Frameworks

Hello,

on 11/02/2006 05:37 PM ray.hauge@americanstudentloan.com said the following:
> I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question is why
> use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
> frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but most
> of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to work.
> If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
> something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
> them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
> the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
> think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
> other people's opinions.
>
> I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend Framework. I
> also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
> that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.
>
> Your thoughts?

The reason why people tend to write their own solutions has to do with
the fact that existing solutions may not match their needs or
application structure preferences.

Another reason is dependence on someone else development. There are
plenty of Open Source libraries run by close minded developers that do
not accept patches nor improvement suggestions. Relying on libraries
that have these problems may get you stuck when you need something
better that is not yet provided by those libraries.

Zend Framework is yet another example of a library that attempts to
solve the same problems that other have solved, but the Zend way, which
implies their coding rules and PHP 5 reliance. If those constraints do
not please you end up discarding the whole library altogether.

Some people prefer to use individual libraries from different sources so
they can compose a solution that matches better your needs.

These and other aspects have been covered in this blog post precisely
regarding the criteria of choice of frameworks.

http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/...rameworks.html

--

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/

I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question is why
use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but most
of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to work.
If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
other people's opinions.

I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend Framework. I
also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Ray

I think you pegged it... the benefit is that you save time, the
drawback is that you're limited in what you can do. I think you have
to review each framework and chose one based on your personal
preferences, the project at hand, etc.


On Nov 2, 2006, at 7:37 AM, ray.hauge@americanstudentloan.com wrote:

> I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question
> is why
> use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
> frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but
> most
> of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to
> work.
> If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
> something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
> them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
> the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
> think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
> other people's opinions.
>
> I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend
> Framework. I
> also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
> that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.
>
> Your thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Ray
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>

> I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question is why
> use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
> frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but most
> of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to work.
> If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
> something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
> them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
> the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
> think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
> other people's opinions.
>
> I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend Framework. I
> also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
> that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.
>

Hi Ray,

Your comments reflect how I felt about frameworks for a long time: that they
force you work in a certain way that often isn't suitable for the app you're
building.

Part of the problem was that I used to confuse customisable applications
(e.g. CMS systems) with genuine abstract frameworks.

For my latest app (a CRM system) I felt I should reassess what frameworks
were and how they could help me - and I'm very glad I did. After reading up
on all the ones I could find, I downloaded and played with Symfony, Cake and
QCodo (http://www.qcodo.com). I eventually chose QCodo, primarily for its
'code generation' approach (i.e. it builds your object relational model
(ORM) for you by examining the DB). I liked this because it didn't 'tie me
in' - once it had created the ORM for me, I just had the classes I need to
build my app from scratch.

I have to say I really rate QCodo. The code it generates is really first
class and VERY easy to understand/extend. Being PHP5 only, it makes full use
of PHP's OO functionality.

I believe that having used a framework for this project, my app is better
constructed and has also been developed in about half the time it would have
taken me to hand code the ORM.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of others on the subject too.

Edward

I personal prefer Frameworks. I tried some of them.

But in my opinion, those are not made to create application fater, no.
With Frameworks, you can maintaine your application better. You have a global
place where everything can be changed on one file. Ofc, its also possible
that this improves the Application development, which is ofc good, but the
main thing is you can maintain it easy.

A good example is your comment regarding loading lot of staff into memory.. In
my company we also have a bigger framework, with a lot of includes and so on.
But it is still damn, fast. If you include now 100 or 1000 files, you allmost
dont see it as PHP proccesses them very fast. And if you have to change for
example now a filename that is required by other fiels, that a Framework is
your friend as you dont have to go to each file and change the filename, no,
you only have to change it on one place, result in: easy maintaining. Ofc,
this is only one example, but there exists other things too where a framework
can improve your work and save you time in changing things .

on Thursday 02 November 2006 16:37, ray.hauge@americanstudentloan.com wrote:
> I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question is why
> use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
> frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but most
> of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to work.
> If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
> something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
> them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
> the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
> think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
> other people's opinions.
>
> I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend Framework. I
> also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
> that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.
>
> Your thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Ray

I am using Code Igniter on two projects at the moment and I am loving it.
All the tedious, repetitive elements are reduced, security is increased and
code organised in a clean fashion (you can of course mis-use frameworks but
with effort they can promote and facilitate a cleaner, more modular approach
to coding). In other words I get to work on the meaty part of the
application without coding the tedious bits or trapsing through my own past
projects to find code I can re-use.

It's fast and lightweight and I highlt recommend it - codeigniter.com.

It totally depends on what type of application you are writing, and what
features you want "out of the box" so that you don't have to design and
write them yourself.

For example, if you are writing an administrative web application and you
want user authentication, dynamic menus, role based access control, audit
logging without database triggers, built-in workflow, and
internationalisation facilities then you might want to take a look at
Radicore (http://www.radicore.org/)

As well as having all the above features it has a custom built Data
Dictionary which can generate all the basic code for you. This enables you
to start with nothing more than a database schema which you then import into
the Data Dictionary, and from there you can press buttons to generate the
database table classes and also buttons to generate the scripts to view and
maintain those tables. All this without having to write a single line of
code. It uses a catalog of transaction patterns which deal with single
tables, one-to-many relationships and even many-to-many relationships.

There is a massive amount of documentation and sample code, and a tutorial
is available at http://www.tonymarston.net/php-mysql...-tutorial.html


--
Tony Marston
http://www.tonymarston.net
http://www.radicore.org

<ray.hauge@americanstudentloan.com> wrote in message
news:20061102083748.beaf2ffc1ec11ddb5c27d6f877c80e 34.6e03de0bab.wbe@email.secureserver.net...
>I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my question is why
> use them? I'm hoping to not create a religious war... I see that
> frameworks would probably help you develop some things faster, but most
> of the time they don't do the things the way I would want them to work.
> If I did use one, it almost seems like I would use it to get through
> something until I had time to do things the way I wanted/needed to do
> them. There's a lot of talk about frameworks lately, and especially
> the Zend Framework, so I'd like to look into what it's all about. I
> think I might be missing out the framework issue, so I'd like to hear
> other people's opinions.
>
> I do like the mail, pdf, and a few other parts of the Zend Framework. I
> also like that it's more like a set of tools than a monolithic beast
> that would take a lot of memory just to load up into your application.
>
> Your thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Ray