Get Your Grubby Hands Out of the Database!

The ability to easily model real-world entities explains why object-oriented programming remains the de-facto development paradigm. Objects, however, exist only in memory and can’t persist between program sessions. Relational databases have emerged as one of the more common means to maintain data over time, but the process of moving that data from program to database is far from elegant.There’s no shortage of object-relational mapping (ORM) tools to help developers bridge the gap between the object and the database. Most, however, require time-consuming configurations that often negate the benefits gained from using the tool. RedBeanPHP is different. Using hints from the object’s data structure to infer relationships, RedBean dynamically creates the database schema with no upfront configuration, making it great for rapidly prototyping PHP applications. On production, “freezing” the schema allows RedBean to run as a fast, secure data broker.In this 45 minute session we’ll start with an empty database and build an entire blogging application with articles, tags, and comments—without writing a single SQL statement.