Hi,

does anyone know a good place to start learning how to develop in MVC based environment? I am a real newbie and dont even know almost any PHP at all.

learn PHP first, or you’re gonna shoot yourself trying to learn MVC…unless you are familiar with OOP.

Find a mini-project and develop it with PHP (and MySQL).  Once you are comfortable, then rebuild it in a framework (Code Igniter).

Hm but I am really lazy. I would pretty much like to start directly CI while consulting the PHP manual too.

That’s your choice.  If you are doing this just for fun, then that’s fine.

If you are looking to make a career out of programming, then you are only shooting yourself in the foot…  Your choice though.

I don’t want to sound typical here, but this is the first place I look as reference.

PHP 5 Objects, Patterns and Practice is a good book.  My wife got it for me for Christmas this past year.  I’m slowly (about as slow as a dung beetle trying to roll a piece of dookie superglued to the ground) (well, ok, maybe not that slow) migrating from my old and natural procedural ways to learn OOP, specifically within MVC.  This book is a really good place to start once you get a grasp on PHP basics and want to begin to learn all about classes and objects.

Also - being “lazy” is almost certainly going to lead you to sloppy and unmaintainable code down the road.  If you’re going to learn it, then take the time to LEARN it.

Have you got a lot of experience developing web apps in another language?

If so, you could probably just jump into a using CI and learn PHP along the way. 

That’s I’m doing, really.  I’ve never developed a full app with PHP before, but I’ve build many Perl web apps, and I’ve dabbled with PHP in the past.

Developer13 - 17 March 2007 03:51 PM

Also - being “lazy” is almost certainly going to lead you to sloppy and unmaintainable code down the road.  If you’re going to learn it, then take the time to LEARN it.

I absolutely have to concur here.

You need an understanding of PHP (or programming concepts) because CI uses PHP, it does not replace it.

Kozuch - 17 March 2007 01:06 PM

Hm but I am really lazy.

That’s not going to persuade people here to spend much time answering your questions. If you want to learn, put in the time and effort.

Martin Hall - 17 March 2007 04:14 PM

Kozuch - 17 March 2007 01:06 PM

Hm but I am really lazy.

That’s not going to persuade people here to spend much time answering your questions. If you want to learn, put in the time and effort.

It might be unbelievable but this thread was answered much faster and heavier then any my other therad was ... well thats how life might work.

Never mind, I did not state Ive got some past experience with C++, so maybe I not a real lame. However, I was always trying to avoid learning PHP since that is mainstream a lot of lame code is still around…

since CI is PHP powered.. i suggest you have a crush course on PHP first then fix that crush with CI.

view the video tutorials… it’ll help a lot.

also visit the forums often. 

Kozuch - 18 March 2007 06:00 AM

It might be unbelievable but this thread was answered much faster and heavier then any my other therad was ... well thats how life might work.

LOL
That’s probably why some guys make so much money in advertising. You just never know
what’s going to reel them in.

Being Lazy is rule number THREE for any aspirant guru programmer.
Rule number TWO is know what you’re doing first.

A book I found useful is the venerable “Programming PHP”
I don’t know any MVC books cause I’ve not bothered to look.

Kozuch - 17 March 2007 01:06 PM

Hm but I am really lazy.

The Preface of Programming Perl AKA The Camel Book, says that the three great virtues of a programmer are laziness, impatience, and hubris.  From the glossary, it defines laziness as:

laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it.  Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer.

Linuxbz I totally forgot about that line. Nice.

laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it.  Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer.

Good one!!!

I use three books for reference… I learn by doing

PHP in 24 hours SAMS PUBLISHING Matt Zandstra
PHP5 in practice ELLIOT WHITE III and JOHNATHAN D EISENHAMER
ZEND PHP 5 CERTFICATION STUDY GUIDE

and of course the forums….

What makes me lazy is the need to write a big site project - simply too much for a first CI touch.