I’m about halfway through my book, with my own self-imposed deadline of Feb. 23rd rapidly approaching. That’s so I have a week to actually create the site to *sell* the book. I posted on Twitter earlier today that I thought that using CakePHP to create the site to sell a book about CakePHP is overkill, but Nate Abele from the CakePHP project seems to think otherwise.

So I thought I’d talk a bit about the actual process of writing this book. First, I’ve been writing it in MacVim (The One True Editor(tm)) using reStructuredText with the goal of converting the code to PDF with some CLI utilities. So far I am very happy with how it is looking, but I have some concerns about the way rst2pdf implements syntax highlighting, so that is something I will have to look at before publishing.

For those wondering about how the book is going to look, I’ve stuck with a very simple process:

1. Show existing code
2. Show refactored code using CakePHP
3. Explain my decisions when things look non-intuitive. In other words, explain the things I had to look up on Google before writing it.

Expect copious code samples along with my own unique writing style. Now, it’s not too late for me to add things into the book so feel free to mention things you would like to see in the book in the comments section. I cannot promise anything but I do read each comment.

One thing to keep in mind is that I’ve targeted the book at developers who already have some understanding of how to use CakePHP. There are already two books out there that will get people up-and-running with CakePHP, plus the awesome cookbook. What has been missing is actual examples of more intermediate-to-advanced use of CakePHP. While I am not an expert in it’s use (blame that on not using it at work) I have ported several old applications over to using CakePHP. I’m hoping that I can help out people who actually need to use CakePHP and make some money for myself. Not such a lofty goal, is it?