Laravel 5.1 with LTS is released

I&#x27;m super excited about Laravel 5.1<p>We&#x27;ve been using it with Cachet (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cachethq&#x2F;cachet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cachethq&#x2F;cachet</a>) for a couple of weeks. Mainly it was to make testing our API easier, the new PHPUnit extensions are so freaking amazing - it makes unit testing a dream.<p>Other than that, other cool features I like are the LTS, dropping of the mcrypt extension requirement and also the broadcasting feature (which is worth checking out btw)<p>Also this release contains some code that I&#x27;ve committed too, which is always a nice feeling :)

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;laravel.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;5.1&#x2F;releases#laravel-5.1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;laravel.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;5.1&#x2F;releases#laravel-5.1</a><p><pre><code> In previous versions of Laravel, encryption was handled by the mcrypt PHP extension. However, beginning in Laravel 5.1, encryption is handled by the openssl extension, which is more actively maintained. </code></pre> This is easily my favorite aspect of the new release. Please, everyone else, follow their example and stop using mcrypt in your projects.

Just upgraded a large 5 to 5.1 codebase in under 5 minutes (4 of that was composer ;) ) and everything passed functional testing.<p>Outstanding work and the new docs are an excellent improvement.

This is a great idea. My main gripe (on a very short evaluation) with Laravel is that the default application that artisan gives you comes with a lot of files dotted around the directory structure. With something like Rails these tend to be locked away in a gem and so when using CTRL+T (or similar) you get a lot of cruft popping up.<p>That said I do like the things that Laravel gives you out of the box like auth and the command pattern.

By extension, would Lumen (Laravel&#x27;s micro framework sibling) also now have LTS releases?

How many other Frameworks offer LTS releases?<p>Plenty are mature enough to offer this, but commercial backing must be hard to come by.

Being the first release offering LTS is fantastic news for the community.

Too bad it is still slow as a glacier.

Why space? Why not tabs? Why do I need to press 10 times space instead of 2 times the tab?

As interesting as LTS support is, 2 years is frankly very short.<p>I&#x27;m used to thinking of LTS support in terms of 4-5 years. I suspect everyone else is too and Laravel is going to piss off everyone who doesn&#x27;t read the fine print.