The Net is Dead

Marco van Hylckama Vlieg on web technology, design, life and everything

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• At 23 February '06 - 04:57 pcdinh wrote:

  

  I would like to mention some more:
  
  Pipeline http://www.livepipe.net
  Solar http://solarphp.com

  
  

• At 23 February '06 - 06:11 Bernard wrote:

  I have no extensive experience with any of the frameworks mentioned so far, but I am tending towards CakePHP, because I know Ruby on Rails and CakePHP feels similar and because I do not yet know which PHP version (4 or 5) I can use for an upcoming web application.

  
  

• At 23 February '06 - 09:07 Nicolás Granelli wrote:

  

  Now I’m using PRADO , and trying to do the tutorial of symfony

  
  

• At 23 February '06 - 14:32 Chris R. wrote:

  

  I have used CakePHP before and it’s fairly well documented, some good tutorials and several bloggers writing about using CakePHP. The big plus here is that it’s PHP4 and 5 compatible unlike other feature rich frameworks.
  
  Actually seagull is worth a mention too.
  
  The only thing bothering me is that none of these frameworks are actually out of beta stage yet. Cake looks good but is still hovering somewhere below the version1.0 treshold like most other frameworks.

  
  

• At 24 February '06 - 11:02 Todd Tomlinson wrote:

  

  I’ve tried Cake and am now working extensively with Symfony. While I didn’t have any problems with Cake itself — I found that Symfony’s documentation eliminated the frustrations I had with less than optimal documentation for Cake. I also found several examples of integrating Symfony with Drupal – which makes a very interesting solution suite when you marry the two together. I hope to have a site up for a local non-profit on Symfony and Drupal in the near future as well as a relanuch of a commercial site completely driven by Symfony.
  
  While there are a number of frameworks out there that look interesting — remember to look at their licensing requirements!

  
  

• At 26 February '06 - 09:56 Olle Jonsson wrote:

  

  I am a CakePHP user, and quite fond of the way things work there, and the community is strong. When something is the matter, Tickets are written, documentation can “appear”, and people can get into the stream of using Cake rather quickly, via the magic of IRC chat.
  
  Since the code has been under heavy flux (read: fast development with bold changes during the pre-beta and beta stages), there is still room for improvement when it comes to documentation. The community is at work, discussing and implementing ways to make better documentation, and involving more users in making it.
  
  Making Cake a better framework is a pretty low-threshold thing to do. It is a healthy open source project, I think. Not a closed board-room.
  
  And it takes a lot of time out of developing web applications. You still need to know PHP, and you still need to know your domain, you still have to program. But the maintenance part is way easier.
  
  I’m happy Cake came into my professional life when it did. I was ready for a PHP framework, and I have been productive with it.

  
  

• At 28 February '06 - 17:21 h3 wrote:

  

  My 2¢
  
  I don’t think there is a “one size fit all” solution for frameworks, at some point there is to much features, and the needs are too differents to be put in a “one solution” for all. Plus. you cannot point out a framework saying “hey, this is the best framework ever!”
  
  But, there is indeed good and bad frameworks. Good framework distinguish themselves by being light (non-obstrusive) and expandable. A framework should be considered as a coder’s toolbox, you pick up the tools you need to get the job done, that’s all. If you want something which get the job done for you whitout coding you better look for a CMS or a pre-made solution than a framework.
  
  Personnally I code php for websites but also for web application which are meant to be run in a closed environement in long therm. I don’t really use a “framework”, I prefer using my own code which I reuse. Why rewrite ? If you had write it well once then you just copypaste it.
  
  It might sounds weird or stupid, but if you think about it, when I write a piece of code, its to perform an X task. And if, to accomplish that X task, I know and understand exactly what code gets loaded and what it does, I can be sure that if there is a problem I can fix it and quick.
  
  I think it’s more a feeling and fashion question than a good framework or language question. Both PHP or Ruby are robust and powerfull language that we happily use ~10% off their real capacities, and both have their goods and bads. The question is, which are you most comfortable with ? which will be still used in 10 years ? And ever keep in mind that it’s not because the language is “better” that it will be still in the market in 10 years from now. If it were like that, this discution would probably be about LISP frameworks instead of PHP or Ruby frameworks (LISP is now 58 years old..).
  
  I think that too much programmers choose their languages based upon “how easy” it is to learn how to get trendy results. I fact.. I fear mental lazyness.

