title: CodeIgniter: Development and Production Environment
body: <p>I am currently in the process of learning the CodeIgniter PHP framework. At the current moment, I am looking to have a DEV environment and a PRODUCTION environment. Coming from a purely C and JAVA background, I am used to having everything locally (with version control), but since I will have the PRODUCTION side on a website, I was wondering a couple of different things:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Is it better to keep the DEV environment locally?</li>
  <li>What would be a good (and easy) way when making changes on the DEV side to get them up to the PRODUCTION side (assuming the DEV env is local)?</li>
  <li>Is it possible (and if so, how?) to setup CodeIgniter to have a DEV &amp; PROD environment in the same codespace (say on the server but with different databases tables)?</li>
  <li>When using Version Control on an application I would create in the Framework, is it recommended to only have the files I create for my application, or add the whole Framework (to keep the code consistent with version of the Framework)?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you have in advance.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>