NYCPHP Meetup

[Ajai Khattri]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009, Mitch Pirtle wrote:

> Here's my take, would love your feedback:
>
> http://www.mitchitized.com/nerdy-stuff/php-frameworks-explained/

A couple of points:

You say a framework is opinionated (fair comment) but that to me 
implies a stack has specific layers, a naming and directory layout 
convention, etc. Zend doesn't have that so each project is different - 
there is no common frame of reference. Thus I dont call it a framework. 
"Glue" is certainly right, but its really a library of components - how 
you use them, how you structure your app and your own naming conventions 
is how they're often used. If you like gluing things together, that might 
be OK. But it also brings up the issue of long-term maintenance, when you 
have to hand the code over to someone else that has a different idea of 
how things should be structured. While a lot of frameworks have a common 
layout that facilitate easier maintenance by different developers, most 
also allow you to tweak and customize a little, so they are not as rigid 
as seems to be implied.

The other thing is, despite being full stacks, many frameworks can be 
scaled up and there are many options to tweak that. You can switch off 
layers you dont want to use (like maybe you dont want to use an ORM or 
you want to swap in a lighter component). Many frameworks have a lots of 
options for caching functions, templates, etc. You would have to build 
that yourself if you want to glue something together with components.

There are many large sites using frameworks, so your comments about 
scalability and performance might be a bit off. Frameworks require much 
more learning to get the best out of them, this is why picking four 
frameworks and bulding a simple "Hello World" page merely scratches the 
surface and cannot be regarded as a serious testdrive, but these 
unoptmized experiences are sadly often used as benchmarks to pick!



-- 
Aj.