  
  

• At 01 March '06 - 02:53 Marco wrote:

  

  How do you definine ‘trendy results’ ?
  
  I can guarantee you I can whip up a totally over the top Web 2.0 style site with every possible bell/whistle in it with crap procedural code and 5465 separate .php scripts with no structure or whatsoever. That would be a totally trendy result but there would be absolutely nothing ‘trendy’ about the code

  
  

• At 01 March '06 - 15:17 h3 wrote:

  

  I think that the defenition of “trendy results” is not very important, I might used the wrong therm to explain my point, but I speak french and I do my best to be understand..
  
  “quick” would be a more appropriate word i think. Sorry about the confusion.
  
  Anyway, that wasn’t really my point.. The point is; Ruby is not better than PHP.. like PHP is niether better than Ruby. And a framework should not be a key feature to look for when choosing a programming language. Frameworks are not a language, there are set of usefull and often used functionality grouped to save time. A smarter framework does not make the language better, since in theory you could replicate that framework in whatsoever equivalent rival language.
  
  The bottom line is that it’s not the frameworks and often not the language neither that make the difference, it’s the coders that use it and how they use it.

  
  

• At 02 March '06 - 02:51 Marco wrote:

  

  Oh I think you got me all wrong then. I figured it was clear that I’ve already chosen for PHP. The main issue in this article therefore isn’t the question of what language to use.
  
  However, given the fact I choose PHP there’s simply several frameworks out there that try to make the life of a PHP developer somewhat easier. And that really CAN make a difference I think.

  
  

• At 02 March '06 - 14:40 Ryan wrote:

  I happen to come onto this discussion when I asked myself the same question.
  
  If you like Ruby check these out.
  http://phpontrax.org/
  http://biscuitproject.tigris.org/
  
  Both are supposed to be like ruby on rails but in PHP.

  
  

• At 09 March '06 - 14:27 Lee Queen wrote:

  

  What does everyone think about the Zend Framework for PHP?

  
  

• At 11 March '06 - 15:18 Erlend Klakegg Bergheim wrote:

  

  The framework of eZ Systems, eZ Components, looks promising. I do realy look forward to June this year. :D

  
  

• At 19 March '06 - 06:38 Frankie Robertson wrote:

  Personally I use a python framework called Django (www.djangoproject.com/) if I was forced to use php (which started off with not language design but is now immitating java more and more) I would probably use cake.

  
  

• At 21 March '06 - 17:56 h3 wrote:

  

  After some searches I can tell that prado is very promising, i don’t understand why we don’t hear about it much.. it’s quite old.. i first herd about it back in 2004 when it won the Zend’s php5 coding contest. It was already very promising but i never tough using it for many logical reasons. But now that i’ve take a closer look to it and both php5 and prado are more mature, it starts to make sens.
  
  It takes 4 lines and about 30 seconds to install and integrate, which i think is pretty impresive.
  
  shell:
  pear upgrade -fo pear
  pear channel-discover pear.mooexpress.com
  pear install mooexpress/prado
  
  yourFile.php:
  require_once(‘prado/framework/prado.php’);
  
  I think I’ll give it a try ;)

  
  

• At 22 March '06 - 15:21 Ilija Studen wrote:

  

  Only framework that has a chance is Zend Framework. Its not even alpha yet and there is a whole community behind it.
  
  And there is a Z word in front :)

  
  

• At 23 March '06 - 10:45 Ivo Jansch wrote:

  

  I think you should try ATK (http://www.achievo.org/atk). All the plumbing is done for you. (and although this shouldn’t matter from a technical point of view, it’s a Dutch project )

  
  

• At 24 March '06 - 06:07 Ibrahim Ahmed wrote:

  

  We need major features to be added to PHP, and then you will see frameworks even better than Rails. It’s the language that allowed Rails to be that good. And also the clean and beautiful implementation of the framework itself.
  
  Of course the main features PHP needs to steal from Ruby is metaprogramming, closures, strict object orientation.
  
  But then again, may be Rails excels as a framework, because it’s implementation is coherent with the philosophy and features of Ruby. I mean, during the last 5 years, PHP frameworks was always trying to copycat other languages frameworks, without asking if this framework would really work the same if it’s ported to PHP. If you know what i mean.
  
  Anyway, i took a look at http://agavi.org you may like this one.
  
  I already added Rails to my toolchest, and i am really happy with it, though i like PHP, but till a convincing PHP framework arises, i will stick to Rails.

