title: Laravel 4 difference between URL::asset() and asset()
body: <p>For loading assets in Laravel 4 projects there is a <a href="http://laravel.com/docs/helpers#urls">helper</a> to create a URL for an asset</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-html prettyprint-override"><code>&lt;link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ asset('css/styles.css') }}" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But that helper could be called using a facade too</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-html prettyprint-override"><code>&lt;link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ URL::asset('css/styles.css') }}" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which produce the same result.</p>
  
  <p>So my question is, which is the real difference here, one way is better in terms of performance than the other or is just a preference style ??</p>