Introduction
xvii
iterative cycles, and detours. I wanted to show you how to use CodeIgniter along with agile
development processes to build a functional web site — hopefully, by the time you ’ re done with the
book, you ’ ll have everything you need to create your own projects.Here ’ s to building great web applications, and here ’ s to making customers deliriously happy! Most of
all, here ’ s to seizing the reins again and taking control of our professional lives!Whom This Book Is For
My first assumption is very simple. You ’ re a developer who knows his or her way around HTML, CSS,
MySQL, and, of course, PHP. You have been doing all of this for a few years and have probably run up
against the folly of ever more complex code and projects that always seem to tip over because they ’ re so
badly designed and managed. These projects rarely start out badly — in fact, one could say they start
with the best of intentions — but they always end up in the same bad old place. I assume that you ’ re sick
of that and want to change things.I also assume that you ’ ve probably looked at Rails (either a close - up look or just a cursory glance) and
still, at the end of the day, you ’ re committed to doing work in PHP, because that ’ s what you know.Furthermore, I strongly believe that this conviction to stay “ with something you know ” doesn ’ t make
you some kind of intellectual coward — far from it! You ’ re a pragmatist, a person committed to doing
good work for your clients, and you know deep down inside that having access to good tools and good
processes can make for exponentially better outcomes than you ’ ve experienced in the past.My final assumption about you is that you don ’ t need a reference manual. You ’ re smart enough to look
up the more hairy details on your own. What you do need is some practical advice and know - how on
the workings of CodeIgniter. Therefore, my aim in this book is to give you that know - how. With any
luck, by the time you ’ re done with this book, you ’ ll be an “ advanced intermediate ” CodeIgniter user,
well on your way to elite status.What This Book Covers
I wrote this book about halfway between two version releases of CodeIgniter. In fact, I ’ d already written
five chapters (and had them in technical review) when the new release introduced some fairly
nontrivial upgrades that needed coverage. About 30 minutes after installing the new code from EllisLab,
I ’ d upgraded the project the book is based on. It literally took me longer to update the chapters than it
did to update the application. But I digress.Throughout the book, you will meet a hypothetical small business owner named Claudia, who wants to
build an online shopping site (Claudia ’ s Kids). You, as the reader, will gather requirements from Claudia,
draw diagrams, and build her application in record time. I tried very hard to make Claudia like a typical
client (pleasant, but with a penchant for changing her mind), to show you how well CodeIgniter handles
in this kind of environment.You ’ re going to encounter quite a lot of CodeIgniter. You ’ re going to learn more than your fair share
about Models, Views, and Controllers, naturally, but also about certain libraries and helpers. You ’ re
going to learn the differences between CodeIgniter sessions and PHP sessions. You ’ re going to learn how
to benchmark your application and cache your pages. You ’ re going to learn something about security
and the mindset you must bring with you when you ’ re building iteratively.flast.indd xviiflast.indd xvii 6/10/08 5:39:53 PM6/10/08 5:39:53 PM