  
  

• At 28 March '06 - 08:48 Nathan Logan wrote:

  

  For a comparison, check out this chart and the commentary that follows it. After reading there, I’ve started to pick up CakePHP, which seems like a robust system with a great community of developers behind it. So far, the tutorials have been quite helpful (and extensive).
  
  Regarding the comments above on there not being a “best” framework: while that’s probably true, for me, it’s not practical to go learn 8 different frameworks and then use the best one for a particular project. It’s much more practical (and time-effective) for me to make a good decision on a flexible, strong platform to begin with, and then become an expert there. The reason? Efficiency. After all, the point of a framework is to make coding quicker and cleaner.
  
  But I’m certainly not the expert on it – I just started getting used to the framework idea recently. Great site, by the way. I’m excited about the content I’ve seen so far.

  
  

• At 30 March '06 - 16:21 Megamuch wrote:

  

  While I agree with most comments already posted, I have to say that none of the frameworks out there could be considered the best.
  
  All of them miss certain features that imho should be included in the framework. I’m as lazy as hell, and I hate checking for user input. So that’s one thing that should be handled easily and without too much effort.
  
  One other thing I’m missing from most is userroles /authentication/authorization. Almost every website, has some sort of user specific pages. Why have developers design their own – often unsafe – auth methods.
  
  If it’s done right in the framework, developers would save tons of time not worrying about security, but making decent apps.
  
  While the above stated functionaly would certain switch is from a development framework to an application framework, it is imho something that is missed by all php frameworks out there. Cake has an ACL controller, but it’s under heavy redesign and therefor not useable at the moment of writing.
  
  Qcodo look interesting, but leaves a lot of the work still to the developer.
  
  Symfony also looks very promising, but puts its focus on ‘enterprise’ instead of common sense :P
  
  Zend alpha has one unique feature, which is a 100% port of the lucene search engine. If zend progresses into a full featured application/ developer framework, I guess there is a defenate winner there.
  
  my 2 cents.

  
  

• At 20 June '06 - 18:22 Alex wrote:

  

  If you’d like to try out yet another Framework in PHP, you can take a look at PHPWebBuilder. It supports object relational mapping, a component-based MVC, and transparent AJAX support.

  
  

• At 16 September '06 - 00:54 luegner wrote:

  I want to slap the a$$ who came up with OOP. You keep telling yourself that it’s better than procedural code while you jerk off to that abstract object. While you’re still trying to fit everything into objects, I’m already done writing an application and have already started a new one.
  
  <?php
  //OOP
  class helloWorld {
  function myPrint() {
  print “Hello, world.”;
  }
  }
  $myHelloWorld = new helloWorld();
  $myHelloWorld->myPrint();
  ?>
  
  <?php
  //Procedural
  print “Hello, world.”;
  ?>
  
  WTF??

  
  

• At 16 September '06 - 16:25 Marco wrote:

  

  OMFGLOLBBQ!
  
  This comment made my day

  
  

• At 17 September '06 - 03:42 jessieE wrote:

  

  Im also looking for a PHP framework that could run on a yahoo hosted site which uses PHP 4.3.11. So I guess its Cake for me then?

  
  

• At 17 September '06 - 04:29 Alex wrote:

  

  PHPWebBuilder works fine in PHP 4. The documentation needs imrpovement. but the framework is great.

  
  

• At 31 December '06 - 07:53 Harro! wrote:

  

  I think ZF will eventually take off.
  The question that bugs me about frameworks is how much overhead is being introduced?
  
  And how will performance be affected?

  
  

• At 24 January '07 - 17:07 Donna S wrote:

  

  Somebody took the time to try and evaluate Rails inspired Frameworks at http://www-users.mat.uni.torun.pl/~tomah.. and the best seems to be a new framework named Akelos.
  
  Interesting read.

  
  

• At 22 February '07 - 20:44 Paul wrote:

  

  Hi All,
  
  I have been learning PHP and am definitely not an expert. Being new to it, it definitely seems very powerful. But, if it’s to keep going for the lead, frameworks are required. Frameworks that are robust and bullet proof.
  
  This is no different that the old days of C. I remember taking my first course in C. All the code just to do a something with a UI. Then came C and the MFC. This was a huge evolution and took a lot of the dirty work out. One can still get down and dirty with it, but they don’t have to. That’s what makes C and the MFC such a powerful environment. All the way to Visual Basic… many laugh at it, but there are some killer apps out there written in VB.
  
