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If we are developing new features for EE at this point in time (off of 1.6.2), would you recommend that we develop them in CI? Would one assume that anything developed in CI at this point in time would either work or only need slight modifications to be able to work with EE and CI once 2.0 is released?

Thanks.

Ps. Where can we find a list of CI develops, a Google search doesn’t turn too much up.

Hey Dabbledoo.

Check out the faq.  My best advice is repeated there. 

What can I do to get ready for ExpressionEngine 2.0?

We intend to make upgrading from 1.6.2 to 2.0 as smooth and seamless as possible. You can prepare by updating your existing ExpressionEngine installation to the latest release, which is 1.6.2. When ExpressionEngine 2.0 is released we will make any additional steps necessary for the upgrade available in the User Guide in our usual thorough fashion.

This carries for devs also, and for development of modules and such. In general, yeah, it would help to familiarize yourself with CI, but even if you build things for 1.6, the updating will be as straightforward as we can possibly make it given the architectural changes under the hood.

You can find a bunch of great CI coders on the CodeIgniter forums.  The CI community is very similar to EE, with lots of active discussion, and really smart people.

If we are developing new features for EE at this point in time (off of 1.6.2), would you recommend that we develop them in CI? Would one assume that anything developed in CI at this point in time would either work or only need slight modifications to be able to work with EE and CI once 2.0 is released?

Thanks.

Ps. Where can we find a list of CI develops, a Google search doesn’t turn too much up.

Forget about “2” until it comes out.

At the end of the day, we are still talking about PHP.  A library built to work in CodeIgniter can be built to work in EE as well, it just might be organized a little different.  Libraries using ExpressionEngine or CodeIgniter resources just require small tweaks to move to one or the other.

Other libraries out in the wild are nearly drop in for both systems.  I have used things like SimplePie and DomPDF in CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine with little work required for integration.

Ps. Where can we find a list of CI develops, a Google search doesn’t turn too much up.

Find any PHP developer.  Just as ExpressionEngine does not require an ExpressionEngine designer because any design can easily be implemented so can PHP developers easily extend ExpressionEngine or CodeIgniter.  If a PHP developer is stumped by any of the above, then you probably found someone fresh out of the “how to” books.

The reason why ExpressionEngine PHP developers have been hard to find in the ExpressionEngine community is because this community has always been heavier with designers.  A solo designer needs ExpressionEngine much more than an ace PHP developer who could rapidly build a custom management system (not an EE, but good enough) with a good web framework.  This is what many of the CodeIgniter developers do.

That is not to say PHP developers wouldn’t benefit from using a proprietary CMS.  ExpessionEngine ensures the client will be left with a platform which is maintained and supported long after the developer has moved on.  The Ellislab family of products also comes with a good community and some degree of standardization.

Just as ExpressionEngine does not require an ExpressionEngine designer because any design can easily be implemented so can PHP developers easily extend ExpressionEngine or CodeIgniter.  If a PHP developer is stumped by any of the above, then you probably found someone fresh out of the “how to” books.

ExpressionEngine (from what I’ve seen) and CodeIgniter especially.  I’ve been using php since v3 and my day job is writing php.  I have used a few other frameworks and what immediately draw me to this is the learning curve was practically nil.  Once I realized where things go and why I was able to make a functional site very quickly.  My site has probably been a total of less than 12 man-hours of work.  And that includes all the css design from the ground up (and dealing with an annoying layout issue) and it’s by far much easier to manage than when I just did each php page separately with different configs and conventions.

The reason why ExpressionEngine PHP developers have been hard to find in the ExpressionEngine community is because this community has always been heavier with designers.  A solo designer needs ExpressionEngine much more than an ace PHP developer who could rapidly build a custom management system with a good web framework.  This is what many of the CodeIgniter developers do.

That is not to say PHP developers wouldn’t benefit from using a proprietary CMS.  ExpessionEngine ensures the client will be left with a platform which is maintained and supported long after the developer has moved on.  The Ellislab family of products also comes with a good community and some degree of standardization.

This is the exact reason why I’m excited by this.  I have been slacking on getting a blog going on there because my current options are reinventing the wheel and building it by scratch or integrating a “foreign” application like wordpress and try to make the two play nicely.  While both viable options it would be great if I had a feature-rich plugin that I can use and after some minor tweaks everything “just works”.

Like John said, any php developer should be able to figure their way around CodeIgniter or ExpressionEngine—even in their current versions—with little trouble.

You guys are killing me…  All this good stuff, but you have to have a mac!

How times have changed! 😊

Yeah “they” really messed things up with Vista. I’m not looking back.

Anyway… this is great news! Making websites with EE almost feels like “cheating” sometimes, because it makes things do easy. Adding the CI power to that… well… I guess I’ll just have more free time! :D

I posted this earlier but it got lost in the fray.

Can one of the EllisLab cats comment on whether the EE2 template parser will be extracted into a CI library?

I posted this earlier but it got lost in the fray.

Can one of the EllisLab cats comment on whether the EE2 template parser will be extracted into a CI library?

