The Definitive Guide to symfony (Paperback)

~ Fabien Potencier (Author), François Zaninotto (Author)
Key Phrases: administration generator, symfony project, php echo link, List of Posts, List of Articles, John Doe (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Developing a new web application should not mean reinventing the wheel. That's why a framework is an essential item in your development toolbox. It helps you respect coding standards; write bulletproof, maintainable code; and focus on business rules rather than waste time on repetitive tasks. This book introduces you to symfony, the leading framework for PHP developers, showing you how to wield its many features to develop web applications faster and more efficiently, even if you only know a bit of PHP.

In The Definitive Guide to symfony, you will learn about the Model-View-Controller architecture and the crucial role it plays in making frameworks like symfony possible. The book also covers framework installation and configuration, and shows you how to build pages, deal with templates, manage requests and sessions, and communicate with databases and servers. You will see how symfony can make your life easier by effectively managing form data, enhancing the user experience with Ajax, internationalizing applications for a global audience, and using smart URLs. Authors François Zaninotto and Fabien Potencier put a strong emphasis on the tools that symfony provides for professional environments, showing you how to take advantage of unit tests, scaffolding, plug-ins, the command line, and extensible configuration. And since frameworks often raise performance-related debate, this book will give you many tips and techniques for monitoring and improving your application's performance, from caching to expert configuration tweaks.

Always keen to offer practical instruction, the authors include a lot of code examples, expert tips, best practices, and illustrations throughout this book, with the goal of providing a resource that satisfies the educational needs of symfony's rapidly growing user community.

About the Author

Fabien Potencier

FABIEN POTENCIER is a serial entrepreneur. Since he was ten, he always dreamed of creating and running companies. He started his career with an engineering degree from the French business school Ecole des Mines and an MBA in entrepreneurship from HEC Paris. In 1998, right after graduation, Fabien founded his very first company with a fellow student. The company was a web agency focused on simplicity and open source technologies, and was called Sensio. His acute technical knowledge and his endless curiosity won him the confidence of many big French corporate companies. While Sensio kept growing (at the time of writing, it has more than 30 employees), Fabien started other businesses: an indoor go-kart circuit in Lille, France, an auto spare parts e-commerce shop, and an autopilot training business riding on the most famous French racetracks. Fabien is the main developer of the symfony framework and is responsible for 95% of its code. Today, Fabien spends most of his time as Sensio's CEO and as the symfony project leader.

François Zaninotto

FRANÇOIS ZANINOTTO is a consultant and project manager for Internet application projects. He graduated from the French business school Ecole des Mines in 1997 with a specialization in computer science. He tried quite a few jobs before settling on the Internet business: social worker in a children's facility, manager of a bike rental shop, web project manager for a tire manufacturer, writer of a travel guide on Germany for the same tire manufacturer, logistician for Médecins Sans Frontières, and IT architect for a consumer credit company. He joined the Sensio web agency in 2003, and since then has managed many Internet and intranet web application projects, dealing with complex usability issues, agile development methodologies, and cutting-edge web techniques. When the symfony project started, he took responsibility for the documentation, and wrote the symfony online book and tutorials.

Product Details

• Paperback: 425 pages
• Publisher: Apress (January 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590597869
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597866
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #242,864 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-have for Symfony users!, March 10, 2007

By	Douglas Choma - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The power of this amazing framework is truly revealed after you see how much thought has gone into its planning and documentation. I have been using the Symfony framework for six months with great success, but this book has given me a new perspective on Symfony's capabilities. PHP has been a mainstay in my web design business for almost 10 years, and I've used a number of different libraries and frameworks over the years. But nothing I've tried has come close to Symfony. The framework takes out the drudgery of common tasks like form processing and database/object interactions; and it does it in a way that is highly configurable. This book and framework have made web programming fun again.

Each chapter walks you through an important framework element from installation and setup to advanced features (cache control, plugin development, optimizing applications). It's written by two of the framework's lead developers. I would consider it a must-have for anyone using the Symfony framework.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Also available online, August 8, 2007

By	R. Duarte "rahjicom" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well written and understandable for such a large chunk of software. You can be the judge yourself, of course, by reading it online before you buy the hard copy. I'd definitely recommend having the real thing if you're just starting with symfony though.. you can't dogear or bookmark the online version.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imperitive for the Aspiring Symfony Developer, November 1, 2007

By	dancablam (Dallas, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

I'm a freelancer that was in search of a framework that would allow me to expeditiously develop applications for my clients, without sacrificing reliability. After researching several PHP-based MVC frameworks, I landed on symnfony due to its comprehensive set of features, strong OOP support, PHP5 utilization, and (very importantly) the great documentation. Yes, this book is available in web format online - but I'm very glad I made the purchase so I could learn the framework as I traveled, and it's much easier to use as a reference (I have it sprawled across my desk as I type this review). If you're looking for a great framework, I'm convinced symfony is it. And if you're looking to learn symfony, and have a resource as you build your skills, this book is what you'll need. The only caviat is, if you have no Object-Oriented programming experience, I would recommend you pick up "Objects, Patterns, & Practice" by Apress before learning symfony.