CodeIgniter's Future

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
Yes, they are built for PHP4 but there is very little difference between the two versions. PHP5 has stronger OOP support, and CodeIgniter takes advantage of that support via the Base5 file.

The only major change you would see is the declaration of properties/methods as private, protected and public. Sure, that would keep people from using and abusing the framework but I find that to be developer error, not the framework's problem. It would be a nicety if CI kept me from using private functions within a class, but if I insist on doing so - I better be willing to face the consequences.

There has yet to be any significant proof that developing for PHP5 will give you any sort of performance benefit. Therefore, the only reason to develop for PHP5 is to take advantage of PHP5's new features (which CI does) or simply because PHP4 is no longer supported.

Unfortunately, PHP4 is still widely supported (hell, it's still the most popular version in production environments) and can be found on literally thousands of hosts.

So, as has been said many, many times before. EllisLab (the commercial company that makes a living off of this stuff), doesn't really believe it's fiscally responsible to alienate thousands of users just to sprinkle a private, protected, and public throughout the source just yet.