Well, I haven’t used CodeIgniter since about version 1.5, and it’s been an experience catching up with some of the changes that EllisLab has made. Thankfully, the corporate nature of CodeIgniter means that all of the changes have been thoroughly evaluated, documented, and tested; meaning that re-familiarizing with the framework was a pretty painless process. One thing that I felt I must note is the new and improved form_validation library, which has made CRUD systems a bit easier, though they’re still a pain in the ass to implement, whether you’re in CodeIgniter, Rails, or any other framework. Another thing to note is the fact that it is still fairly fun to do stuff in CI, though Rails is a little bit easier, the more down-to-earth construction of CI is quite refreshing.

I also wanted to revisit a point I made a few sentences up concerning CRUD systems in frameworks. This is a critical feature that I wish to address in Constrictor, and I am currently writing up two detailed posts about both CRUD systems and the (planned) growing importance of the Request object in acting as a middleman between the Constrictor core, controllers, and the server system, allowing for the development of third-party servers as soon as possible. The development is still on track for an alpha release within the next month, though I am planning for a one-week no-Internet retreat in about five weeks to focus on my creative side and hopefully put together some massive documentation of current and upcoming Constrictor features.