Making a commitment to a PHP framework is like committing to exercise everyday — you know you should do it, but tomorrow always seems like a good time to start — and of course tomorrow never comes. I’ve been debating between CodeIgniter and Symphony for a couple of months. And not making up your mind is another good way to put off actually doing something. I attended the PHP CodeWorks conference last week and the CodeIgniter session was pretty good. The first point Ed Finkler made was that it really doesn’t matter what you pick — get whatever works for you. CodeIgniter does have a successful commercial company, EllisLab (makers of expression engine CMS) behind it, plus an active developer community. I believe the upcoming new version of ExpressionEngine is also being built on top of CodeIgniter.
To help push me over the edge, Packt Publishing has a CodeIgniter book out. I know I’m old fashioned, but I find the structured presentation contained in a well laid out book very helpful when learning something new. And so far this book is well laid out. It isn’t super code heavy, which I find can slow things down. If the book provides pages of code examples, which you need to re-create in order to really understand the examples, and things don’t work out well due to typos or operator error, you can get lost easily. The book has short, simple examples to illustrate the points — perfect for testing and experimenting. And short enough to find an error when they come up. So I’m working my way through the book. This time I’m really going to start!
So after all this, why use a framework? In the CodeIgniter book, the author keeps making the point that you write less code. But that assumes you don’t do anything to speed development of a web site (like use include files for page headers) which I expect most developers already do. One real advantage is for a team of programmers, as the framework helps structure a standard way of building your web applications. And CodeIgniter is nice in that it has a structure, but isn’t so restrictive as to force a whole new way of working — making it easier to adapt this to existing database structures or web projects. And even as an individual it helps enforce a best practices approach — i.e. escaping user input, using object orientated techniques and keeping presentation, application and database layers separate.
CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development
This book explains how to work with CodeIgniter in a clear logical way. It is not a detailed guide to the syntax of CodeIgniter, but makes an ideal complement to the existing online CodeIgniter user guide, helping you grasp the bigger picture and bringing together many ideas to get your application development started as smoothly as possible.
Welcome! CodeWorks 2009 is a series of two-day conferences for PHP developers and IT managers organized and run by the publishers of php|architect Magazine.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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