Just thinking : 5 Reasons why i think CodeIgniter is the best out there ...

[eluser]Ramania[/eluser]
It's been a year now since i started to work with CodeIgniter on daily (each and every day) basis, the amount of new things i've learned was over whelming me in a very beautiful way, and when i started to integrate my PHP code with JS code and Flex to produce more user friendly sites, sky truly was the limit, even when i integrated my first flex application in a CodeIgniter view, and then tried the magic of ajax bridge .. it was a happy moment in my life ..

so i'll cut to the chase, why CodeIgniter imho is unbeatable:

1. CI is amazingly fast!: forget all those "stupid" benchmarks where they run a "hello world" line 10,000 times, the undeniable truth is, real world web applications are built on top of different software/hardware stacks with different needs and different programmers, so you can't really know how fast a framework is unless you build a full blown application on top of it!.

2. CI would NEVER EVER get in your way: infact it's so flexible you can twist it's arm anytime you want even the mighty MVC pattern it uses could be overridden -though this is never advisable- i built a simple HTTP interface for my C# desktop application that was integrated with my current CI project in less than half an hour on the CI side, and it saved me all the log in/log out, files upload/download troubles, all i've done was to reroute the calls and I'm sure someone else would do it even better and faster.

3. Super portable code: I have an XP, Ubuntu and centOS machines, all i had to do was modify my config file, and upload my database, so it's as simple as copy/paste, i don't think RoR webapps are that portable, but well, WAMP, LAMP stacks are so popular and widly available, isn't those portability factors?.

4. Stop searching, start writing : CI built in libraries give you all what you need out of the box, no need for any downloads or PEAR packages, the database class does true magic, i can write complex SQL queries that include many joins with different types and aggregate functions using the AR style, even if you decide to bypass the AR class, you will still benefit from the results objects, don't get me started on the powerful validation class, or even the simple yet beautiful and comprehensive upload class.

5. CI Documentation is a heaven: the team who documented Code Igniter is a team that knows exactly what it means to produce very high quality usable documentation that is directed to both skilled and new programmers, i never saw anything that well documented, jQuery -JS library- is well documented too, but it's harsh to the new programmers.

I apologize if i pissed off any code gods out there, my intentions were 100% good, i wanted to tell new comers and even people who consider switching to another framework, that i've thought so many times if there is something better, but CI was always my resort, i considered switching languages to get that coding nirvana, tried Ruby's Rails, tried Python's Django, PERL's Catalyst, and never felt they truly gave me what i looked for, it's not about the learning process, and to be honest, it's obvious Ruby and Python syntax is much more readable than PHP's, and PERL's ability to work with strings and arrays is truly amazing, but for me it's about where you feel home, and this is what life is all about, coding wise, CI feels like home to me.

my request, please never let CI die, please don't abandon those philosophies you put in CI, because that what makes CI a wonderful framework.

Rami

ps: those are two websites i built in two different periods using CI, they are both in Arabic -sorry- and i didn't use cache or even compress my CSS, JS, and still they are so fast.

http://www.mmdrap.com
http://www.mmdrap.com/raqamiya - a client demo, not yet finished

[eluser]Sbioko[/eluser]
And what target of this topic? You listed all the cool features of CI and said how it is great. And? Go to #rubyonrails on freenode and say something of these:"CI the best", "I think RoR sucks, I love PHP" or "PHP better than Ruby". :-)

[eluser]Ramania[/eluser]
CodeIgniter forums has very good SEO, most people who'd search for why CI is the best might find this topic, the target is everyone and anyone who wants to know what other programmers think of CodeIgniter, i'm not related to the CI developement team in any form, and i am giving my true observations for the people, since i do not have a tech blog, and even if i had, i won't have time to watch it, so i just wanted to show my love to CodeIgniter, about the ruby community, most of them are d**ks who think anyone who ask a question or develop in windows is an idiot.