Over on php|architect's A/R/T article repository, Fabio Cevasco has posted an overview of the CakePHP framework:

There are many frameworks available for the PHP programming language nowadays, and especially a lot of RAD (Rapid Application Development) frameworks which aim to make web development faster, less tedious and more organized. CakePHP was one of the first frameworks to port the RAD philosophy - which became so popular after Ruby on Rails - to the PHP programming language. CakePHP v1.0 is now one of the most popular and intuitive solutions for PHP programming, let's discover why...

He starts with the overview of what the project is and what its goals are for you and your site. He talks about the basic structure of the framework's file system and how to set up a database connection in preparation for the upcoming example.

The simple application they develop grabs the posts of a blog out of the database (via a controller) configured previously and displays them to the page (in a view). Following this, he lists out some of the pros and cons of the framework and includes several resources to get started with more advanced techniques - including the CakePHP homepage.