  PHP has the potential in that you can get down and dirty with it. But, some of us don’t want to. We want a framework that allows us to drag and drop controls and components, set their properties through code and focus on providing the the value to our customers quickly. There needs to be and IDE to allow for quick development. I know, I know, the purists don’t like this ideal…. we have to know what’s going on underneath. I saw a video clip of some of something called xblog I think. This was a PHP development environment that allowed one to develop just like you would in Visual Studio. The nice thing is that it generates all PHP code and it’s there for you to see. This was vaporware, and just a demo, but the concept very powerful. You give this to the PHP world and I think it will grow exponentially.
  
  Personally, I see this like the battle between Linux and Windows. I converted to Linux on my servers a couple of years ago. Even though I have a pretty good technical background, I was totally new to it. The installation scripts and the GNOME or KDE UI made me fall in love with linux. I only converted because the Linux world made it easy for us lay people. This got me going on it… over the past 2 years, I have become very knowledgeable with it’s inner workings. My point is.. make it attractive and easy to do most of the common stuff, but leave the power there if one chooses to use it…they will learn it.
  
  I think I’m starting to babble…. my last point is we need those frameworks and IDE’s. Ruby on Rails is a great example of how, if you make it easy and clean, it will take the world by storm.
  
  Regards,
  
  Paul

  
  

• At 26 February '07 - 23:31 Tee wrote:

  

  CakePHP seems very interesting at first, but it doesn’t support PDO. I don’t understand why CakePHP using old technologies. Come on, php4 must die and we have to move on…
  
  I am very disappointed when CakePHP claims they support both php4 and 5.

  
  

• At 21 March '07 - 22:16 Icandothat wrote:

  

  CODE IGNITER! I like code igniter. Lots and lots of great built in functionality, still more plugins written by others and finally the ability to include whatever third party code you like in the form of libraries. I found cake a little overblown and underdocuemnted out of the box. I wrote by own but it’s designed for use with ORACLE DB.

  
  

• At 24 June '07 - 23:27 php framework wrote:

  

  has anyone here actually tried php on trax (http://www.phpontrax.com) yet ?

  
  

• At 05 July '07 - 15:59 Michal Slaby wrote:

  

  It’s been 1 year since I started developing Tigermouse – a framework that natively supports Ajax and suits well enterprise grade web applications in PHP. It is modern, MVC architecture based framework that brings business logic processing back to server side. It handles AJAX encapsulating and hiding Javascript from developer.
  
  Learn more at http://tigermouse.epsi.pl

  
  

• At 17 July '07 - 08:59 pael wrote:

  

  php on trax — how do you deploy this in a windows server?

  
  

• At 22 November '07 - 07:47 php-newbie wrote:

  

  Has anyone tried the Delphi for PHP product? Only for a Windows box as yet, and it is new (version 1.0), but it claims to provide the framework the comments above seem to be wanting.

  
  

• At 28 November '07 - 23:11 Arstan wrote:

  

  CodeIgniter is yet another powerful php framework with a good documentation.

  
  

• At 10 January '08 - 23:11 Ajax Ninja wrote:

  

  Well, i’ve tried several framework. But the important thing is the documentation. No matter what framework do u work at, but it really makes me crazy while i have to find the way to use it.
  
  I’m trying to find a framework that integrate with ajax widget. Till this time, i use codeigniter rapyd(another small pluggin for CI) and create manual coding javascript framework like jQuery and prototype.
  
  Does anyone know what is php framework with good documentation and ajax gui system integrated?
  
  thank’s

  
  

• At 04 February '08 - 07:55 lamib wrote:

  

  I myself use CodeIgniter: I think it’s the best and suggest everybody checks it out.

  
  

• At 24 February '08 - 21:11 eenx wrote:

  

  I use CodeIgniter, but still training now. Where I can find the best tutorial ford this Framework?

  
  

• At 25 February '08 - 10:24 lamib wrote:

  

  eenx: If you’re already proficient in PHP, you’ll find the user guide alone to teach you all the important basics: it’s very well documented and easy to read.

  
  

• At 30 March '08 - 10:54 stoefln wrote:

  

  Has anyone tried TYPO3 or even the new TYPO3 framework (FLOW3)?
  Although i miss some important features, i think TYPO3 is a great framework, and i’m very curious bout FLOW3. will give it a try when its finished…

  
  

• At 04 July '08 - 03:10 Prajith wrote:

  Hi, i think Zen frame work is the best. But i haven’t used it well since it doesn’t supports php 4.

