We Have Ignition
For anyone who has ever tried to follow the code and figure out how any decent-sized framework works, you'll know that it's not easy. In the case of Trongate, the very first PHP file that gets loaded is index.php, which is inside the 'public' directory. That file has only one purpose: to start up the framework. Since the main workings of Trongate are contained within an 'engine' directory, it should be no surprise that index.php simply calls something from inside 'engine' and then gets out of the way. So, what this means is that - for Trongate apps - the main action kicks off when a file called 'bootstrap.php' gets loaded. This bootstrap file is critical because it basically figures out what classes need to be loaded in order for us to have a meaningful, working app.About Bootstrapping
Did you know that 'bootstrapping' is a special word that has nothing whatsoever to do with the popular CSS framework? In web development, 'bootstrapping' refers to the process of loading the environment a program (or a script, in the case of PHP) needs to operate. In the context of PHP development, it also means funneling all web requests through a single script that performs the bootstrapping process, also called “front controller” (taken from https://www.binpress.com/php-bootstrapping-crash-course/. Now you know why our critical main class loading file was named 'bootstrap.php'. Of course, when most developers hear the word 'bootstrap' they'll immediately think about the world's most popular CSS framework: the Bootstrap framework. They probably won't be thinking about loading classes. Therefore, to give Trongate developers a little more clarity about what gets loaded first, we've decided to ditch 'bootstrap.php' and, in its place, we're going to have a new file called 'ignition.php'. This decision was made via an online poll during a recent livestream. Hopefully, 'ignition' says more about what the file actually does. It also has the added bonus of keeping the 'engine' theme going. Don't worry about your apps breaking! We're still including a 'bootstrap.php' file with the framework. Now, the 'bootstrap.php' file is simply going to 'require_once()' our ignition file. In the future, we will be getting rid of 'bootstrap.php' completely. However, we wanted to let some time pass before this happens. Remember, Trongate's highest priority is stability. Next...