Question

Discussed this with a developer as I suggested to use CodeIgniter framework over standard PHP.

Their response was as follows:

Advantages of Code Igniter include standardised MVC structure.
Disadvantages include the fact that you need the whole framework even if you dont need to use it all and also a bit slower for the team to roll out the project. Advantages of our normal Custom PHP framework – fast to develop and totally flexible, only need the code that is relevant.

Would you agree with their response and why?
I always though CI was quicker to roll out due to the use of short tags and freely available modules.

Answer 1

• CodeIgniter has a learning curve but that curve is likely to be quicker than your custom framework. That’s because CodeIgniter is well documented.
• CodeIgniter is a fairly comprehensive library. Once you learn the framework, you can employ any of its libraries not only in the current project but in various other projects.
• The work is already done for you. You may not even know that a XSS or CSRF exploit exists in your code because you haven’t done a thorough security audit. But a community framework is under constant audit.
• You can extend CodeIgniter to your own needs and still have custom functionality.
• After using CodeIgniter for a sufficient period of time, you’ll inevitably pick up some great programming practices and improve your overall knowledge since the framework employs many best practies.
• It is likely that if you encounter a problem situation, someone else has already solved it. CodeIgniter also has a good community through which you could save yourself hours of debugging.

That said, CodeIgniter is not the only framework but I really do like that fact that with the newer release they have moved to PHP5. In general, open source frameworks are the way to go.