No, it doesn't run on PHP 7.2!

The neoan-core Lenkrad doesn't play the compatibility game. Being backward compatible to older PHP versions or playing nicely with a plethora of ecosystems is a challenge that not only slows down development, but results in verbose usage and unoptimized core code.

I wanted to have a framework for the next generation. I wanted to finally have a framework that let's me write business logic the way I want it to behave.

Let's compare:

In Laravel, I need a migration and a model to make the Eloquent ORM work:

the migration

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('name');
            $table->string('password');
            $table->string('email')->unique();
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::drop('users');
    }
};

And the model

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class User extends Model
{

    protected $table = 'users';
}

We might be used to this, but what we really want to write is:

class User extends Model
{
   #[IsPrimaryKey]
   public readonly int $id;
   public string $name;

   #[Transform(Hash::class)]
   public string $password;

   #[IsUnique]
   public string $email;

   use Timestamps;
}

The advantage is not only easier reference and less verbose code. Your IDE will be able to better help you with navigating objects through auto-completion:

$user = new User();
$user->name = 'Adam'; // name was suggested, as it's a property of the model class
...

Interested?

If you have PHP8.1 and interested in seeing how a framework could actually make your life easier, try it out:

composer create-project neoan.io/starter-project [my-app]

The package is light in dependencies and up & running in seconds. Feedback highly appreciated!