Using CodeIgniter as your web development framework has many advantages. It’s easy to use, it’s fast and it allows you to develop quickly and easily, but even with the best tools, you can make mistakes if you don’t know the best practices for CodeIgniter web development.
In this article, we’ll cover these best practices so that you can build your sites the right way from the start. If you follow these rules, you won’t regret your decision to use CodeIgniter at all.
Must-Follow Codeigniter Best Practices
Get Familiar With Framework
Before you begin building your site, it’s a good idea to get familiar with your framework. Review all of its features and learn how to use them. You don’t have to be an expert, but you should know enough about each component that you can ask questions if something doesn’t make sense.
The more comfortable you are using a platform like CodeIgniter, the smoother your development process will go.
Use Standard Libraries
One of CodeIgniter’s strengths is how it handles commonly used pieces of functionality. All of its session management, email sending and processing, cache management, URL routing, and many other features are handled by built-in libraries.
Most custom development can be accomplished by dropping a library file into your application’s /system/libraries folder. This makes new features easy to develop, debug and test.
Make Your Code Modular
Keeping your code modular is key to scaling, maintainability, and long-term success. Each page or section of your site should stand on its own—it shouldn’t require a dozen other modules or files to make it work. You should be able to add features and functionality by simply adding new modules instead of modifying old ones. Building your projects in a modular fashion also makes updating easier in the future.
Focus on Separation of Concerns
CodeIgniter does a great job of guiding you towards good practices such as Separation of Concerns (SoC). One advantage that SoC has is that it allows you to develop applications with a limited scope, and makes them easier to maintain. As a general rule of thumb, try not to include blocks of code that don’t belong together in your controller or model classes.
Organize your controllers and models logically
As with most programming languages, organizing your code logically is a best practice. Like in other languages, keep methods short and make sure each performs a single task.
Longer methods are hard to read and test while writing multiple methods that do nothing more than creating variables can cause some confusion down the road when you try to understand what’s going on in a piece of code.
Use SASS/CSS in your codebase
SASS is much more than a simple upgrade to CSS. For example, when used in conjunction with Compass and other tools, SASS can help streamline your development process. It also allows you to write cleaner code. This means less time doing repetitive tasks and more time getting new features into your product.
One of the best practices that allow reusing common styles across your application without having to duplicate them over and over again. They’re especially useful for things like color palettes or typography rules.
Keep Models Lightweight and Super Simple
In programming, models are classes that represent your application’s data. If you have a lot of data in your application and a complex set of relationships between various models, consider splitting those into multiple models so that each model can manage a subset of your app’s data.
This gives you more control over each model and makes it easier to retrieve just a single record from an API instead of requiring all records associated with an object.
Use SEO-Friendly URLs
SEO-friendly URLs are standard practice for web development. It helps users find your site and it helps search engines understand what your site is about. That’s why you should always make sure to use SEO-friendly URLs when possible. This includes using keywords in your URL structure and avoiding URL parameters whenever possible.
Use ORM Library or Third-Party Data Access Layer.
Use a data access layer. As your project grows in complexity and scope, you will find yourself writing large amounts of repetitive data access code. Use an object-relational mapping (ORM) library to reduce code duplication and improve consistency across your application. The most popular ORM for CodeIgniter is Aura Data Access (the community edition is free). Many CodeIgniter developers also swear by Propel.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s always a great idea to remember that best practices are dependent on many factors. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to web development. Follow these general guidelines as a foundation, but take what you learn and apply it to your own projects in unique ways—and do whatever works best for you and your team.
