Control Flow – Loops

Ever wish your code could repeat itself without repeating yourself? That’s the magic of loops — and in this episode, you’ll learn how to write them like a pro. 🌀

🎯 Here’s what we’ll cover:
• Why loops matter: run code multiple times without copying and pasting.
• Use the classic for loop to count or iterate through values.
• Learn the while loop for flexible repetition when the end condition isn’t known in advance.
• Try out the do…while loop, which guarantees at least one execution.
• Understand break and continue for more control inside your loops.

🎥 Visual Walkthroughs:
• See real-time examples of different loop types in action.
• Learn when to use each loop and how they differ in behavior.
• Practice repetition with simple, visual examples to build confidence.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be looping like a champ — and writing code that works smarter, not harder! ♻️⚙️

Creating A Master Layout

Let’s streamline our app’s structure even further! In this video, we tackle layout repetition by introducing a master layout—making our pages cleaner and more consistent. 🧼

Here’s what we’ll cover:
• Refactor repetitive layout code into layout/app.view.php using a $page_content placeholder for dynamic content 🧩
• Enhance our view() helper function to accept a third $layout parameter 🧠
• Update controllers to support a page_layout variable for flexibility in rendering 🛠️
• Clean up our individual page views for clarity and focus ✂️
• Bonus: Improve our dd() helper to accept any number of arguments using ...$var 🧪

By the end of this refactor, we’ll be rocking version v8-create-layout—a polished, DRY, and maintainable foundation for future growth. 🚀

Creating Views

Let’s clean up our code and separate logic from markup—the pragmatic way! In this video, we refactor each page to use dedicated view files, making our structure more scalable and maintainable. 🧼📁

Here’s what we’ll do:
• Move HTML into organized view files:
• views/about/index.view.php 🧾
• views/photo/index.view.php 📷
• views/upload/index.view.php ⬆️
• Create a global view() helper function to simplify view rendering across the app 🛠️

This separation of concerns brings clarity to our project and lays the groundwork for a clean MVC structure. By the end, we’ll be rocking version v5-created-views—structured, readable, and ready for action! 🚀

Data Types

Understanding data types is essential for writing efficient and error-free PHP code! In this video, we’ll break down PHP’s core data types, including strings, integers, floats, and booleans, and show you how they work in real-world applications. You’ll learn how to:

✅ Properly name and assign variables
✅ Work with strings, including concatenation and the differences between single and double quotes
✅ Perform simple math with integers and floats, while exploring PHP’s type juggling
✅ Understand booleans and how PHP dynamically handles truthy and falsy values

By the end of this video, you’ll have a solid grasp of PHP’s data types and be ready to start building dynamic applications with confidence! 🚀

Database Connections / Migrations

Let’s connect our app to the real world of data! In this video, we build a reliable and secure database layer and run our first migrations and seed scripts. This step sets the stage for persistent data handling in our application. 🧱

Here’s what we cover:
• Temporarily hijack index.php for local development and testing purposes 🔧
• Add database/migrate.sql and database/seed.sql to define and populate our schema 🧬
• Use file_get_contents() to load SQL scripts and run them using PDO 🎯
• Define connection settings: host, port, database name, user, and password (with Docker-friendly defaults) 🐳
• Set up secure PDO options for error handling and safe queries 🔐
• Wrap everything in a try/catch to safely execute migrations and seeding 🚨
• Introduce our app’s database structure:
• users – for login info 👤
• photos – uploaded images 📸
• reviews – ratings and comments ⭐📝
• Protect sensitive credentials by moving them into a .env file 🛡️
• Create a Framework/Env.php class to access environment variables cleanly 🌱

By the end of this video, version v11-db-basics will bring real data into play—securely, cleanly, and pragmatically. 🚀

Database Infrastructure

Let’s encapsulate our database logic the pragmatic way! In this video, we refactor our raw database code into a dedicated Database class, making connections and queries more reusable, readable, and testable. 🛠️

Here’s what we’ll do:


Create a Framework/Database class that accepts config parameters in the constructor ⚙️
Expose an exec() method for executing raw SQL 🧾
Add a static instance for quick access to a shared connection 🌐
Introduce helper methods: first() to fetch a single record & all() to fetch multiple records
Write a simple query to fetch a photo by ID and pass it into the view dynamically 📸
Update the View class to properly render passed variables inside templates
Introduce a private render_template() method to handle this cleanly 🧩


By the end of this refactor, we’ll be on version v12-db-encapsulation—with database access that’s clean, powerful, and built to scale. 🚀

Database Model Abstractions

In this video, we take a big step toward cleaner, more maintainable code by introducing a Model abstraction layer—a pattern that reduces boilerplate and centralizes logic around database operations. This lands in version v20-db-models.

Here’s what gets done:

✅ Create a Models/Photo class
- Move the all() and find() logic out of PhotoController and into this model

✅ Create a Models/Review class
- Same deal: centralize data logic away from controllers
- Introduce a protected static ?string $table property

🧱 Extract shared logic into a Framework/Model base class:
- static table() throws by default—models must define their own table
- Implement reusable all() and find() methods

🔄 Refactor all() and find() with:
- static::query() → creates an instance of the model
- get() → used by all(), calls build_query() to prepare the SQL and params
- build_query() → generates the SQL from query state

🧠 Reimagine find() usage like this:
- static::query()->where('id', '=', $id)->first();
- Then implement:
- A where() method that collects conditions into $wheres
- Modify build_query() to handle WHERE clauses
- A first() method to return the first matching result

🚀 Refactor the PhotoController to use the new model APIs
- Add an insert() method on the base Model class for creating new records


By the end of this refactor, your models are smart, reusable, and expressive—freeing your controllers from repetitive SQL and focusing them on application logic. Pragmatic PHP is feeling pretty elegant right about now. 👌

Defining and Calling Functions

In this episode, you’ll unlock the power of functions — reusable blocks of code that let you organize your logic, avoid repetition, and keep your programs clean and efficient. 🧼✨

🎯 Here’s what we’ll cover:
• What a function really is and why it’s a cornerstone of any serious JavaScript developer’s toolkit.
• The difference between function declarations and function expressions, and when to use each.
• A first look at sleek, modern arrow functions introduced in ES6 — cleaner syntax with powerful flexibility.

