Refactoring Without Restarting: What 6 Months of Rebuilding My CodeIgniter App Taught Me About Growth

Ian Ochieng — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 23:46:58 +0000

It’s been about six months since I restarted a project that’s become a big part of my developer journey — a web app I maintain for a SACCO.

I’ve rebuilt it several times over the years, but this latest version has really tested my patience, skills, and growth as a developer.

When I first started, everything looked great. I was moving fast, adding features, improving UI, integrating packages — the usual excitement. But over time, the lack of tests and framework support hit me like a wall.

🧠 The Pain of Progress

The project runs on CodeIgniter 4, which I love for its simplicity, but let’s be honest — it doesn’t have the kind of community support or ecosystem that something like Laravel or Node.js has.

When you can’t just composer require a solution, you end up becoming the package maintainer yourself. 😅

That part was both empowering and exhausting. I wrote custom helpers, small internal libraries, and unique workflows to fill the gaps. But because I wasn’t writing tests, the codebase slowly became... unstable.

I’d fix one bug, and two more would pop up somewhere else. The logs were inconsistent, and I kept finding small cracks in places I thought were solid. Every fix started to feel like pulling a loose thread on a sweater — you never knew what else might unravel.

🔍 When I Realized I Needed Tests

After a few months of firefighting, it hit me:

I wasn’t dealing with bad code — I was dealing with untested code.

I could make changes confidently only if I had a safety net. So I decided that for the next two months, I’ll focus purely on writing tests — not new features, not refactors, just tests.

I want to cover:

All custom helper packages I’ve built.
The core logic that handles member records, transactions, and reporting.
Critical flows that tend to break whenever something else changes.

It’s going to be a painful process, but I finally understand why people say “untested code is legacy code the moment it’s written.”

🧩 Framework FOMO and the Temptation to Restart

Since I started this project, I’ve used other frameworks — Laravel, Node.js, and even TempestPHP, a new one that’s been catching my eye lately.

Every time I try something new, I see features and design patterns that make me want to go back and “rebuild everything again.”

But not this time.

This time, I’m sticking with it.

I’ve restarted this project too many times already, and I’ve realized that real growth comes from improving what you already have, not starting over every time you see something shinier.

⚙️ What cspine Taught Me About Value

Somewhere along this journey, I built cspine — a small AlpineJS plugin to make it easier working with its CSP build.

I didn’t expect much from it, but it slowly started getting traction: two stars on GitHub and around 50 weekly downloads on npm - it was more at some point.

That may not sound like much, but to me, it means something powerful — someone out there found value in something I built.

It made me realize I should start sharing my experiences more — writing about my learning process, the frameworks I try, the errors I fight through.

Maybe through blog posts like this one. Maybe through platforms like Dev.to or Hashnode.

Because even the messy parts of this journey can help someone else.

🧭 Looking Ahead

Right now, my focus is clear:

Write tests for the SACCO app.
Stabilize the codebase and remove inconsistencies.
Keep improving the developer experience of my custom packages.

I don’t plan to restart this project again — I’ve come too far to throw it away.

The goal now is refinement, not reinvention.

And honestly?

Even though the logs are sometimes inconsistent and debugging drives me insane, I’m proud of what I’ve built.

I’ve learned more from this “broken” codebase than I could have from a dozen tutorials.

⚡ Final Thoughts

The inconsistencies and frustrations still scare me.

But they also remind me that I’m building something real — something that’s growing with me.

“This is what the next level of growth looks like — messy, painful, but absolutely worth it.”

Thanks for reading. If you’ve gone through similar growing pains with a long-term project, I’d love to hear your story.

Introducing Jengo React Starter Kit – Build CI4 Apps with React & Inertia.js Effortlessly

Ian Ochieng — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 04:09:32 +0000

Hi devs 👋,

After working with CodeIgniter 4, React, and Inertia.js across a few projects, I found myself repeating the same setup steps over and over again — composer configs, Webpack, directory structure, React + Inertia integration... You know the drill.

So I decided to package it all up into something clean and reusable:

`jengo/react-starter-kit`

A Composer-powered starter kit for building full-stack apps using:

✅ CodeIgniter 4 – a fast PHP framework
⚛️ React – frontend library of choice
🧭 Inertia.js – the glue between backend and frontend
🎨 Tailwind CSS + DaisyUI – modern UI styling

✨ Features

⚡ Pre-configured Inertia.js bridge for CI4
⚛️ React + Webpack setup ready to go
🎨 Tailwind CSS + DaisyUI support out of the box
📁 Opinionated folder structure for smooth separation of concerns
🚀 Dev server powered by CI4's php server at port :8080
🧪 Includes a clean welcome page with layout structure

🚀 Quick Start

composer create-project jengo/react-starter-kit my-app

cd my-app
npm install
npm run dev

Visit http://localhost:8080 and you're up and running!

🔍 Folder Structure

app/Controllers/       # Backend routes/controllers
resources/js/Pages/    # React components
resources/js/Shared/   # Shared layouts/components
public/                # Web root

📸 Welcome Page Preview

A basic layout is already set up with a simple welcome message:

// Home.jsx
export default function Home() {
  return (
    <Layout>
      <h2>🎉 Welcome to Jengo React Starter Kit</h2>
      <p>
        You're now running a full-stack app powered by{" "}
        <strong>CodeIgniter 4</strong>, <strong>React</strong>, and{" "}
        <strong>Inertia.js</strong>.
      </p>
    </Layout>
  );
}

🤔 Why This?

There wasn’t a starter kit that bridged CodeIgniter 4 with React and Inertia.js in a clean, modern way — especially one that embraced Tailwind and developer ergonomics.

So I created one — and I’ll keep improving it as I use it in real-world projects.

📦 Package Link

👉 https://packagist.org/packages/jengo/react-starter-kit

🛠️ Maintained by Me

I’m also maintaining a modern InertiaJS adapter for CI4 that this starter kit uses under the hood.

🧠 Let Me Know What You Think

Would love your feedback!
Try it out, drop a star ⭐ on the repo if it helps you, and feel free to suggest improvements or contribute.

Happy coding,
—Ian (a dev who believes AI & tools should empower creators everywhere)

DEV Community: Ian Ochieng