The ExpressionEngine template parser is such a specialized beast for precisely how we do templates that it would make little sense to bring it over into CodeIgniter.  Parts of it could conceivably be abstracted into a library, but there are no current plans to do that for 2.0.

Can one of the EllisLab cats comment on whether the EE2 template parser will be extracted into a CI library?

All the information we’ve released is on the sneak peek post and the truth of it is, we aren’t sure yet what that may look like.

perhaps i just need to buy a copy and see how customizable and easy it is to tie into a website…

So you’re saying that EE is too expensive for what it offers, even though you haven’t purchased a copy and tried using it to build a site with?  I see.  Are there any reviews you’d like to give for movies you haven’t seen or books you haven’t read?

While EE is great for the “I can setup WordPress/Joomla/etc.” crowd, it’s nice to see it merging with, IMO, the best PHP framework out there.

I know this probably wasn’t the intent of the author, but I’ve noticed a barely-concealed disdain in the CI fora among developers toward EE that I can’t fully understand.  It’s a great product by talented developers—what’s so threatening about that?  I use, prefer and encourage EE for all my clients even though I could charge more to build something from scratch.  But just because I can roll my own CMS with CI doesn’t mean I should or that it makes good business sense to do so.  There are a lot of things I can do for which I pay other people to do, because they can do it faster or for less cost which lets me focus on my core expertise that I can deliver at a high level and for which I can’t pay someone else.  That’s how you build a successful business.

So I think think the argument boils down to, what’s the best use of your time?  For me, it’s not building and supporting a custom CMS (though it may be yours, and that’s fine) when there’s such a terrific product in the market for, frankly, what I consider dirt cheap. (I’m going to take some flack for this, but you guys should really increase the price.)

The ExpressionEngine template parser is such a specialized beast for precisely how we do templates that it would make little sense to bring it over into CodeIgniter.

Actually, I think there are some great reasons to offer the same template parsing capabilities to both EE and CI developers. You mentioned one yourself earlier in this thread: allowing developers to create a stand-alone CI app that also integrates easily with EE. We’re in this situation right now, developing an app that we’d like to operate both stand-alone and as a module with EE. Having the ability to use the same templating system and tags in both cases would just be the bee’s knees. Not only would it reduce the code on our end, but our end users would have just a single template language to learn.

I certainly understand how complicated the template parser is and that extracting it to a library would be a chore. However, given how strongly you’re pitching EE2 as a dream development environment and the focus you’re placing on integrating stand-alone CI app with EE, I think there’s real value in providing the same template tools to everyone.

Parts of it could conceivably be abstracted into a library, but there are no current plans to do that for 2.0.

At the very least we’d welcome some improvements to the current library—tag parameters, for instance.

The fact that there might be great reasons for creating a more advanced Parser in CI is not the point I am trying to show you.  The fact is that the EE Template parser is a very specialized piece of code that is written for exactly our purposes, and it would not abstract well.  It would simply be easier to write a new Parser class in CI than try to bring the EE Template parser over.  Not everything is a one to one transference, so it will not be possible for us to give you all of your dream code.

[quote author=“maadmac”]I’ve noticed a barely-concealed disdain in the CI fora among developers toward EE that I can’t fully understand.

Well, I think there’s just going to be some natural conflict. Open-source (everything free as in beer) vs a commercial package and developer/programmers vs developer/designers. We’ll just have to learn to deal with that and try to get along 😊

[quote author=“maadmac”]what’s the best use of your time?

I’d rephrase - what’s best for the client.

——-
I must admit a bias though as I’ve been burnt more times by custom development and open-source than anything commercial. I have had a better experience with custom add-ons to commercial packages. Hopefully that’s where this uniting will be useful for us all.

Oh my.. this is undescribably awesome!!! (only just saw the EE2 CP preview .mov)

Seriously.. can’t find more words.. completely :gulp:  🐛  :wow:

I’ve noticed a barely-concealed disdain in the CI fora among developers toward EE that I can’t fully understand.

Seriously? I haven’t noticed it at all and i’ve been on the CI forum for years.

Personally i think it’s fantastic news and gives me even more reason to get stuck into EE.

I think people like being able to make their own systems instead of having to learn other peoples, however, for the right client i’m sure no-one would think twice about going for EE. Even more so with this cracking news about the marriage of CI and EE.

I’ve noticed a barely-concealed disdain in the CI fora among developers toward EE that I can’t fully understand.

Seriously? I haven’t noticed it at all and i’ve been on the CI forum for years.

Personally i think it’s fantastic news and gives me even more reason to get stuck into EE.

I think people like being able to make their own systems instead of having to learn other peoples, however, for the right client i’m sure no-one would think twice about going for EE. Even more so with this cracking news about the marriage of CI and EE.

I haven’t noticed this either.  ExpressionEngine is often recommended on the CodeIgniter forums to those that are asking about a packaged CMS.  You are talking about a community that has been drawn to the framework rather than a CMS though, so of course their first choice is likely to be custom coded solutions. 

With some sort of option to integrate ExpressionEngine into the CodeIgniter framework, assuming there is not a big loss of flexibility will only provide more options for everyone though.