Will learning Codeigniter (or any framework for that matter such as CakePHP or Zend) help my development in Drupal or are they two separate systems that won’t really benefit the other when I have knowledge in one?
I know expression engine is a CMS developed specifically with codeigniter in mind, but Drupal has a larger community and I was hoping I’d still be able to stick with drupal as well and see if me knowing codeigniter (currently what i’m studying, i haven’t gotten into drupal yet) will be of any use for developing in drupal.
Drupal & CodeIgniter are different PHP frameworks (Drupal could be considered the CMS that became a Framework). Your work/learning in CodeIgniter will undoubtedly give you perspective when working with Drupal and grow your coding skills, but it wont necessarily help you learn Drupal Core API’s and Methodologies.
I recommend getting into Drupal cause it’s hawt (in demand), once you get your head around assumptions & common patterns it helps you build things very fast, the community is huge and all the cool kids are doing it. But if you are learning CodeIgniter and want to leverage that learning in EE, that makes perfect sense…and if that’s what you/your clients want, rock on.
To start with Drupal I recommend getting into what it can do out of the box with Core & Popular Contrib Modules:
http://drupal.org/documentation/structure
Here are a few more learning resources for drupal:
http://drupalize.me (video site with lotsa free content and fair priced paid content)
http://planet.drupal.org (the drupal planet feed, lotsa great tutorials come down the pipe)
http://api.drupal.org (your friendly Core API docs)
http://drupal.org (excellent multisite search kicks butt for finding help on your topic)