Thread

Sorry just my 2 cents but the way i see it is CodeIgniter is an awesome framework and even though ive only this year started using frameworks, ive tried laravel mainly because the cool kids were doing it but after a while (and discovering CodeIgniter) ive gone to using CI for everything. Mainly due to its simplicity and low footprint. Everything you need is there and if you need more github has the answer with a script which is easily integrated.
In my opinion i think that Its not how do we get Ci to be the best is how long before people realise its potential.
Not that much of my rant compares to many of yours but as a developer in training and starting from scratch having to look for a suitable framework to start off with i just find Ci the best one of the lot.
Also the community is absolutely brilliant with CI. 

Interesting points of view.

I do think someone brought up a valid point where the framework shouldn’t be encouraging a disjointed use where the developer thinks it better to write their own.

To me that invalidates the whole point of the framework. At the same time it should be lean enough to use.

Without looking at the source expression engine is basically codeigniter with lots of bells and whistles such as page management etc. To me that turns the framework into a wordpress type CMS. I’m working on my own CMS which builds on these same principals but this shouldn’t be what a PHP framework is about or why it is popular. It’s probably a bad idea to even compare expression engine with codeigniter as they are two different beasts.

Like others mentioned it just needs the basics.

Why codeigniter isn’t doing so great is there is no movement on git apart from version 3.0. I’ve not use 3.0 so I can’t comment. I’m still scared regarding backwards compatibility and stability and the fact that the license has changed.

AFAIK, the licence change only affects you if you alter anything in /system. Since most application-specific code, and core extensions, are in /application, it shouldn’t change anything as you aren’t directly modifying the CORE.

github trending for the month is a good look, and CI is #4 for all of PHP right now
https://github.com/trending?l=php&since=monthly

turns out CI is still fast compared to many other php frameworks, this is from May 2014
http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r9&hw=peak&test=json

stackoverflow is active every day with codeigniter questions
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/codeigniter

people still blog about codeigniter and post code and tutorials, here’s one example
http://developer-paradize.blogspot.se/

phil sturgeon who regularly flamed CI is now tweeting praises—twitter
Phil Sturgeon @philsturgeon ·  Jun 7

“I’m genuinely impressed by the gallant efforts of the CodeIgniter community to fix stuff: https://github.com/EllisLab/CodeIgniter/commits/develop … Props to @narfbg et al.”

Phil also tweeted recently announcing CI 3 has built in support for Composer

meanwhile there is an entire industry that is built around extracting money from developers who use frameworks. people who write books, create conferences, video tutorials, etc. stable frameworks that change slowly - do not make these people money. so when those people are nervous that you won’t buy their latest offering then they flame the framework you might be using like CI. 

it was interesting that many of the very same people who created the last codeigniter conference - just a few short weeks later declared that they were done with codeigniter. they quickly created other pay conferences, pay books, pay videos, etc for their new framework of choice.

Screw everything ... after 2.2 (I will never update Codeigniter)
why??
I use codeigniter because it has basic.. and i can add whatever more i need.
3.0 itself getting big… (i Hate composer)—- If we are looking for extra then we must use bloated Wordpress.
which has million query i don’t even need!

So from now on.. i will update on the part i need!

LOVE CODEIGNITER!—rest of you enjoy!

P.S: Codeigniter is what i love.. So i will paysomeone to do the custom update if i have to…

@sheab

Nothing forces you to use Composer on CodeIgniter 3.0-dev. Nothing.

For me, CodeIgniter is the framework of choice 😊

Garry

1) massive PR and re-branding campaign when v3 is released, making CI “exiting and visible brand” again

1b) explain the strong points over other frameworks, with examples, not just polite and/or vague statements you’d expect from fanboys

2) few well marketed open source DIY projects using CI as the base, let’s say a CMS, e-shop, ticketing system, band profile maker, etc.

3) simple, easy to browse and well documented free (or paid?) 3rd party library database, something like they have for Expression Engine

The only problem I have with CI at the moment is that it’s not mentioned in job descriptions any more.

Few years back I was looking for a change in scenery, quite few companies in UK were using CodeIgniter at the time and I got few approving nods from tech guys interviewing me when I said I was using CI.

So, looking in the future, being a CI expert might be a hard sale to non-techie person, just because they don’t recognise it as trendy keyword.

Other than that, I like the simplicity and clean code.

Because of the very specific business requirements and scalability needs in our company, it fits us perfectly as it does not interfere with many things, it does the basic boring stuff for you like routing, MVC, database, etc, and lets you handle rest of it the way you see fit.

I’ve been building my projects with CodeIgnitter since 2007, apparently I can not access my old account (m4ikel) anymore since Ellislab integrated the forum into their own.

1 year ago I have spend quite some time to investigate rewriting my projects to Laravel only to find out it did not fit my needs. Until this date I still believe in the concept of Codeighter, although I also agree that it’s future is in danger due to multi factors.

In my opinion the biggest issue with the Codeigniter project is the absolute lack of ownership. Honestly, if @narfbg wouldn’t be pushing updates and fixes on Github this all would already be dead for months now. For me: I refuse to spend my time
contributing to a Framework which it is uncertain who the new “owner” will be or what the future will bring.

God, they could even decide to sell it to the highest bidder and make it all closed source. So in short: This is a major problem and decisions need to be made really fast to save this Framework.

So now what needs to happen:

- Push the Framework to a new owner that shares the original vision of CI (Small footprint, Less == More, Plugins ect.)
- Change licence so it’s more “attractive” for (non)commercial parties to create forks (Linux/Unix proofs it works fine), the biggest advantage to this is that multiple forks can borrow concepts from each other.
- Create and SHARE the roadmap for the development (thats also why we need a owner/community who protects the original vision from filling up with garbage), this enables a bigger crowed to contribute to the Framework.
- Strip backward compatibility, but make sure it remains easy to update your (custom) code (read: good release notes).

After the above has been executed, we can think about rebuilding the community aspect of this Framework (which is 90% dead right now). Keep in mind the biggest “selling point” for CI is it’s simplicity for beginner / intermediate developers and people that want a lightweight, easy customizable framework, this is the target group for CI, most of the other frameworks are NOT.

But for now Ellislab is letting CI die, slowly and miserably, and honestly I don’t think they care. What I do think is that this will result in someone forking the whole project at some point giving a big crew you at some point. So lets prevent this and get this lightweight train on the track again by taking some STEPS!

I agree.  A direction is needed.

...

God, they could even decide to sell it to the highest bidder and make it all closed source. So in short: This is a major problem and decisions need to be made really fast to save this Framework.

So now what needs to happen:

- Push the Framework to a new owner that shares the original vision of CI (Small footprint, Less == More, Plugins ect.)

...

More than a year has gone by, yet people are still talking about “the highest bidder”. If that was the goal, EllisLab could’ve sold the framework in less than a month. It should at least hint that the company is trying to find the right new owner.

I’ve really enjoyed reading this discussion! I am optimistic that v3 will be released soon. I still love CI and find it suits my needs as it is, but some renewed excitement around CI would be nice.

Anyway, it’s reassuring that a lot of people are still enjoying CI and it’s great that newcomers who have tried other (new, popular) frameworks even love CI 😊