Grokking Magento Book 1: Basics & Request Flow (Paperback) by Vinai Kopp

The target audience for this book are experienced PHP developers wanting to learn about the Magento platform.

The book series has three main goals:

1. Help prepare for the Magento Certified Developer Exam (MCD)
2. To be used as a reference for best practices and Magento architecture
3. Give solutions to specific problems in a "developer cookbook" style

The book content follows the Magento Certification Study Group Moderator Kit published by Magento.

It takes the bare bone exercises and solutions provided by the Study Group Kit and provides insight into the core architecture by researching how a solution may be approached.
Then it discusses the example exercise solutions provided with this book.

Along the way, many aspects of the Magento architecture are uncovered, thus providing the background knowledge and mindset required to pass the MCD exam.

Almost as a side effect readers will find they become more efficient and effective as Magento developers.

This first book in the series focuses on the exercises from the Basics and Request Flow section of the Study Group Kit.
It covers the following topics:

• Class name resolution
• How and why class rewrites work
• Application Area Emulation
• The Request Flow Process
• The Front Controller
• Database Based Request Rewrites
• Configuration Based Request Rewrites
• Action Controller Instantiation
• The Action Controller Dispatch Process
• Route Configuration
• Action Controller Rewrites
• Action Controller Flags
• The Event Dispatch Process and Observer Configuration
• The Configuration XML Loading and Merging Process
• Setting, Reading and Saving Configuration Values
• The Magento Application Dispatch Process
• The Store View Selection Process
• Approaches for Multi-Website Setups
• The Customer Session beforeAuthUrl and afterAuthUrl Properties
• Email Template Placeholders and Variables
• Custom Email Template Variables