Well, for my last project in my Advanced Web Technologies class, I’ve decided to dive into object-oriented PHP and learn the CodeIgniter framework. There are a number of popular PHP frameworks out there, including Zend and CakePHP, but CodeIgniter seems like a good option due to its large, helpful user community, as well the extensive amount of documentation available. It’s also known as user-friendly, and therefore is a good option for newer developers.
I began my foray into CodeIgniter by watching some tutorials on Nettuts, which is a great site for all sorts of web development tutorials and articles. I also spent some quality time today with the online PHP manual, boning up on object-oriented PHP syntax and concepts. I got somewhat more than halfway through the OOP section in the manual, and I’ll read the rest as I have time. I’ve certainly learned enough to get started with CodeIgniter, anyway. Thanks to the Java class I’m taking this semester most of the concepts are familiar, so it is just necessary to learn the PHP syntax as well as the specifics of implementation.
The Nettuts tutorials are organized into 17 sections, starting with the basics of the Model-View-Controller pattern, which was new to me. I have to say though, I like it already! It’s just so clean in how it separates the different functional parts of web programming- the database, the server-side scripting, and the client-side display. Plus, the built-in libraries for CodeIgniter reduce the amount of repetitive code you need to write and allow for tighter, cleaner code. I’d love to try CI out tonight and start using it for my project, but unfortunately I have a couple of assignments I need to finish for other classes. Tomorrow evening though I’ll pick up with where I left off at tutorial three, and actually try out CI for myself.