I finally took the plunge and got my hands dirty with CakePHP over the geekend weekend. I’d been curious about PHP frameworks and wondered if they might help a code dabbler like me get a bit closer to fair dinkum dev.
One of my tweeps (@joshsharp) gave me the nudge I needed, saying that using a framework is not too big a departure from hacking a Drupal (Joomla, Wordpress) site together. At first pass I’d have to agree. If like me, you’re used to piecing apps together using the building blocks other people have created (LEGO style) then knocking around with a framework will feel familiar.
Like Drupal, CakePHP has out-of-the-box capabilities and a library of user developed components and code snippets. You can get support from the CakePHP community at Google Groups. There’s also a bunch of tutorials online. Try the Blog tutorial from the CakePHP cookbook – I found it to be a good introduction.
While it might not give me instant PHP kung fu, I like that working with a framework – as opposed to working with something like Drupal – forces me to look more closely at the code. The end result is I’m doing a little more thinking for myself.
Next stops: jQuery, YUI, Mercurial, my long-awaited second album.
