Professional CodeIgniter®

1.7. Conclusion

This chapter serves as a basic introduction to MVC and CodeIgniter's place in that world. You've learned about the concepts behind MVC and why you should use it, and been given a brief history lesson. Specifically, you've learned how to transform a non-MVC application into a working CodeIgniter application, with a simple model, controller, and view.

As you continue with the rest of the book, remember these key facts about Model-View-Controller frameworks and applications:

• Models maintain and update an application's data.

• Views display data and user interface elements.

• Controllers handle user events that manipulate models and render or update views.

• In CodeIgniter:

  • Most of your work will be done in the controller.

  • Views can be regular PHP files or parsed templates with pseudo-variables.

  • Models aren't required, but most of your applications will have them.

The next two chapters cover Agile development practices and provide a high-level overview of CodeIgniter's structure and installation process. By the time you finish with Chapters 1–3, you'll have the necessary background for creating the projects outlined in this book.