Obsessed with Laravel instead of PHP - Only for BD Developers

This article is only for Bangladeshi developers. In recent days I have done some research in the Bangladeshi job market. And I just went crazy to see how it’s doing very bad thing to the community. I just picked PHP related professional industry. I also got some bad experience to see jobs, interviewing some candidates, researching some websites. Mostly in Bangladesh, Laravel has a huge demand in the web development industry. Even developers and companies are seriously (wrongfully) obsessed with Laravel instead of PHP.

Sounds funny, right? Yes, it is. Let me explain something later in the article and I am sure that you will feel very BS to see what’s going on. Keep reading the entire article.

Laravel & PHP

Laravel is a framework written in PHP programming language. So generally best & skilled PHP developers will be good at Laravel. It’s natural. So companies needs to look PHP developer and their PHP related skill, not only Laravel skill.

My findings & why it’s BS to be obsessed with Laravel instead of PHP

1. One page simple website built on Laravel

I just discovered few one-page website that is built with #Laravel. For example, http://event.mujib100.gov.bd/. Even to develop those one page dynamic website is easier and less hassle if built with raw PHP instead of any framework. It means, developers finds themselves more comfortable working with Laravel even it’s just a Hello World type stuff. So they don’t feel comfortable or don’t know how to do stuff in raw PHP without any framework.
This is self destructing.

2. Job Posting for Laravel without PHP as skill

I also discovered some interesting but very annoying job posting. I search with “Laravel” keyword in bdjobs and I just feel miserable.

Companies now post #job with title “Laravel Developer” where in the entire job description there is no #PHP.

For example, https://jobs.bdjobs.com/jobdetails.asp?id=884411

So if this is the case, then how Bangladeshi developers will developer their own career because of this types of companies. Lack of adopting or promoting diversification in software stack.

Companies now post job with title “Laravel & Android developer”. One is a PHP framework and another one is a mobile OS. For example, https://jobs.bdjobs.com/jobdetails.asp?id=883717

There are over hundreds of that types of reference I can manage. But it will take time to mention all of them.

3. As an Interviewer, I got more horrible answers

I got a chance to attend in a interview board to recruit talents (PHP developer). One candidate asked 60K monthly salary. I got confused and I asked him that “What’s the difference between Laravel & PHP”. Of course it’s a BS question. But that candidate told me that “Sir, I am not experienced in PHP but I have 3 years+ experience in Laravel.”. I instantly told him to get out. Insane.

Summery

You must need to learn the programming language first. Then framework. Also you should use framework based on the project requirements. If someone ask you to print “Hello World” you don’t need to start your Laravel project. Complete BS. This must needs to be changed.