff of a software company should be involved in testing, not just the QA personnel. Quality assurance should be the core of software development 

effort. Sales personnel should be aware of the benefits of testing when they convince customers to pay for testing. Managers should always keep in mind the importance of testing.

Deploying software is always considered as a head ache, because developers like the phrase "it works well on my machine" way too much. The reason for that phrase is, the developer machines are well configured with all the required tools, tweaks and quirks.

But in all fairness, deployment is a phase that eventually comes while building any software. For novice developers, it might be a nightmare of a thought to deploy their code to the world-wide-web, but it does not have to be. In this blog, I'll show you a glance at how we push software to production and what are the precautions we take to make sure everything is under control.

Step 0: The "Production Branch"
I'm going to assume you already know what version control systems are and how they work. For deploying, it's always recommended that you checkout the latest, tested code to a branch called "production". At icrew, only the Lead Engineers are authorized to merge / commit into the production branch. By that convention, we can ensure that the code that's being added onto the production branch, is reviewed by an experienced developer.

Step 1: Preparing the server

You need to make sure you have a few things sorted out before you begin the deployment. They are

1. Database - Create a database, user & password and store the credentials on your computer, which will be required when you're installing your application. (How to create a database in cPanel)
   
   
2. Emails - Create an email address called "no-reply@YOURDOMAIN.com". This will serve as your email ID for all outgoing emails from your Laravel application. Once you have created, copy the (How to setup E-mails in cPanel).
   
   
3. HTTPS / SSL - It's very important that you have an SSL certificate installed on your domain. This makes sure that the interactions between your application, users & the server is encrypted. Certain hosting providers provide Life time FREE SSL (Self Signed) for all plans, like GemHosting, UK.
   
   
4. Subdomains? - If your application makes use of subdomains, you should create them too and point it to the public_html folder (where our application will live).

For Laravel applications, you need to make sure you have SSH access into your server. If you use shared hosting, most of the providers don't enable it by default for you, therefore you have to specifically request it to them.

If you're unfamiliar with how to create an SSH Keypair, go to this article

Step 2: "The actual deploying"

Now that you have the server fully configured and ready to accomodate our application, we can go ahead and clone the code onto the serve, for which we'll use the following commands

$ cd public_html
$ git clone REPOSITORY_URL -b BRANCH_NAME .

Example:

$ git clone https://github.com/icrewsystemsofficial/covid19resources.git -b production .

The "." will make sure the application is deployed onto the public_html folder. For this to work, you need to also make sure that the public_html folder is empty.


(From this screenshot, you can see that the code is cloned into the public_html folder)

Now, we have the application cloned, we need to install the dependencies by running
 
$ composer install
$ npm install && npm run prod

You might as well grab a coffee while it takes to compile.

Once that's done, you should be running a few more commands

$ cp .env.example .env (this copies the .env.example file into a new file called .env)
$ php artisan key:generate
$ nano .env (this opens the nano text editor on your terminal)
 
Now, paste the database & mailing credentials which we created and stored in Step 1 in their respective places, and then set your application mode to "production", by editing the APP_ENV=production and APP_DEBUG=false. This will make sure your application does not reveal any confidential information on the live server.

And Voila! Your application is live.

Here's a secret tip!

I use Terminus SSH app on my phone. This is a lifesaver when you're on the go. The app allows me to SSH into my servers anytime I want. The best part is, it's synced to my computer, so I don't need to do any additional setup on my computer.

It's a paid subscription with a trial period, I was very skeptical in the beginning, but now I don't see a life without the app. https://termius.com

Hey folks! I’m glad you’re back here for another episode of reading what I ramble on and on about how great the company I work for is. "Great" is an understatement. it’s more like “awesome”.  icrewsystems is on its track to surpassing the word "awesome" and moving on to becoming "grandeur". The first step to becoming a grandeur establishment for ANY startup is launching into an office. Innit?

Our office is based in Porur, Chennai and our developers proudly call it “THE ARTISAN HOUSE”. Cool, isn’t it? ironically, that’s what we do. Coding is a thriving art. We make our client’s imaginations into a web world; a whole new realm. It wholly deserves to be called that; owing it to our artists giving their best, day in and day out.

