Keeping current with CodeIgniter

What’s a community-developed open source technology looking for a home to do? In 2014, CodeIgniter was lucky enough to find that home in Metro Vancouver, here at BCIT.

This CodeIgniter wallpaper was created by Ben Rivero a fan of the tool

Described as a “fully baked PHP framework” by its original developer, EllisLab, CodeIgniter is a “proven, agile and open web application framework with a small footprint.” It’s also been called “simple” and “elegant,” and has been used in the development of thousands of websites.

Computing instructor Jim Parry agreed to take the project lead role, and facilitated BCIT’s adoption of CodeIgniter. He keeps the flame alight with a goal of including students in open source community and practices.

The CodeIgniter community is worldwide, numbering in the thousands – 50,000 in China alone. An international council oversees the framework, with representation from the US, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Jim is also currently collaborating with faculty from the University of Lisbon and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, to build on the framework and to make such tools easier to learn.

Computing students have benefited from adopting the collaborative workflow practices of CodeIgniter, and Jim continues to look for ways to involve students further as they work on their real-world software development projects. He’s also supervised capstone projects for students at universities across Canada who are contributing to the framework for academic credit.

Jim’s volunteer caretaker role involves managing the forum, steering the ongoing development, and diving into the development himself as well. Explains Jim, “the project has proved very useful in my teaching. My industry credentials are current and authentic – I can draw from personal and recent experience for examples I use in class.”

In the long term, Jim envisions students “not only learning to work on open source projects, but to help make CodeIgniter the best one ever.”

The international CodeIgniter community appears to think they’re on their way. In the words of one fan, “you and your team have done a great deal to support the framework I love.”

2019 Update: CodeIgniter has been transferred to the new non-profit CodeIgniter Foundation.

16 thoughts on “Keeping current with CodeIgniter”

  1. I am a big fan of CodeIgniter and about 5 years of experience and love it. I just wondering if Codeigniter is powerful enough to handle our auction website project? Users may goes up to hundred thousands.. Please need your advice..

    Reply
  2. Is there a way for me to get in touch with a BCIT students that are familiar with CodeIgniter directly?
    I am looking for someone that may be interested in joining me on my current project.

    Thank you.

    Reply
    • Hi Jerry,

      The best way to connect with students as potential employees is through posting on Career Track. If you want to connect with current students, an industry project might be appropriate. Or if it’s more casual than that, feel free to email me more info about your requirements and I can share it informally with students who might be interested.

      Best,
      cynthiavg@bcit.ca

      Reply
  3. Hi…
    Great Job BCIT Team for your codeigniter.
    I was a big fan of CI few years ago.

    In this article you tell us that code igniter is “SIMPLY and ELEGANT”. Let’s discuss one by one.
    * SIMPLY ? Yes I agree
    * ELEGANT ? I don’t think so.

    CI has very poor OOP implementation, bad practice OOP and many more.
    Currently, PHP is 7.x with many powerful feature but, CI does not adopt all of those powerful feature. I can say CodeIgniter technology is obsolete. and does not comply to PSR.
    CI does not have Expressive syntax as well. Is that Elegant ? NO.

    I think, CI will be more elegant if making a decision like laravel did => always keep up to date about technology trend, beautiful code, expressive syntax. and keep simple.

    Regards,

    Reply
    • Rian – thanks for your comment. You might want to take a look at CodeIgniter 4, the new version under development. It is based on PHP 7, and supports some of the PSR-FIG conventions that we agree with. We are shooting for a most elegant framework, and welcome community contributions.

      Reply
    • Rian You are flat out wrong.

      Codeigniter is already here, it is the best framework that can exist, short, powerful and light learning curve, it is like a lightning bolt destroying missiles, CI3 is the best and now with CI4 everything has evolved towards infinity, the ecosystem is Under the best standards, by far it is better than the “Laravel” fashion, CI is more scalable, understandable, digestible and easier to maintain, its large-scale potentials are huge, personally in 2015, knowing that the BCIT sponsors CI, I sent a letter to develop a code fork for my University projects, the CI code is beautiful, its very elegant syntax, it has nothing to envy to any other framework, here the programmer is free to do what he wants, we are not tied to absurd ecosystems where it was difficult to maintain the code, I am definitely happy to know that CI is still alive, even more knowing that it has a scientific approach and that the community is one of the best in the world.

      Reply
  4. A lot of tools and tech stuff out there but you usually chose the one that satisfies your needs.But Code Codeigniter is perfect when you want a simple MVC micro framework that has a very small footprint and an easy learning curve.

    Reply
  5. Codeigniter is already here, it is the best framework that can exist, short, powerful and light learning curve, it is like a lightning bolt destroying missiles, CI3 is the best and now with CI4 everything has evolved towards infinity, the ecosystem is Under the best standards, by far it is better than the “Laravel” fashion, CI is more scalable, understandable, digestible and easier to maintain, its large-scale potentials are huge, personally in 2015, knowing that the BCIT sponsors CI, I sent a letter to develop a code fork for my University projects, the CI code is beautiful, its very elegant syntax, it has nothing to envy to any other framework, here the programmer is free to do what he wants, we are not tied to absurd ecosystems where it was difficult to maintain the code, I am definitely happy to know that CI is still alive, even more knowing that it has a scientific approach and that the community is one of the best in the world.

    Reply
  6. Codeigniter is adaptive, fast and most importantly liberal. Awesome! Using the best programming techniques and strategies will leverage CI’s capability.

    Reply

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