When it comes to rapid application development using PHP & MySQL, most would agree than using an MVC framework is the way to go if using a pre-packaged CMS doesn’t make sense. But then the question is, which framework is best? My first exposure to MVC was with Ruby on Rails. Conceptually I loved it, but I never had the time to really dig into Ruby the language. It’s not that I don’t want to learn Ruby… it’s just a matter of finding someone who will pay me to learn it 
After I picked up PHP and admittedly fell in love with it, I realized I could apply the same concepts and got excited! I started looking into various PHP frameworks like Zend, Cake and Symfony. With all of them, I just felt like something wasn’t right. I didn’t feel comfortable choosing any of them. But then I ran across CodeIgniter. Finally! It clicked for me… THIS is the framework I want! Excellent documentation, no command-line, quick and easy install, and short learning curve. I did quite a bit of reading up on various comparisons of each of these frameworks and though some stand by Zend or Cake religiously, rarely do these people bash CodeIgniter. Everyone has their preference. I imagine one of these days I’ll dig in a little deeper with Zend and/or Cake but for now, I’m all about CI!
So I finally updated my portfolio! Not only did I update it with the projects I’ve worked on for the last 2 years but I made it dynamic so now all of the projects pull from a database. I created an admin section to add/edit/delete clients & projects that way I won’t have to put off updating it anymore. From now on, any time I finish a project I can quickly add it via the admin section and it will show up on my portfolio. I’m very excited about this as it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple years and I finally broke down and did it! I also migrated the existing dynamic content from ASP.NET to PHP with a MySQL backend. Anyway, now it’s time to find some work!
