PHP

Coldfusion / PHP / Web Development — 1 Comment
22
Jun 10

CFWheels Coldfusion Framework

Since starting a new job in December, I’ve returned to Coldfusion for web development and have adopted the CFWheels framework. Having found a PHP framework that I really liked in Codeigniter, I wanted to find something similar for CF. Fusebox just didn’t cut it. CFWheels was the closest thing I could find to Codeigniter:

  • It utilizes CFCs for Controllers and Models in the way that Codeigniter uses classes.
  • It comes with some very helpful “helpers” for all kinds of things including redirects, “flash” (no, not that kind) messages, and HTML display code.
  • The online documentation is thorough and easy to navigate.

It’s missing a few things that I liked in Codeigniter, like being able create a query object once that’s available throughout a controller, but it’s only up to version 1.0.5 as of this writing, so I expect great things in the future.

PHP / Web Development — 2 Comments
3
Jan 09

CodeIgniter – The PHP framework for the rest of us

ci_logo_flameI’ve always had trouble wrapping my head around PHP frameworks like Zend and CakePHP. Let’s be clear though – I’m a PHP hack, always doing enough to get the job done without thinking about standards, scalability, or handing off code to another developer. However, I recently discovered the CodeIgniter framework. It’s still MVC, but what sets it apart is it’s flexibility and ease of setup.

I’m not going to go into any detail because I’m still a noob, but if you are looking to move from “anything goes” PHP to a framework that’s easy wrap your head around and provides a gateway to the MVC way of thinking, give CodeIgniter a try.

On a side note, one of the things that drew me to CodeIgniter was it’s relationship to Expression Engine (EE), and in particular, the upcoming 2.0 version that is being built with CodeIgniter. I thought this combination could be very powerful – having a CMS available for which you already could know the guts of it for extensibility, etc. However, after playing with the current version of EE, seeing the learning curve required, and thinking about the cost of each installation for commercial use (EE is not free), I’m not sure sure I’ll use it. That hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for Codeigniter though. It can stand on it’s own for projects requiring custom development.