I am trying to actually learn CakePHP and be able to make a simple website with it, but the shere size of the documentation and people telling me I should have read at least 100 pages, has kept me away from CakePHP after having worked with it for a month.
I just get a little bored when I have to read a full manual page with references, half of the used terms I have not yet known before, so it’s not very effective.
I have successfully completed the blog-tutorial and read about the MVC model, I am however not ready to make a simple website. Half the time of my first attempt I ended up copy-pasting and using trial and error.
I’d suggest you follow the ACL tutorial, it’s advanced but it takes you through all the sections if you’ve already done the blog tutorial.
You don’t need to read the whole manual before starting to code. Why not just dig in and whenever you hit a snag, go read the manual and actually understand what you’re doing. If you understand what you’re doing and not simply copy paste, you’ll run into stumbling blocks and learn more effectively.
As a start, you could try improving the system that the blog tutorial created by adding new features and learning in the process.