Professional CodeIgniter (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you’re a PHP developer, you can build Rails-like applications without learning a new language by following the hands-on tutorials in Professional CodeIgniter. In this book, find an overview of MVC and agile technologies, model and schema for products, helpers and libraries, Ajax and Scriptaculous, and explanations of the creation of applications like content management, blogs, and forums. Follow the step-by-step instructions for building and perfecting each application with CodeIgniter, and you will learn how to avoid everyday problems that other reference manuals don’t address.

From the Back Cover

Professional Codelgniter®

Welcome to the world of CodeIgniter! CodeIgniter is a powerful and flexible MVC framework for PHP, and it will completely revolutionize the way you build applications. Imagine being able to build complete applications in just a matter of days, being able to respond to client needs with speed and power, and being able to maintain your well-organized code weeks, months, and even years afterward. All of this is now within your grasp thanks to CodeIgniter.

Author and CodeIgniter developer Thomas Myer guides you through building a typical web application with CodeIgniter, introducing important topics from the MVC framework and Agile methodologies along the way. From typical installation and configuration through setup and all phases of a hypothetical project, Myer explains the inner workings of CodeIgniter in a way that will get you up and running quickly. If you're already well-versed in PHP, you'll learn how to take what you already know and apply it to CodeIgniter. In very little time, you'll be using the powerful tools and shortcuts in CodeIgniter to build applications in half the time.

What you will learn from this book

• The basics of models, views, and controllers

• How to take advantage of CodeIgniter's many helpers and libraries

• How to create a working application from inception through launch

• How to apply Agile methodologies to any project

Who this book is for

This book is for developers familiar with PHP and MYSQL who want to become more proficient with CodeIgniter.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wrox (July 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470282452
• ISBN-13: 978-0470282458
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Application Development with CodeIgniter, September 10, 2008

By	Dale Vogel (Burtonsville, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

CodeIgniter is the fastest PHP framework out there, and it works. There are very few bugs in the code. The other thing that CodeIgniter has that other frameworks don't is a good forum and excellent documentation. It has an outstanding Users Guide you can download which lists every function with a code example.

And now, there are two books out on CodeIgniter. I purchased both books, and reviewed "CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development." "Professional CodeIgniter" is a completely different book. I figure folks might want to know the difference before they buy.

"Professional CodeIgniter" walks you through a complete web application from start to finish. The author is an experienced web developer. It is thorough and very detailed. The first chapter introduces you to how to use the MVC architecture with CodeIgniter. The second chapter introduces you to using the Agile development methodologies with a client who needs an ecommerce site. You are inside the head of a web developer as he talks with the client, and draws up what the site will look like on a piece of paper. Then the fun begins. In Chapter 3 you download CodeIgniter and he walks you through laying out the folders and intial configuration of CodeIgniter followed by the initial screen for the site. Other chapters follow:
Chapter 4 - Creating the main web site
Chapter 5 - Building a shopping cart
Chapter 6 - Creating a Dashboard
Chapter 7 - Improving the Dashboard
Chapter 8 - Last Minute Upgrades
Chapter 9 - Security and Performance
Chapter 10 - Launch

The index is very detailed which makes the book good for a reference. There is lots of code and the code is available on the publishers site.

There are some pitfalls. If your going to get anything out of the book you got to follow along, and create the site for yourself, which makes the going slow. On top of that there are bugs in the code which makes the book frustrating, and slows you down further. You can look at it two ways, there are bugs in the code, so this book is a waste; or you're learning how to fix bugs in CodeIgniter. There are times when I was banging my head against the wall. On the other hand, there are things like how to write a search engine and shopping cart for the site that make the book worthwhile. Four stars, a very slow, but thorough read.
A lot of content, but you've got to dig to get the gold.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars How I hate fixing an author's code!, July 4, 2009

By	Ol' Roy (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

It is always astounding how a publisher can claim to have an expert author, technical reviewers and editors, and still have code that needs to be fixed to work. It just makes you wonder if the editors and technical reviewers ever actually read and worked their way through from page one to the end.
Having said that, you can learn from this book if:
1. You are at least an intermediate php programmer with decent knowledge of object oriented principles.
2. You are patient enough to wade through not just the few typos, but the outright botched code examples.
Don't assume you can pick up php and codeigniter at the same time especially from this book. The price of entrance and the price of gaining anything of value from this book is to understand enough object oriented php to be able to follow along.

The author does spend time on showing you how to fix code problems. But if you've worked with php at all, you could make just as good guesses at how to fix most of these issues as his suggestions. Maybe it is a way to get you to think that more bad code in the book is just an "opportunity" for you to fix it.

I pay money to learn from a book. Is it too much to ask that the code work? Yeah, you can fix it. Yeah, you can learn from fixing it. But I could have learned what I needed from code that worked and then moved on and fixed bugs in my own code in my own applications. Yeah, you could send even more errata reports to the publisher, but at some point shouldn't the publisher take some sort of responsibility themselves? If they wanted to publish a 'beta book', that would be one thing. But a finished book ought to be clean and error checked and it should work. And guess what? In exchange for that effort, the publisher and author would sell far more copies of the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Samples only, May 12, 2009

By	Tommi Lindeman "tomtom" (Finland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This books was based on single sample a lot. Because of that finding certain topic of CI was difficult. However when you find it there was some nice information. Also too much Scrum for CI only book.
Not a reference book, but nice thing to read if you want to get familiar
with one CI sample project.