CodeIgniter Book Questions

[eluser]Adam Griffiths[/eluser]
Hey guys,

I am just starting to write my CodeIgniter book and have a few questions for you.

Firstly, would you rather learn from a printed book, or an ebook? I know there are many advantages to both so all comments on this are welcome.

What kinds of things would you want to learn from a book? I know the user guide is a brilliant resource so I would need to go further than that and include extras like best practices in there as well. But what else?

Would you prefer to go through building an application, right from the panning stages? Or focus on CodeIgniter with a number of smaller applications. An example would be a client relations manager vs an image uploader, guestbook etc. (Obviously just an example though.)

Anyway there's just a few questions there that I would greatly appreciate feedback on.



Thanks,
Adam

[eluser]Johan André[/eluser]
[quote author="Adam Griffiths" date="1248970795"]Hey guys,

I am just starting to write my CodeIgniter book and have a few questions for you.

Firstly, would you rather learn from a printed book, or an ebook? I know there are many advantages to both so all comments on this are welcome.

What kinds of things would you want to learn from a book? I know the user guide is a brilliant resource so I would need to go further than that and include extras like best practices in there as well. But what else?

Would you prefer to go through building an application, right from the panning stages? Or focus on CodeIgniter with a number of smaller applications. An example would be a client relations manager vs an image uploader, guestbook etc. (Obviously just an example though.)

Anyway there's just a few questions there that I would greatly appreciate feedback on.



Thanks,
Adam[/quote]

Cool!

I think there would be need of an more advanced book.

Here's some suggestions:

- Advanced forms and validation (callbacks, customization, form-helper etc)
- Authentication and permissions (creating a auth-library with multiple roles and permissions)
- Writing own libraries, helpers
- Extending the core (controllers, libraries, custom models, helpers etc)
- Image manipulation (making thumbnails, cropping etc.) with the image_lib
- Security (sessions, user input etc.)
- Project setup (moving app-folder, .htaccess, setting up subversion (and/or git))
- AJAX/jQuery (Pagination, saving forms, deleting items, tablesort etc.)
- Database (transactions, solving "standard" but complex queries with ActiveRecord etc)
- Best practices for coding (code indent, following the CI style guide etc.) This is a big one!
- Real-life problem-solving of those problems everyone run into now and then. Smart ways of solving the "everyday"-stuff.

These are just some brainstorming.
I personally think there are alot "basics"-books and tutorial.
Everyone that creates a screencast, tutorial or book focuses far too much on how to displaying records from a database. It would be nice with a book or tutorial on more advanced topics.

Have a great day!
Johan

[eluser]Kami_[/eluser]
Hello,

I think CodeIgniter is seriously lacking a good book with a focus on advanced topics and best practices.

Maybe a book about building an enterprise/large scale web application with CodeIgniter or something like that.

Please don't just do another book on "basic and newbie" stuff, because there are already enough tutorials and articles about these topics and the user guide is brilliant for that matter.

Regards,
Tomaž

[eluser]Prabhjeet[/eluser]
This is fantastic idea. We really need an advanced level book on codeigniter.

Should have capability to teach how to create big applications like social networking sites with ACL system and much more as Johan André above mentioned.

[eluser]Burak Erdem[/eluser]
I definitely agree with Kami_ and Prabhjeet. CI community needs an advanced level book, a book about building a large scale web application with CI, like Kami_ said.

[eluser]Edmundas Kondrašovas[/eluser]
To me, a printed book is always a better option than an ebook, because you don't have to stare at the monitor all the time.

Johan André pretty much covered all the needed topics and right now I can't think of anything else. I agree with others that if you're going to write a book, write about more advanced things. Otherwise you might just end up with another CodeIgniter user guide and that would make no sense.

In any case, it's always nice to see people who take take initiative to make life easier for CodeIgniter fanatics.

[eluser]jdfwarrior[/eluser]
Agreeing with Johan André.

I feel it should be a more advanced book, with examples of how to do certain things and best practices. Johan made a pretty good list of topics IMHO.

edit: Oh, and, personally, I would rather have an ebook. My attention span sucks already, but I have an easier time paying attention to something I can read on the screen as opposed to something in my hand. That's just a personal preference though.

[eluser]mjsilva[/eluser]
I'll definitely buy it!

The problem I see with practical advanced examples are the pages that code consumes, and the book tends to become fat that equals to more expensive and less practical to put in bag.

I prefer that theory comes in the book and the large pieces of code in a CDRom or in the Web

Best luck in writing it!

[eluser]Adam Griffiths[/eluser]
Thank you for all your comments guys, this really helps me.

The book will be available as a printed book and also as an ebook. I am looking at publishing books through lulu but have also contacted a publisher about getting them involved. Either way the book will come in two versions.

I plan to have all code online somewhere, probably in a Github repo or something. But all the code in the book will be broken up into segments anyway and I hope to have no code more than one page in length. I'll do this by splitting up the functions and explaining them like I do on Programmers Voice.

Once again thanks for the comments and any more will be highly appreciated.



Thanks,
Adam

[eluser]Kami_[/eluser]
And my opinion about the printed vs e-book format.

For the sake of simplicity you could offer both versions and person would decide what fits him best.

For me, if the book is about beginner/introduction topics and you need to retype a lot of the code, ebook is better.

Opposite goes for books on advanced topics or more "abstract" books - I prefer to read those in normal paper version and most of the times not in front of a computer.

Edit: Never mind, since you will offer both versions.