Code Igniter

I’m always on the lookout for good PHP development frameworks. In the past, I’ve tested a lot of the more popular ones but seemed to hate their restrictivity to rigid file structures, function calls, and file bloat. A lot of frameworks weren’t elegant and seemed to cause further development issues that they were trying to solve in the first place. A couple of weeks ago, I thought CakePHP was pretty good. However, today, I stumbled upon Code Igniter which is almost exactly my definition of a perfect PHP framework. The documentation is top-notch and the script and I agree on many development philosophies (ie. The use of PHP as the templating system and not other libraries). I can’t wait to finish my midterms and mess around with this framework.

4 Comments

  1. Eugene says:

    Have you tried RoR yet? I want to see what I can do with that this summer.

    Posted 4/29/2006 at 5:43 pm | Permalink
  2. Michael says:

    I’ve looked over it, but I think it’s a pretty limiting framework (although I speak with very little experience actually using it). It seems very well suited for a certain type of web application, and then expanding to other arenas seem tough.

    Posted 4/29/2006 at 6:20 pm | Permalink
  3. h3raLd says:

    I read another blog post (http://blog.canglan.com/2006/04/29/code-igniter-a-first-look/) about Code Igniter and CakePHP, and apparently it seems easier to learn but also more limited in functionalities. Personally I think CakePHP can offer more functionalities and could be used to develop almost any kind of application… but again, if you need something simpler and quicker maybe CodeIgniter could be better.

    Regarding Ruby in Rails… I tried a beginner’s tutorial tonight and I compared it to CakePHP (http://www.h3rald.com/blog/view/22)… well, as a CakePHP lover I still like Cake, but I must admit that Ruby’s way of doing things is MUCH cleaner than PHP…!
    Personally I don’t think RoR is limiting in ANY way, especially judging by the number of professional applications and sites build upon it! The only problem - for me at least - is that it’s in Ruby, that’s why I went for Cake.

    Posted 4/29/2006 at 6:42 pm | Permalink
  4. Michael says:

    Hey h3raLd,

    Thanks for your comment. That link you posted was helpful and I share the same sentiments as Canglan (funny how he posted on the same day too!). While it’s true that code igniter is more limiter in functionality, I think its structure is looser than CakePHP’s (but not by much). Not forcing me into a certain format can allow me to do things that the framework may not have been primarily designed for. That said, CakePHP is still pretty darn fine.

    I’ll take your word on RoR for now since you have way more experience than I do. However, I will spend some time playing around with RoR to get a better feel for it.

    Nice blog and articles you have too.

    Posted 4/29/2006 at 10:49 pm | Permalink

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