If you have been doing web development for a while, you would have come to a stage in your development life where you get really tired of doing the same thing over and over again for each new project. You may have thought of a brilliant idea of putting together files/codes you regularly use and re-use in subsequent projects you undertake. Great idea right? Doing this saves you time in terms of how much code you get to write and this translates into faster project delivery time. And if you are like me (that is to say lazy) you would rather not want to re-invent the wheel and look out for frameworks that meet your development needs. There are numerous PHP frameworks out there that can improve your development time. One of the most famous and highly used framework in the PHP community is CodeIgniter.
What is CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter is a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. CodeIgniter makes use of the Model-View-Control ( MVC )design pattern which isolates your domain logic from the users interface, permitting independent development,testing and maintenance of each (separation of concerns).
CodeIgniter is an Open Source Web Application Framework that helps you write incredible PHP programs
CodeIgniter is good for you if …
- You want a framework with a small footprint
- You need exceptional performance
- You need broad compatibility with standard hosting accounts that run a variety of PHP versions and configurations.
- You want a framework that requires nearly zero configuration.
- You want a framework that does not require you to adhere to restrictive coding rules.
- You do not want to be forced to learn a templating language (although a template parser is optionally available if you desire one).
- You want a well documented framework
- You have wondered when your application will make use of clean url
How to Install CodeIgniter
If you already have a PHP environment setup then all you need to do is download CodeIgniter form the url http://codeigniter.com/downloads/. Unzip the download to your document root and you will be presented with a template application already prepared. To get started using CodeIgniter go to the url http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/. The unzipped folder also contains the entire project documentation. If you are an average PHP programmer, it will take you just a few hours to realize the benefit of using CodeIgniter.
What kind of Application can be built with CodeIgniter?
Basically any type of web application you can imagine from regular websites,eCommerce application,Intranet application etc. CodeIgniter comes packed with useful libraries and enables you to easily integrate any library of your choice. Example of sites that are currently built on CodeIgniter are: Climate Change , Tweet Roost , Create Debate. To find out more application designed using CodeIgniter, visit the forum http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Applications_Using_Code_Igniter/.
CodeIgniter is really a great framework to find out more about the project you can visit the site http://codeigniter.com . You can also hang out on their IRC channel #codeigniter on irc.freenode.net.