                                 
                 (here's a super wide-angle shot of our "office" laptop that's in velvet red)

Unlike any other office that has fancy lights, hardwood desks and corner office rooms, we have something that no other office could possibly have: The Ambience (read that again, but in a french accent ;]) it stands as meaning to the words calm and collected. Don’t even get me started on the surroundings. we have a desks and chairs. Keeping it simple I would say. but what is interesting is that we set up a lounge; a very classy one. You can literally experience the work from home concept even when you’re not at home. Here's a picture from our early days, while we were setting up the place. Red for glam, green for calm.

Cherry and Classy isn’t it? who knew we’d find the pot of luck on the end of our rainbow. Every office has a munching counter. You know what I mean, the long coffee breaks of course. We instated a fully equipped kitchen to meet our munching needs.

Okay, you're probably wondering why I said "AMAZING", fancy couches, rugs, munching corners and super cozy bean bags. What else am I missing?

Oh, I forgot to mention, there's a huge lake right outside the porch!!! The best for the last as always. I never realised how magnificent a sunset can be until I stood there on the porch, awe struck. It was the perfect ending to anyone who would go home after a long day’s coding & debugging.

There's just something magnificent about looking at the colorful sky, and getting reminded that no matter how hard the day was, it's now time to unwind and relax, and since we're a startup, we make more rules to party! Guess what? Everytime we push a release to production, we celebrate with a Pizza Party :D

I’m person who’s been to my fair share of offices for internships and part time jobs. It was a toxic relationship with every single one of it. Let me explain why. I always loved doing the job, but hours and hours of sitting in an air-conditioned room isolated from day light. let’s talk about how it degenerates your physical health and the fact that it affects your mental well-being.

I know what I feels like to not know what’s happening out the windows next to your computer; is it still day? is it raining? has the sun finally started to crumble like a cookie and the apocalypse is finally happening? you’d miss the apocalypse because you got stuck doing the excel report you promised your boss that will be on his desk by the end of the day. Really? is that the story you want to tell your kids when they ask you about the day the earth stood still? No! YOU deserve better.

You are entitled to much more when you join us. Our motto is “work hard, party harder”. We put that in action every single day. If you don’t take my words for it, why don’t you come down to the office one day and see it yourself? Also prepared to be blown away. Here’s the address:

“The Artisan House” 10/108, CSI Church St, Jaya Nagar, Porur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600116.

Also, don't forget to bring pizza to the party!

The best time of the year? Without question, it is Christmas and new year’s. Duh. It's something everybody looks forward to and this time the wait was too pressing; you know why, the pandemic, of course, and Christmas and new year seemed like the only light of hope and joy at the end of the tunnel. Just as everybody was getting ready for their big break, so were we. Few days before Christmas, working on our laptops, constantly discussing code, out of the blue, Leonard had an interesting thought.

He said “Let’s have a Christmas party!”

The very second, there ain’t a single thought in my head except every single cell in my body screaming “heck yeah”. Sounding too desperate? Well, don’t tell me you wouldn’t say yes after being locked up in the house for almost 1 year straight. It was a miracle that we didn’t lose our minds then. Given the chance, you grab it by the horns without a second thought. That’s what we did.

Hence the planning started.

Questions like “where to go?”, “what to wear?”, “good time to have a party?” were the only ones that kept tumbling our guts like clothes in a dryer.

Let’s just say, I could bet against all odds and could possibly manage to wear a “nice enough” dress, the real puzzle is about to go WHERE? WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?  …… yeah, you guessed right, it’s an echo effect (lol). Who am I kidding asking questions? The icrew team is a friggin genius bunch. I knew they’d figure it out. But you know how it always is. Plans kept fluctuating. It was hard to find a good place to have a corporate office party. And after burrowing every nook and corner of the city we found the one!

It was a perfect barbeque joint at the OMR called “Big Barbeque”. I’m telling you this place is LIT.

 It wasn’t too crowded, wasn’t very empty, it was just perfect. Then comes the tail of the plan, right? Saving the date. It wasn’t easy to fix a date coz icrew never takes a break. They work shedding every ounce if energy keeping clients happy all over the world. It was difficult to take time off as they always work around the clock satisfying clients of various time zones. You know what they say, the right time to fix a time comes at the right time. Don’t give me that look, I know they don’t say that but that’s how it was. We fixed the right time and date only at the last minute and after that everything else fell into place. We reserved the largest table at the joint for December 26^th, 7 pm. I was the first one there, sharp at 7 pm, on the dot. I got settled at our table, grabbed a drink from the bar, and looking at the entrance, I waited.

And waited

And waited

And waited. Oh, wait there’s more waiting

And waited.

