If you haven’t yet seen it, Steven O’Brien wrote an in-depth series of articles on the Yii framework’s component architecture, posted at phpmaster. In the series, O’Brien looks at the CComponent base class in detail. Every class in Yii is an extension of CComponent, so understanding what it brings to the table can be quite useful to the Yii developer. Part 1 looks at the classes key properties and methods. Part 2 discusses events. And part 3 explains the behaviors. If you’re using Yii, it’s worth reading these to better understand what’s going on at the fundamental level.
Archives For mvc
I’ve received a few comments and questions lately about my intentions to write a book on the Yii framework. I’ve never formally discussed the idea, and so it seems like it’s about time I do so.
I first started using the Yii framework about two and half years ago. I’ve never been much of a framework person, but Yii really felt right to me, quite similar to Ruby on Rails, which I also always liked. Being a writer, after learning to use the framework, I wrote an introductory series on the subject, which has been quite popular. In all modesty, many have suggested it’s the best documentation available. In fact, the creator of Yii liked my series so much that he listed it prominently on the official Yii documentation page (it’s now under tutorials). Some time after writing that series, I started thinking about writing a full book on Yii, because that’s what I do.
When I decided to write a book on Yii, I figured I’d self-publish it, for a couple of reasons. First, even though I have a wonderful relationship with Peachpit Press, I’m not sure they’d want to do a book on Yii, as the market is kind of small. Second, even if Peachpit would publish such a book, I doubt I’d make much money on the project, considering the small market. By comparison, if I self-publish, I can make 4-5 times per book what I’d make if I went through a publisher. The higher per copy amount could be enough to make up for the smaller sales, ending up with a project that’s financially worth my time to do (sorry to be crass about the money, but writing a book is a lot of work and I do have bills to pay!). Fourth, I’ve been intrigued about self-publishing for some time. And, fifth, self-publishing would give me the opportunity to distribute the book in unique formats and channels, such as a chapter at a time.
If I had my act together (which is to say, if my life were other than it is, in about ten ways), I would have been on the ball and published this book a year or more ago. Sadly, that has not been the case. I keep fairly busy work-wise, and I don’t actually have the time (due to personal constraints) to put in 40-hour weeks, so it’s really hard to add new projects, especially on the level of an entire book. Moreover, self-publishing means no guaranteed money, so I’d have to not do paying work while not making money working on the Yii book, which is a tough situation to be in.
All that being said, it is still my intention to write and self-publish a book on Yii. The only question is: when? This is the question I’m getting asked a lot lately. Before I do anything towards a book on Yii, I still have to:
- Finish my Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design book (which I’m weeks late on as is)
- Write one more article in support of my PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (4th Edition) [I’ve written two out of three articles, but I’m weeks late on that, too.]
- Come up with a list of videos to do in support of my Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design book
- Actually do those videos
- Continue doing the Web development and other work I have for my clients
So…yikes. Don’t get my wrong: I’m quite fortunate to be busy, but yikes! I’ll be crying if I haven’t finished all of the above by the end of this year, which means in theory I can begin the Yii book at the beginning of 2012. However, I have the third edition of my PHP 5 Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide due at the end of April. That does give me four months, but I’d like actually make that deadline for a change (my publisher is wonderfully understanding, but…).
Also, along with writing the Yii book, I’m going to have to come up with a site and an ecommerce system and so forth (I already have the software that can output PDFs, ePubs, and mobis). If I’m being optimistic, perhaps in 2012 I can do two Yii chapters per month, but the PHP 5 Advanced book will need to be my first priority. I also don’t want to start the Yii book, get some people paying for it (in part or in whole), and then have the project drag out. I don’t know. We shall see.
I very much thank everyone for their interest in my writing a book on Yii and I hope to make that happen. If you follow the blog and/or subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll get updates as to how this is progressing, when and if it does actually progress.
In a previous post, I wrote about [intlink id=”2353″ type=”post”]using sessions in Yii-based sites[/intlink]. In this one, I’ll look at using cookies. Neither is that difficult, but as with all things regarding frameworks, the solution may not be obvious at first. And there are some ways to make use cookies in Yii in a more secure manner. Continue Reading…
I’m often asked why I like the Yii framework, which is easy enough to answer: for starters it requires PHP 5 and uses jQuery natively. Then I like how it auto-generates a lot of code and folders for you. From there, it just kind of works and makes sense to me. In other words, Yii feels right. And unless you really investigate the framework’s underpinnings, how it feels (and can you get it to do what you need to do) is a large part of the criteria in making a selection.
The question I can’t really answer is what advantage Yii has over the X framework. The only other PHP framework I’ve used extensively is the Zend framework. The Zend framework has a lot going for it and is worth anyone’s consideration. To me, its biggest asset is that you can use it piecemeal and independently (I’ve often used components of the Zend Framework in Yii-based and non-framework-based sites), but I just don’t like the Zend Framework as the basis of an entire site. It requires a lot of work, the documentation is overwhelming while still not being that great, and it just doesn’t “feel” right to me.
Anyway, the point of this post is that there’s a nice article at SHELDMANDU from back in January in which the author does a great job of comparing the Yii framework with the Zend framework and Code Igniter (I’ve heard many good things about Code Igniter). Moreover, the author lays out some of his criteria for what he wants in a framework, has reasonable and detailed critiques, and also specifically details why he didn’t consider other frameworks in his comparison. If you’re looking into frameworks, spend five minutes reading that article to help educate yourself as to what considerations you should have in mind during your research.
I haven’t written much about the Yii framework lately, mostly because I’ve been working night and day on the fourth edition of my “PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide” book, due out late summer 2011. So I figured I’d put together another little blurb on the Yii framework (by regularly putting out posts on Yii, it’ll be that much easier when I go to write a book on Yii later this summer). In this post, I’m going to talk about using sessions Yii-based sites (in a separate post, I’ll discuss cookies). While not at all hard, the topic, like quite a few things, is not obvious in Yii, or well documented.
