Unfortunately the documentation does make it look like you need docker to get started. You don’t though. A litter further down in the docs there is a section for using just Composer, if you’re still interested in checking it out: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x#installation-via-composer
I haven't used PHP since ~2002/2003 so I wasn't aware of Composer, but this seems more along the lines of the original Rails tutorials which used gem to install rails.
I think learning things with as few components as possible is an important part of actually learning what you're working with, rather than just turning knobs.
Alive and well. And if you haven’t seen the surrounding laravel ecosystem in 4-5 years I think you will be quite impressed. The amount of 1st party integrations and side projects is amazing.
