CodeIgniter 2.0 is stable (enough)
For the last 7 months since CodeIgniter 2.0 was released on BitBucket the question "when will it be stable?" has been all bouncing around all over the place. The truth is CodeIgniter 2.0 has been stable for months. Somebody at EllisLab could open the terminal and write $ hg tag v2.0; hg push; right now, but what would that actually give us?
CodeIgniter 2.0 is a major release, which means this has been a perfect chance for EllisLab to make major changes that effect compatibility. One example of a major change is that our Models now need to extend CI_Model instead of Model. That is an acceptable change for a major release, but think of the outcry if that was done after EllisLab had tagged v2.0. They would have to release a v2.0.1 which would not be compatible with v2.0, and that would be plain ridiculous. I've been told we shouldn't have any massive changes coming, but for now EllisLab still have that option. If any big changes do happen you don't need to worry about them breaking anything as you should be watching the RSS feed/changelog before grabbing a newer revision anyway.
"But there are f**kloads of bugs in the issue tracker!"
Yeeeaaahhh... no. At the time of writing there are 93 issues in the Issue Tracker on BitBucket. The vast majority of those are invalid, irrelivant, ridiculous or badly described and non-repeatable. Another thing to remember is that most of these issues (and more) exist in CodeIgniter 1.7.x. I have found several bugs in 1.7.2 that I have fixed and pushed in 2.0. Now that CodeIgniter 1.7.x is frozen, all fixes for any bugs discovered are going into 2.0. That means CodeIgniter 2.0 is actually more stable than 1.7.2.
Looking at this from another angle you need to bare in mind that EllisLab maintain two commericial products built on top of CodeIgniter 2.0. ExpressionEngine (until the 2.1.1 release tonight) was still pretty buggy and MojoMotor was only released at the end of July. Imagine how annoying it would be for you if one guy at work was going mental changing everything while you were trying to fix bugs with a unstable system? I'd be having serious words with him that's for sure.
So, EllisLab have been busy working on ExpressionEngine and MojoMotor while only really fixing a few CodeIgniter bug's here and there. I'd say that's fair enough right? After-all those two applications are the main bread and butter of the company. Does this mean that CodeIgniter will end up stagnating? Hell no.
ExpressionEnigne just hit 2.1.1 and I have been assured by EllisLab CTO Derek Jones that within the next week we'll start to see a signification increase in commits to the repository. The less they need to concentrate on fixing bugs in ExpressionEngine the more they can start to work on CodeIgniter and take it forward as a framework that can benefit us as much as them.
My advice to you, download the latest copy and have a play. If your application worked in v1.7.2 it will work in v2.0 and the upgrade is pretty simple.
Comments
Luke Holder
2010-10-19
It is stable, and I have built things on it. I don't know why, but version releases just make my happy inside.
R0sk
2010-10-19
Great post Phil, btw I've translated it to Spanish on my blog, I think it's interesting for all Spanish CI users (http://www.userlinux.net/es-estable-codeigniter-2-0.html). Cheers!
Romadhoni
2010-10-19
Waw, it rocks! I've been waiting this version. But lately my friends told me that there are so many change inside v 2.0. But what the heck, I'll try it first. Thanks for the info dude.
Joe Taylor
2010-10-19
Thanks for making me feel comfortable to upgrade now. Was hesitant before.
Joe Taylor
2010-10-19
Thanks for making me feel comfortable to upgrade now. Was hesitant before.
Justin
2010-10-19
I'm brand new to CI, so I get to start fresh with 2.0. Is there any documentation specific to 2.0 yet? Or should the 1.7.x docs suffice for most things?
Justin
2010-10-19
OK, answered my own question when I downloaded and found the user guide right there.
Lars Steen
2010-10-19
Great post Phil!
I've been looking forward to CI2 quite a while now, and generally I think it's awesome, though I was a little disappointed to see that they haven't switched to the sql native driver yet.
Tarique
2010-10-23
More stable than 1.7.2 . Yes it is. Thanks for the post.
David Hemphill
2010-10-23
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I ran into an infuriating issue with 2.0's Image Manipulation Library. It simply wasn't doing its job. I downgraded my app to 1.7.2 and everything worked out of the box.
That said, I love the improvements in CI 2.0 and can't wait to get my production code running on it, but I might just have to wait for the official release.
Umefarooq
2010-10-24
if CI 2.0 is stable then why they are not releasing it officially most of CI community is just waiting CI 2.0 officially lunched on CI site and it should be because it more than one year CI 1.7.2 is there love to see CI 2.0 available for download on CI home page
Sithik M
2010-11-07
Hi, its great to work in 2.0. But still I get issues in few places. I used MY_Router class in my libraries in CodeIgniter 1.7.2. But after I migrated to CI 2.0 the MY_Router class not working. Pls suggest.
Sithik M
2010-11-07
Philip gave the solution for the issue I addressed above. Just move your overriding classes to the application/core directory and just get amazed. It is working for me.
Thanks Philip for immediate response. I liked it!
Rj
2010-11-12
I was debating between developing in 1.7.2 or jumping into 2.0. Your post has help my decision, thank you!
Cass
2010-12-03
the CI Site (http://codeigniter.com) looks abandon... damn they have taken to long to make a stable release... WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.. i wanna see it in the site already.
Sash
2010-12-03
it frustrate me the fact that frameworks like Yii came last and its already wayyyy ahead of us... this sucks!... lets see what you do about it.
Anand
2011-03-29
Wow, i am new to codeIgniter and hope will be easy