Book Review: CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development
When I first discovered CodeIgniter, I was overcome with glee after following the video tutorials. It all worked. There was no need to rely on any command-line interaction to "automagically" build my application for me. There was no dependence on PEAR or any other outside resources. There was just CodeIgniter. And it worked.
As soon as I got a grasp on what it was doing and why, I dove into
the excellent User Guide and began to feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
This felt like home. The user guide is written in such a
non-intimidating manner that it invites even the most timid of PHP
developers. To this day, I still refer to the user guide when I forget
specific syntax or function names and it's a guick in-and-out routine.
Nothing at all complex about it.
Not too long ago I came across a book by Packt Publishing called
'CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development'. At first, I thought to
myself, "Why?". The combination of the user guide, the forum and
CodeIgniter's well structured code is surely enough for anybody to
learn, right? What could this book have that any potential developer
could not obtain through these natural resources?
Throughout the fifteen chapters in the book, the author walks you
through building a functional application from start to finish (well,
at least as finished as any web application truly is). At first I
thought the choice of the application to build was rather odd, but as I
continued reading the book, I realized it was a good example because of
the wide array of helpers, libraries and other standard CodeIgniter
components and logic the application uses. Specifically, the example
application provides a way to monitor several different aspects of
remote websites by performing tests and generating reports. The author
does a great job of walking the reader through the process step by step
while explaining why and how the various CodeIgniter components are
being used.
However, I did find the odd spelling error here and there and I
don't necessarily agree with outputting HTML from a model, but overall
this book is a great addition to the natural resources that the user
guide and forum provide. For the albeit few people that immediately jump into the forums asking "how do I..."
without taking a little time to read through the user guide, this book will be of no advantage. For those who have read the user guide start to finish and are looking for some supplemental reading to continue their advancement with the CodeIgniter framework, this book certainly does the trick.
Comments:
Khoa on 08/09/2008 `at` 03:38 AM:
This is a good book. I use it in combination with the user_guide. It definitely explains more things than those stated on the user guide. Expecially there are still not many books about CI out there.
aan on 08/05/2008 `at` 04:07 AM:
I love it size, so small and I can learn it easily. Beside that, of course I love to learn it because I don't need to learn any markup language anymore, just PHP and traditional web language that we has been learned, and now I can focus on my application. And hei, as the added bonus I think, in previous project I'm used tinybutstrong and TBS can easily adapted.. Sorry for my English ;-)
sunu wibirama on 05/16/2008 `at` 07:08 AM:
I have download it from rapidshare. You can access it freely here : http://wibirama.com/download/codeigniter_2008.pdf Regards, Sunu Wibirama (INDONESIA)
Jauhari on 02/28/2008 `at` 09:47 AM:
I hope some one can give me the completes codes, because I try to following each tutorial and fund problem :(
Jesse Terry on 12/31/2007 `at` 02:52 AM:
BoltClock - They have it available to purchase as an E-Book (PDF).
BoltClock on 12/27/2007 `at` 04:55 AM:
I want that book so badly but they don't sell it at all here in Singapore. Sucks to be me.
Andreas on 12/23/2007 `at` 12:13 PM:
I have to agree fully with your enthusiasm Jesse, CodeIgniter feels like home. I've been looking at frameworks for the last 8 years, nothing has really been interesting until this simple, elegant piece of work. CodeIgniter is the closest to "getting it right" I've seen so far! PHP programmers out there, if you like to keep things simple and structured, look no further.