🎥 Visual Walkthroughs:
• See each style written and called step-by-step.
• Watch how functions help break your code into logical pieces.
• Reinforce learning through quick, practical examples you can follow along with.

By the end, you’ll have multiple tools to define and invoke your own functions — and you’ll know which style fits your coding vibe best! 🧑‍💻🚀

Development Environment

Before diving into PHP, we need to set up a solid development environment—the pragmatic way. ⚙️

In this video, we’ll walk through cloning the starter HTML version of our app, laying the groundwork for everything we’ll build together. This version is clean, organized, and perfect for transitioning into dynamic PHP. 🧱

We’ll also introduce the application starter kit that powers this series:
🔗 https://github.com/rcravens/kit
This kit streamlines development with useful tools and structure that we’ll build on throughout the project.

Our project lives here:
🔗 https://github.com/rcravens/rate_this_pic.git
Be sure to check out the v1-static-html tag to follow along with this video.

Let’s get your environment ready so you can build with confidence! 🚀

Displaying Reviews

Let’s bring feedback into the spotlight! In this video, we enhance the photo detail page by fetching and displaying user reviews from the database. 💬

Here’s what we’ll cover:


Query the database for all reviews associated with a given photo 📄
Loop through the reviews and display them on the photo page 🎞️
Calculate a summary (like average stars or total reviews) 📊
Display the summary alongside the photo for quick insight 🧠


By the end, version v15-show-reviews adds real voices to each photo—making the app feel more alive and interactive. 🚀

Dynamic Navigation

Now that we’ve extracted layout components, it’s time to make them truly dynamic! In this video, we’ll wire things up so our layout reacts intelligently to the current page. ⚡

Here’s what we’ll tackle:
• Use a $page_header variable in _header.view.php to set page-specific titles 🏷️
• Introduce a helpful dd() (dump and die) debugging function and place it in app/globals.php 🛠️
• Refactor _nav.view.php to highlight the active page using $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] 🎯

With these changes, our navigation becomes context-aware and our layout system becomes fully functional. This version is tagged as v4-functional-layout—a polished step forward! 🚀

Dynamic Photo Gallery

Time to showcase our images! In this video, we build a photo gallery page that lists all uploaded photos and links each one to its detailed view. 🧱

Here’s what we’ll do:


Create a new show.view.php by copying and modifying index.view.php 🧬
Add a new route and controller method to handle the gallery page 🗺️
Display all photos in a clean list or grid, each with a clickable link to its detailed photo page 🔗


With version v14-photos-list, our app now lets users browse through all uploaded images—laying the foundation for interactivity and exploration. 🚀

Dynamic Photo Page

Let’s make our photo pages come alive! In this video, we turn the static photo view into a fully dynamic experience by using the $_GET superglobal to load data based on query parameters. 🔍

Here’s what we tackle:


Update the PhotoController to read the id from $_GET and query the database accordingly
Show a 404 error if the id is missing or the record isn’t found 🛑
Improve our error views (404 and 500) by rendering them within the layout for a consistent look 🎨
Refactor the View class to default to the main layout (layout.app) while still allowing overrides
Fix a potential infinite render loop in the layout logic 🐛
Clean up unnecessary calls to ->layout() by relying on the new default behavior 🧼


By the end, version v13-photo-query-param will serve up the right photo with the right layout—dynamically and elegantly. 🚀

Encapsulation: Public & Private

Ready to lock down your PHP skills? 🚀 In this video, we crack open Encapsulation—a core OOP concept that keeps your code secure, organized, and powerful! 🔐

I’ll break down what encapsulation is and why it matters, then dive into real-world examples. You’ll see how getters and setters help you access private properties safely, while letting you enforce business logic behind the scenes 🕵️‍♂️.

By the end, you’ll be writing cleaner, safer, and smarter PHP code like a pro! ⚡💻

Exceptions

Errors happen, but how you handle them makes all the difference! In this video we dive into PHP exceptions and how they improve error handling.

We start by manually guarding against invalid data using if statements, then take it to the next level by introducing exceptions, covering:

✅ Throwing exceptions – How to signal when something goes wrong.
✅ Catching exceptions – Gracefully handling errors without breaking your code.
✅ Why exceptions are better than manual checks in many cases.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll understand how to handle errors cleanly and professionally in PHP.

Exceptions & Errors

When things go wrong in your PHP application, how do you handle it? 🤔 In this video, we dive into the art of exception handling and smart error management! 🎯

🔹 Throwing & catching exceptions—what, when, and why? 🎭
🔹 Best practices for handling errors (logging, notifications, feature toggles) 📝
🔹 When to use try/catch blocks (external APIs, limited resources) 🔄
🔹 The role of a global exception handler 🛑
🔹 Throwing custom exceptions to make your code more meaningful 🏗️
🔹 Why exceptions can be expensive 💰 and how to use error objects instead ⚡

By the end, you’ll know exactly how to keep your application resilient, stable, and user-friendly! 💪 Let’s dive in! 🎬