Yii is easy

To run a Yii-powered web application, all you need is the core framework files and a web server supporting PHP 5.1.0 or higher. To develop with Yii, you only need to know PHP and object-oriented programming(OOP). You are not required to learn any new configuration or templating language. Building a Yii application mainly involves writing and maintaining your own custom PHP classes, some of which will extend from the core Yii Framework component classes.

Yii incorporates many of the great ideas and work from other well-known web programming frameworks and applications. So, if you are coming to Yii after using other web development frameworks, it is likely you will find it familiar and easy to navigate.

Yii also embraces a convention over configuration philosophy, which contributes to its ease of use. This means that Yii has sensible defaults for almost all aspects of wiring your application. If you follow the prescribed conventions, you will write less code and spend less time developing your application. If desired, Yii allows you to customize and easily override all of these conventions. We will be covering some of these defaults and conventions later in this chapter and throughout the book.