People keep asking me about when we will publish the "definitive guide" book for symfony 1.4. We already have quite an extension documentation on symfony, but the definitive guide has a different way to teach you symfony that is best suited for some people. So, in the last few months, I have updated it to match the current version of symfony.
This updated version of "the book" is released under the GFDL license as was the original book (all other symfony books are covered by Creative Commons licenses). The license stipulates that all the material is under this license, except for the title, which is owned by APress, the original editor. That's why I have changed the title to "A Gentle Introduction to symfony".
So, with this new version of "the book", here is what you need to read, based on your needs:
Want to learn symfony? read the "Practical symfony" book if you want to learn by doing a real project or read the "Gentle introduction to symfony" if you want more theory and in-depth explanations of the main features;
Want to find everything about configuring symfony? Browse the "Reference guide" book.
Want to learn what changed in the recent versions? Read the "What's new?" and "How to upgrade" tutorials;
Want to learn more advanced stuff? Browse the "More with symfony" book.
That's a lot of documentation for both beginners and advanced users. The symfony core team, some authors, and the translation teams spent a lot of time writing and translating documentation for the latest versions of symfony. And as a matter of fact, the symfony 1.3/1.4 versions are the most documented versions of symfony, ever.
So, why publish yet another book about symfony? The definitive guide book has some advantages over the existing books:
More time is spent describing the philosophy of the framework in the first two chapters (introduction to the MVC model, ...);
Each feature has its own chapter or section in the book. Looking for the documentation of a specific feature is easier (in the "Practical symfony" book for instance, it's more difficult to find things are they are described in the context of an application creation).
I have spent quite some time to update this book and we have some new chapters too: one about Doctrine (thank to Jon), one on forms (thank to François), and one on emails.
The book is available as a printed book on Amazon and probably many other online bookstores. And of course, you can also read it online for free.
Another time : Thank you ! All your books were really helpfull and wellbuilt. I've all of them and I think next one will be this one :p
Thanks Fabien. I am definitely one of those "some people" for whom the definitive guide is best suited. :) Keep up your good work.
Wow, once again great stuff! Nice to see as well that François seems to be back with symfony & Symfony in some way or another. Thanks! R+
Great work! I love the definite guide because i find things much faster there. I still used it for 1.4 projects in some parts. Thanks to the new chapters of the gentle introducation the development will get even faster :) Thank you!
Thank you, Fabien! And that François is back is also really great (they even worked together on the PropelBundle for Symfony2!). :)
Daniel
I missed this book in the 1.3/1.4 series!
Thank you Fabien for your efforts, it is much appreciated.
Thanks for all your efforts.
I'm very glad to see that François is working in Symfony again!
Regards!
unfortunately Francais isn't back as far as i know - he just wrote this chapter on his blog two years ago and was take from there... i wish Francais back on the team - definitely could help with docs...
awesome, for me this is the best documentation of symfony especially with the form/mail chapters updated, no more random searching for doc. As for Francois he s indirectly working with symfony in managing propel 1.x + sfPropelPlugin which is one of the reason i stick to propel ~ Thanks
Fantastic news! This really fills a void!
Great News. I've been missing this book ever since i upgraded my projects to sf 1.4.
It's great to finally have an updated "full" documentation!
What happened to the PDF version?
A joyful day! Been waiting for this for loong time... It is only now that I will switch from 1.0. My copy of the book is on the way.
I'm optimistic, but the first thing I looked up wasn't in there-- the "new" routing features-- sfObjectRouteCollection. Yes, this is covered in the reference guide, but it would be so nice to just have one go-to book!
So many thanks. The Practical Guide is an excellent resource to learn by practice, but when you want to find something in particular it's not really good. I really appreciate it.
Hi where is PDF version ? i prefer to read in ebook reader or printed version. Thank you for your greate work
Likewise, I'm looking for a PDF version that I can install and read on my iPad - is there a PDF version available for download?
Here is the pdf version-
http://www.symfony-project.org/get/pdf/gentle-introduction-1.4-en.pdf