  
  

• At 11 August '08 - 03:10 Procedural Php Framework wrote:

  

  When searching for a php framework I still prefer procedural over OOP framework. Almost all frameworks now are OOP based. It is so common they no longer mention the word OOP in their webpages anymore. You have to download and see the codes to know it.
  
  And I also prefer “Agile” development cycle like ROR over the traditional one. Whenever someone talk about ridiculous DataFlowDiagram and and the likes, I know that they are not Agile-based.
  
  This makes my quest hit a brickwall. I end up creating my own framework. It is really a pain in the back! Nonetheless, after 10 years, I think I starting to see a silver lining.
  
  You should also start writing your own framework too. Dont afraid to start late. Remember that Steve Jobs did just that, and end up with great products!

  
  

• At 11 August '08 - 15:30 stoefln wrote:

  

  @Procedural Php Framework:
  wheres the benefit of a procedural framework? (e.g. codeigniter is OOP based but still allows you to create methods and has a lot of predefined methods too)

  
  

• At 28 December '08 - 14:35 Sebastian Bratu wrote:

  

  I have built about 12 websites ( about 5-6 web services ) on CodeIgniter and still believe it’s the best framework around because it’s easy, you can copy a lot of code and has many plugins. It’s true that it has some problems in some areas, but it helps a lot in building complicated code.
  
  I do believe CI is one of the best ( but of course there are others )
  It really depends on your style as a programmer.

  
  

• At 10 December '09 - 07:34 Walter wrote:

  

  I have been developing PHP commercially for ten years, since PHP3, and consider myself an experienced PHP developer. On almost every project I use a lightweight, custom-built, procedural PHP framework of my own design. If you’re interested in why, then read on.
  
  I started PHP before it had OO. When OO PHP came along, I tried it but didn’t see the point. Sure, code can look pretty, but why write all that extra? Since then I have managed large and complex multi-developer projects and I gave compelte freedom to coders of specific subsystems to implement using their preferred paradigm. Some used OO. The code they produced proved much more difficult to align with changing project requirements and ultimately everyone wanted to rewrite it. That was one experience. Lately, I’ve been reading up on software design theory (books like ‘Coders at Work’, which interview experienced developers from all languages in an informal fashion) and have found they have had similar experiences. I’m not wholly against OO, I just don’t think it’s necessary for most web applications, and it can often hinder rather than help re-usability by making it easy to assume too much about its environment (ie: class/object-system). I’m not saying all OO PHP code is bad, just that a lot of it is harder to repurpose than simple functions with well-defined inputs and outputs.
  
  Next, I am heavily weighted against code generation and cut and paste approaches. It’s true that if you are coming from a build/deploy/forget model and have been writing the ‘plumbing’ code yourself then code generation saves time, but it doesn’t make it the best approach. To illustrate, let me say that the only projects I take tend to be relatively complex or require long term maintenance rather than the ‘build/deploy/forget’ model that many simpler websites use (and many less experienced PHP programmers produce in great volume). Because of the nature of these projects, I have learned (the hard way) that it is more time efficient in the long term to write properly segmented, documented, re-usable modules instead of hacking out 100 slightly different unstructure codebases. Code generation has its purposes, but most of the time if you can code-generate, why not just write smarter code?
  
  Finally, to achieve the modularity I need for maintainability, I use a simple but powerful modules system of my own design that is built in to my framework rather than PEAR. Why? A few reasons: I don’t use OO (most PEAR modules are OO-based), I don’t want the overhead of a heavy-weight documentation system, and I don’t want the complexity of PEAR integration on every deployment platform. My framework’s modules system integrates with my OS package manager, so I can easily include system-level package dependencies or PHP feature dependencies with my modules (ie: “PHP must be (re)compiled with ‘ctype’, ‘json’, etc. for this module to work”). The modules system also includes standardised hooks functionality, self-test functionality, structured settings export, internationalisation, interdependency resolution, custom install scripts (including automatic database extension), etc. It’s at the point where I can just install a website and the system takes care of all dependencies, building up a database exactly as complex as required by the modules in question in an iterative fashion. This has been a real time saver.
  
  When I do take the time to review them now and then, I tend to find that most PHP frameworks fall down in areas such as: non-interactive (automated) deployment, system-level package dependency resolution, internationalisation, and support for alternate execution models (batch executed scripts, related sites on the same filesystem, mature hooks interface to facilitate software extensibility, etc.).
  
  That’s my 2c.

  
  

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