CakePHP is a critical framework for PHP developers. It helps them build complex web applications faster and more efficiently than coding by hand. If you want to use CakePHP in your own development workflow, this is the place to start. Justin Yost provides an overview of the underlying MVC pattern in CakePHP, and the installation and configuration process for the framework. He shows how to use CakePHP shells and the console to build your first basic CakePHP app, and then discusses each application element in depth: controllers, models, views, components, behaviors, helpers, and utilities. In later chapters the course gets a little more advanced. Watch these videos to learn how to write a custom shell, extend CakePHP with plugins, and write unit tests to identify and eliminate bugs in your code. Justin also shows how to add security to your CakePHP apps with a basic user authentication system. NOTE: While CakePHP 2 is a slightly older version of the framework, it's still an actively developed tool that is useful for maintaining and updating web applications. Many of the conventions and problem-solving approaches in this course are also applicable to CakePHP 3.