Just how did you reach your conclusions in such a short space of time?
Well it's still an MVC framework, which means the division of concerns is still just plain wrong. I've never seen MVC in PHP where it makes a lick of sense because it inherently shoe-horns a programming model into the language that doesn't match the task.
It's a linear request language, not event driven handling its own loop.
To paraphrase the vulture, "Process the user input, access the database, output the result. Anything else is rubbish!"
Find the enemy and shoot him down. Anything else is rubbish! -- Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen
PHP is best used as glue between request, database, and output. In a "proper" MVC in languages like C++ request and output are both in the view. MVC in a client-server model doesn't make a single blasted lick of sense. I can't word it simpler than that.
Which is how you end up with using two to ten times the code needed to do the job right out of the gate before you've even written a single line of your own functionality, and then thanks to that "routing" BS end up being forced to write as much if not more code as you'd have without codeignitor in the huffing mix!
Second, I can't go through the tutorial without recoiling in horror at the bad practices and outright BS in just the first few pages. It alternates between "why even bother HAVING this framework if I'm still writing all this code", "look some idiots doing nothing but <?php ?> on every blasted line for no good reason"
(Something that honestly should be removed from PHP entirely, hence I'm REALLY starting to like Facebook Hack), a significant chunk of how it works is a relic from the mysql_ days that should have gone the way of the dodo when PDO dropped
(aka pointless database wrapping).... I mean FFS these clowns can't even build a HTML form properly and we're supposed to magically trust they can write PHP for us?
JUST like how derpy client-side frameworks where you take one look at their example HTML and it's painfully clear the people who created and maintain them don't know enough about HTML to write a single blasted line of it, much less tell others how to do so. The same problems are right there in their views, in how views are implemented... but more than their example markup, their PHP takes it to the next level passing around data and values with variables for nothing, parameters for nothing, a lack of leveraging templating to avoid mixing logic with markup making things HARDER to skin...
It's a train wreck that doesn't work how anyone who actually understands PHP and uses something like PDO would/should be doing things. The only way one could find benefit from it is failing to bother learning PHP from the start, and diving for idiocy like this before you even understand enough about the language to even have a valid opinion on if it's any good or not.
But then I'm the type of programmer where when I see code like this:
<h1><?= $heading ?></h1>
<h3>My Todo List</h3>
<ul>
<?php foreach ($todo_list as $item):?>
<li><?= $item ?></li>
<?php endforeach;?>
</ul>
I have to choke back the urge to punch someone in the face... It is proof positive they aren't qualified to write a single blasted line of HTML or PHP.
But I'm a "one <?php per file" kind of dev.
Likely why I'm considering abandoning PHP for Hack.