by: Ahsanul Bari and Anupom Syam

Cake is a rapid development framework for PHP that uses well-known design patterns and provides a structured framework that enables PHP users at all levels to rapidly develop robust web applications, without any loss of flexibility. It means you can code faster, your code is better, and it makes writing Web 2.0-style apps a snap.
This book builds on your knowledge as a PHP developer to provide a fast-paced, step-by-step tutorial in building CakePHP applications. The book is packed with example code and demo applications, so that you can see techniques in action.

A PHP Framework
A PHP framework is a collection of code, libraries, classes, and run-time environment that helps developers build web applications faster. The main idea behind using frameworks is to provide the developers with commonly used functionalities and a basic structure that they can build their application on. Most PHP developers, who have some experience, have their own set of libraries and structure to help them develop faster, as they can use their code base (and experience) from one project to another. But, building a web application on an open-source framework like CakePHP has its obvious benefits. By doing so, the developers not only use their own experience, but also the experiences of many other developers who have used and developed the framework. Also, the framework is much more reliable as it is used and tested by many application developers. Besides, using a framework like CakePHP has the advantage that all the developers involved in a project have to follow the same conventions and rules to structure the application. It makes it very easy for new developers to settle down if they are familiar with the conventions of the framework.