Why Should I Use Code Igniter?

Why Should I Use CodeIgniter?

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by Shawn McCool in PHP, Web Development

Code Igniter is a PHP development framework. You can think of it as a PHP web site without content. Instead it provides a structure and many methods that will be frequently used for most web sites.

So, why should I use Code Igniter instead of just writing my own site from scratch in PHP?

1. Standardization and Popularity – Using a popular development framework reduces the development time and consequently cost of initial development and maintenance.

Hiring good developers is hard and adding developers mid-project is even harder. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of hours are spent acclimating new developers to the code base. By hiring developers who are already familiar with Code Igniter you’re able to integrate them into the project much more quickly. Code Igniter is very compartmentalized and finding / modifying various bits of code should be very easy for anyone familiar with the framework. Initial project development time can be reduced by partially bypassing the need for planning of a custom framework.

Code Igniter is a framework that is widely used and it’s easy to find developers who are familiar with it. There are many well made libraries and helpers created by users that will allow developers to integrate functionality into their sites without having to write it all from scratch. The Code Igniter forums provide a centralized location for developers to get support from other developers.

2. Loose Coupling and Code Re-usability – The longer you develop your code base the quicker projects can be completed.

By keeping your database interactions in libraries and models, your html and display logic in views, and additional methods in helpers and plugins your resulting code becomes modular and is easily reusable on additional projects. Why rewrite your user authentication system from project to project when you can simply copy your database structure and user model and be done with it?

Code Igniter is written with object oriented PHP. Object oriented code is significantly less expensive to develop, debug, and maintain. Programmers can no longer get away with using global variables to pass data around the application and the project quality benefits significantly.

3. Built in Functionality – You know those hundred things that you rewrite every time you make a site? Yea, they’re already done.

Code Igniter comes out of the metaphorical box with libraries and helpers that reduce the amount of code a developer will have to write. Some examples of the functionality that comes bundled in are: benchmarking, html calendar generation, shopping cart management, email sending, file uploading, form validation, ftp transfers, html generation, form generation, internationalization, pagination, session management, trackback management, string / typography manipulation, and more than I can list here.