All there was left to do was either to walk around looking at all the mouth-watering exquisite delicious spread staring into my soul saying “it’s okay. Take a bite. A bite Is all its takes”.  Ahh, the temptation. I could’ve, I would’ve when my heart said yes, my mind kicked me in right in the medulla and whispered a big fat no. The wait was agonizing. 45 mins later, the fashionably late crowd showed up. Blazing ray of hope. I could hear angels singing “Hallelujah”. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just angels, I even thought I saw the shrimp dancing then. Anyways, we were all there, united under one roof, that’s all that mattered. Do you know what was all worth the wait? Matthew and Saurabh showed up in cute Lil neckties. They looked cute as a button. Leonard, on the other hand, dressed up valiant and dashing.

 There they were, Boys were in it to kill it! Correction; they were men that night, suited up and slayin. It wasn’t just them, we had other guests too. Ananth Pranav, a very close acquaintance, a brainiac when it comes to flutter, the CEO of Ice Cubes, gracefully accepted the invitation and came to the party. Also, what is a party if not with family? My parents came with me to the barbeque joint and had a dinner date for themselves. It was funny how they were trying to not look at me sitting right across the hall. Leonard’s brother Leander and a few of his friends crashed the party. To us, it was more the merrier.

All there’s left to do was rummage the food, which I’ve been dying to do ever since I set foot at the place. I got three words for you; IT. WAS. AMAZING! All the food you can imagine, right from tangy Pani Puri to spiciest biryani to a chocolate fountain that you can never have enough of. We had all sorts of exotic meat too. We toasted to all our ups and downs; all our laughs and cries. This party wasn’t just an escape from reality it was a celebration of all the awesome stuff we created, destroyed, manipulated, and modified. That moment, we raised our glasses to being us and more, I could see smiles across the table; proud ones; the sense of satisfaction to have achieved great things and heartfelt gratitude beaming on their faces. It was the one moment I would never forget. I knew this beginning is going to lead us to bigger destinations.

We ate a very heavy dinner. Appetizers to dessert, it wasn’t just on one table; we ran around the room hunting all delicacies. Honestly, it was way better than sitting in one chair and having to be embarrassed when you accidentally burp. Throughout the dinner, we caught up on stuff we missed the whole year, talking about success acquired all over the globe; US, UK, Barbados, and whatnot, you name it and I can 90% assure you we’ve done projects from there. It probably might seem easy for me to bloat to you now, but I know I appreciate the team for keeping an eye out on all projects around the clock. Being the HR of the company, I remember making crazy announcements like the team must show records of how many hours they sleep at night because I know they don’t. Our team is so dedicated to what they do.

 Hey team, if you’re reading this, listen close up, SHOUT OUT TO YOU GUYS!!! I’m so proud of you all and we’ve got a long way to go. We’ll get to greater heights.

Our tum tums filled, half dozing off, all there’s left to do is take pictures. We gathered in front of the Christmas tree and took one big happy family/ company picture. Full tums + laughter = cherish the day, be proud of your fate and go to bed it's late. So, we bid each other goodbye and went on our way, said to ourselves “until we meet again, another day”

What if I told you that all the alphabets and symbols and characters on your keyboard are actually ingredients of a delicious pizza? I’d say, you rather believe me when I say it. Read that again.

Yes, you read it right. This is just one of the very many perks that an internship or an employment at icrewsystems can get you. Each project you work on comes with the free addition of a pizza as a token of appreciation for all the hard work that you put on coding multi-language code to make a beautiful, fully interactive and creative website which could work wonders.

Our CEO has a very repetitive yet encouraging quote which says,

“You keep me happy and I will ensure that you are extremely happy.” 😊

True to his words, the company ensures that no work and effort goes without an award.

Now you may wonder, I don’t know coding, but this blog reads really tasty. What do I do now? ☹

Well, the internship programmes at icrewsystems shall come in handy for you here. Imagine someone teaching you how to write sophisticated yet awesome code just for free. And then the cherry atop the cake is free Pizzaaaasssssssss. Imagine an internship completion certificate and a letter of recommendation and all the vast knowledge that you will gain alongside the delicious treat. Delicious deal no?

Some of you readers may not really be fond of coding. But imagine getting your fair share of pizzas with extra knowledge and all the more fun that you get as a part of icrewsystems. I’d suggest you reconsider the idea of learning coding maybe for your foodie soul. 😉

Do write to us at hello@icrewsystems.com if you feel butterflies in your stomach after reading this blog.

Written with a delicious slice of pizza in one hand by Saurabh Mishra.