What is CodeIgniter?
I have been using CodeIgniter for about 6 months now and I really love it. It is basically a framework that you can build web applications on quickly. A bit like Symfony or the Zend Framework it allows developers to not have to re-invent the wheel every time they build a blog or a shopping cart system. We have built so many web applications which would normally have taken months, thanks to CodeIgniter framework.
These frameworks use what we call the MVC model which stands for "Model View Controller" and that means your code is very tidy and modular, with files for database access, files for controlling the pages and files for the display or front-end. It is a great way of coding.
There are lots of frameworks available, but I love CodeIgniter the best because it is really easy to install, easy to use, and the documentation is fantastic. Oh and I forgot to mention the community! Wow - thousands of developers all out there doing the same thing and helping each other. If you get stuck with some code, then there's always a solution for you on Google.
How does it help the developer?
- You can store your code really nicely and tidily with the MVC model.
- You can copy and paste functions that you have made for one site in to a completely different site without having to alter reams of code to get it working on the new site.
- You can save time because there's functions for most of what you do on a daily basis that you'd otherwise have to create your own function for.
- It's extendable, just modify the CodeIgniter class that isn't working well for you and bingo you have your mod, and the original class in case you need to go back.
- The community is fantastic, just check out their website.
How does this help the client?
With bespoke coding time saved, money is saved. The saving is passed directly on to the client. This is how we get our bespoke prices so low and how we can compete with big agencies.
If you want to know more, or if you want a quote for a particular job we can do that for you and probably save you a lot of money thanks to CodeIgniter.
Comments
By gillbates on 17th Mar 2009
have you tried using Symfony? what do you think of it?
By Stu Green on 18th Mar 2009
Hey gillbates,
I have used Symfony, and i think it's a really powerful framework which is massive. My problems with it though are that I think it tries to do too much, and it has a very steep learning curve. I saw a manual for it which was huge! CI took me just 3-4 hours to learn. :-)