Help me become a better developer!

[eluser]awpti[/eluser]
So, I'm now on month 1 of CodeIgniter. Wow.

I'll post my Model and Controller (Only have one of each, for now) here.

What I'm specifically looking for:

Comments.

Be blunt, I can take it.

Tell me I'm doing something completely stupid if I am, in fact, doing something completely stupid.

I currently use Coolfactor's awesome View library.

So, without further adeu:

controller/blog.php

Code:

class Blog extends Controller {

private $awTitle = 'awpti.org - Where geeks roam free!';
private $awHeader = 'awpti.org';

function Blog() {
  parent::Controller();

  $this->load->model('blogmodel', 'blog', TRUE);
  
  //Set the header/footer template
  $this->view->part('header', 'common/header.php');
  $this->view->part('footer', 'common/footer.php');
}

function index() {
  $this->view->set('Title', $this->awTitle);
  $this->view->set('Header', $this->awHeader); //need to rename this variable. maybe later

  $this->view->set('Query_News', $this->blog->get_latest_news(3));;
  $this->view->load('blog/front');
}

function comments() {
  $this->view->set('Title', $this->awTitle.' (Comments)');
  $this->view->set('Header', $this->awHeader);

  if( !$this->uri->segment(2) || !ctype_digit($this->uri->segment(2)) ) {
   $this->view->set('Query_News',  $this->blog->get_latest_news(1));
   $this->view->set('Query_Comments', $this->blog->get_comments());
  } else {
   $this->view->set('Query_News', $this->blog->get_news_by_id( $this->uri->segment(2) ));
   $this->view->set('Query_Comments', $this->blog->get_comments( $this->uri->segment(2) ));
  }
  
  $this->view->set('CommentID', $this->uri->segment(2));
  
  $this->view->load('blog/comments');
}

/*

Code snipped for brevity, nothing to improve here as they are placeholders/static content

*/

} //end class. Duh.

And..

models/blogmodel.php

Code:

class Blogmodel extends Model {

function Blogmodel() {
  parent::Model();
}

function get_latest_news($limit) {
  $news = $this->db->query('SELECT *,
      IF( awNewsComments.comments_news_id IS NOT NULL, count( * ), 0 ) AS num_comments
      FROM awNews
      LEFT JOIN awNewsComments ON awNews.news_id = awNewsComments.comments_news_id
      GROUP BY awNews.news_id ORDER BY awNews.news_id DESC
      LIMIT '.$limit);
  return $news->result();
}

function get_comments($news_id = '') {
  if(!$news_id) {
   $query_comments = $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM awNewsComments WHERE comments_news_id = (SELECT MAX(news_id) FROM awNews) ORDER BY comments_id DESC");
  } else {
   $query_comments = $this->db->query("SELECT * FROM awNewsComments WHERE comments_news_id = {$news_id} ORDER BY comments_id DESC");
  }

  return $query_comments->result();
}

function get_news_by_id($news_id) {
  $news = $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM awNews WHERE news_id = '.$news_id);
  return $news->result();
}
}

I attempted to avoid any sort of logic in the models, but I couldn't devise any way to do it without creating a bunch of fluff, redundant functions.

To recap: Blast me as hard as you can, but throw some lessons in there, if possible.