CodeIgniter for someone totally new? - First Steps

[eluser]maadmac[/eluser]
[quote author="gamma911" date="1199775316"]
1. IS CI for me?[/quote]

How can we know that?

2. Where do I start, can anyone suggest video tutorials, books, sites etc to get me going and also the best programs to use on pc?

Definitely with the two video tutorials published here, to get your "a ha!" moment. Then the User Guide will make a hell of a lot more sense. If you hunt around a bit, you can find other vids on the intertubes.

3. What makes CI different from other frameworks like symfony and cake?

First and foremost, the fact that ExpressionEngine came first and CodeIgniter is a spin-off means everything in it is rooted in a real-world, practical for-profit software application. To me, that means less theory and more getting things done...(and Rick Ellis was a rockstar before he was a PHP developer). That makes a big difference for me, and so you get a lot of smart people from EllisLab working on both EE and CI. As far as I know, CakePHP and Symfony were not germinated in a similar environment.

Most importantly, though, is the learning curve: as competent a PHP developer as I am, CakePHP's documentation utterly baffled me. I read it now and I still can scarcely make heads or tails of it... the CI API and user guide, by contrast, seem a lot easier to read and use.

Ultimately it doesn't matter much. It's all PHP, just different ways of looking at the same thing. It's like, do I use BBEdit or Textmate to do my coding? Pros and cons, pick one you like. Me, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Panic man. Once you go Coda, you never go back.