We’re not only creators of awesome websites, but bespoke webapplications as well. Systems for internal use, complex couplings between software and websites, API’s and other terminology that could only come from a thesaurus. View it as custom software; online. To build awesome webapplications we use the popular PHP Framework Laravel. We think it’s supercool, and we’d like to tell you why.
Laravel == Draad
Laravel is a framework for developers. This means that its’ focus is on writing beautiful, testable and reusable code. Absolutely no-nonsense and straight-to-the-point. Just like us. Laravel allows us to quickly prototype an application, which in turn allows us to quickly see if a solution is going to work or if we have to steer the development into a different direction. This ensures that we can keep the development process extremely flexible, new insights are the norm. Agile, as we like to call it. On top of that it also matches up perfectly with almost every modern webtechnology, which makes it the perfect addition to our toolbelt.
Testdriven development with Laravel
A huge advantage of Laravel is that it allows us to test our applications before we’ve even built them. By designing our application up front and beginning with the writing of tests, we can solve problems before we encounter them. We write these tests in the terms that are native to your business; basically exactly like you would describe them. This allows you to check up on the progress of the applications’ development based on the agreed-upon functionalities!
Writing is condensing
Ask any great writer what the secret to great writing is and they’ll all tell you the same: “Remove fluff. Condense your stuff.”. This same principle carries over to the modern practice of writing code. By writing code per functionality and making it workable in its’ most basic form, we encounter and tackle problems in an early stage of development. This doesn’t only lead to code that’s easily testable and transferable, but it also allows us to step into your shoes and think along with what you want. New insights are the norm, not the exception. Because sometimes, as a customer, you just don’t know how the details will fit together up-front.
Show us what you’ve got!
Enough boring write-up about terribly complex matter that — let’s face it — is only interesting to developers. You’re here to see what we can do, whether that’s through using Laravel or WordPress. We’ve built up an extensive collection of super awesome webapplications. We’d love to tell you why Laravel is putting the icing on the cake for each and every webapplication we’ve made. Seeing is believing!
Everyone can join in Doetinchem
The dutch municipality of Doetinchem has an awesome vision: every inhabitant must be able to join in sports, culture and other activities. Regardless of income. That’s exactly what the Meedoenarrangement does: inhabitants with a low income receive points, which they can use for buying products supplied by participating organisations. Picture train trickets, tickets for the public pool or a membership for their favorite soccer team. A beautiful system, with one big challenge: the application must be built in 3 months.
We started the project with Laravel, with a product that exactly matches the vision of Doetinchem. Early in the process we defined all possible steps in scenario’s and then converted these to tests. This gave us some wiggling room to implement improvements and add-ons along the way, which made the application even better. With every prototype that we showed we could specify exactly how far we’d progressed within the scenario’s thanks to these tests. The result is an infallible system which is used by over 4.000 inhabitants of the municipality of Doetinchem. Check it out for yourself atmeedoenarrangement.nl
An online parts list program
You know the days; you’re designing an enormous technical installation, but your colleagues on the other side of the world have to calculate the weight of the base of this installation. They log in through a VPN-connection and have to wait 30 seconds before they see each mouse movement on the screen.
No? You haven’t had a day like this? Our customer encountered this problem daily. In a matter of hours we were watching along with the inner workings of the current application, which by the way had its’ roots 1994, and thinking along with new functionalities. We built this entire parts list program as a webapplication with Laravel. By doing this, every day tens of employees from across the world can simultaneously work in this system which has very critical information and must be available 24/7. As an extra advantage we were able to increase the speed of special functionalities like exporting all products to Excel and calculating the weight of all products within a list by 30 times. Now we’re talking internet
Connecting WordPress and an API
Imagine you’re a recruiter. All your vacancies are listed in a system, all applicants have an account and you have devoted the rest of your day to handle all incoming applications. Before you know it it’s 4pm, you handled only three applications and you have a new highscore in bejeweled. What went wrong?
The problem is that you have a beautiful website, with information about your company and an awesome application to handle your vacancies. But the two do not communicate with eachother. The vacancies do not show up on your website, and (potential) applicants aren’t able to respond through your website. Our client encountered this problem and wanted a solution. With Laravel we created a layer that connects the WordPress website with the API of the vacancy application. Because Laravel is very flexible we were able to build a system that perfectly communicates with two entirely different systems. All vacancies are now shown on the website, and you can even apply to a vacancy through the website with your CV and motivation letter!
Processing huge amounts of data
Affiliate marketing, a term that you encountered literally everywhere just a few years ago. Our client was struck by this and had the idea to create a website to sell mobile phones and contracts as an affiliate. To make money with a site like this you need to offer all of the contracts with all of the providers. These providers supply the data to the affiliate marketeer every day. The problem is that some of these files are nearing a gigabyte in size.
We created a system in Laravel that automatically imports and processes these giant files. This ensures that the website is always up-to-date with the latest data from the telecomproviders. It became a blazing fast system that can import huge amounts of data both efficient and correct. This resulted in a database of several gigabytes in size, which didn’t bother the front-end of the website (also built in Laravel) a bit.
Support of a community
Laravel is open source and is maintained by over 1300 developers, of which our Rudi is one. Laravel is based on the huge Symfony framework, which in turn is supported by over 1400 developers. Laravel’s popularity can be derived from the huge amount of plugins and components which are available as open source. From exporting to Excel to creating a connection with Twitter, just name it and there will be a plugin to support it. As the cherry on top Laravel releases a LTS (Long Term Support) version which will receive bug- and security fixes for two year and offers a tool to (almost completely) automate the process of upgrading to the latest version.
Safety first
Especially with webapplications it’s hugely important that safety is guaranteed. Laravel is developed with this idea in mind and uses the latest security techniques. All data is sent encoded and all known attacks are deflected. Oftentimes safety makes developing harder and more expensive. The beauty of Laravel is that your are not restricted as a developer because of all the safety features. Almost all security is executed on a layer underneath the application. This ensures that the base of the system is secure, and all communication that the application has with the layers underneath are safe as well.
100% secure does not exist on the internet, but we can make sure that we are always on the cutting edge of security.
Faster than light
We can’t only create everything you could dream of with Laravel, but we can also make it extremely fast! We do this by applying some ingenious optimalizations in the area of data processing and by smartly applying cache. This way we can guarantee a rapid loading time for the visitor / user!
