laravel 5,am I including too much libraries? - php

Question

I am new to Laravel, and I have started working on Laravel 5.x( the current version on the question date). My app uses bunch of libraries, including Amazon MWS library, a parser and many more, see this image for an idea
these seems to be a lot of folder, and including Laravel Framework folder...
many of these built in options would never by used by me directly and intentionally..Also, say from a library, I would use only one method (tojson method from a lib for example)
Already admitted, I am new to Laravel, and from my native understanding, only parts of libraries are included when called..
So, my basic question is,
When and HOW do you know you are including too much ?
How you people manage this??
thanks...and sorry if my question seems offensive to anyone, I believe its directly relating to programming and will help many others like me too..

Answer 1

There's no problem with including many libraries.
Requiring and installing libraries doesn't create overhead in itself, as that code is executed only when you use it. Also most of the libraries in the vendor directory are Laravel dependencies.
If you look at the framework's composer.json file and you'll see that Laravel already has a lot of dependencies as it uses a lot of Symfony components for the core, Monolog for logging, SwiftMailer for sending emails, and the list goes on:
"require": {
"php": ">=5.5.9",
"ext-mbstring": "*",
"ext-openssl": "*",
"classpreloader/classpreloader": "~3.0",
"doctrine/inflector": "~1.0",
"jeremeamia/superclosure": "~2.2",
"league/flysystem": "~1.0",
"monolog/monolog": "~1.11",
"mtdowling/cron-expression": "~1.0",
"nesbot/carbon": "~1.20",
"paragonie/random_compat": "~1.4",
"psy/psysh": "0.7.*",
"swiftmailer/swiftmailer": "~5.1",
"symfony/console": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/debug": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/finder": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/http-foundation": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/http-kernel": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/polyfill-php56": "~1.0",
"symfony/process": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/routing": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/translation": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"symfony/var-dumper": "2.8.*|3.0.*",
"vlucas/phpdotenv": "~2.2"
},
Just install whatever you need, there's no limit to how many libraries you use as long as your code is written properly.