best web framework.

leom

Folks,
Which do you think is the best web framework out there, based on your experiences. I am looking for opinion on php frameworks specially.

Evil Phil

I haven't done much php work buit Zend seems to be the most popular. Code ignitor isn't bad either.

Why do you ask?

Sparks

I've heard wonderful things about Symphony, but so far haven't worked a project where it was suitable to use (usually because there's a legacy system already in place). I've used Drupal (hated it), Joomla (hated it more) and three or four(legacy) hand-rolled attempts (hated them, their writers and the hard disk sectors they were stored on).

I think though that in the end, you're looking for something that fulfils mutt's credo of 'sucks less' than anything that could be called 'perfect'...

leom

Evil Phil wrote: »

I haven't done much php work buit Zend seems to be the most popular. Code ignitor isn't bad either.

Why do you ask?

I need to choose a php based framework for my a site at my work. I am thinking of using cakephp? any one has any idea about that

Goodshape

Sparks wrote: »

I've heard wonderful things about Symphony, but so far haven't worked a project where it was suitable to use (usually because there's a legacy system already in place). I've used Drupal (hated it), Joomla (hated it more)

Drupal and Joomla are CMS systems, not frameworks.

Also, Symfony (note the spelling) is a framework, whereas Symphony is an unrelated (as far as I know) CMS.


OP, I had a look at CakePHP when I was deciding on a framework to focus on myself. In the end I went with CodeIgniter though, so it's the one I'd recommend. Documentation for CodeIgniter is fantastic and I found it quite easy to get to grips with.

More recently have been looking at Symfony and I'm liking what I see. Seems a good deal more powerful than CI and I'm looking forward to using on a couple of upcoming projects -- but I can see myself sticking with CI for sites where the 'extra' isn't needed.

Sparks

Anyone calling Drupal a CMS with a straight face has probably not spent enough time in its guts! (Though to be fair, anyone who has spent time in its guts knows that even Drupal doesn't quite know what it is or what it wants to be, and usually all they're left knowing is that they want out of Drupal's guts in a bad way).

Joomla isn't really a CMS anymore either. There is a CMS buried in there allright, but ever since the Mambo split and the 1.0 to 1.5 rewrite, Joomla's become a much larger beastie than a mere CMS.

Dead right about the misspelling of Symfony though
Haven't used it in anger yet, but some of the fooling about evaluating it was a lot less effort-ridden than some of the other things I've worked with. But as with all of these projects, the further your specific application deviates from what the framework author had in mind, the harder a fit it is.

Goodshape

I've not spent much time with either of them in the past couple of years but Drupal and Joomla both identify themselves as CMS, and last I looked there was quite a difference between them and a framework.

I wouldn't say that CodeIgniter, Cake or Symfony have the same limitations when deviating from what the author had in mind. A framework makes some of the more common development tasks easier and less time consuming, and offers a structure for your code, but it's entirely up to you to define and build the content - and the management system.

Sparks

Goodshape wrote: »

I've not spent much time with either of them in the past couple of years but Drupal and Joomla both identify themselves as CMS, and last I looked there was quite a difference between them and a framework.

I'm just commenting after spending three months hacking at Drupal to get an eCommerce site up and running in it. Drupal and the 1.5.x versions of Joomla both call themselves CMSs; but when you dig into the programming, you find that they've actually spread a long way past that point, and in most cases it's not just featuritis gone mad.

I wouldn't say that CodeIgniter, Cake or Symfony have the same limitations when deviating from what the author had in mind.

They're more flexible, not perfectly plastic. I'm not arguing against them, I've used too many frameworks to think that, but they're definitely not a silver bullet.

A framework makes some of the more common development tasks easier and less time consuming, and offers a structure for your code, but it's entirely up to you to define and build the content - and the management system.

And sometimes, for some applications, the framework best suited will be the base language itself. It's like writing a template library for PHP -- in some cases, it's a pretty good idea, and in others, it's just adding a layer of abstracted complexity that slows down development and load times on the page, for very little end result.

There's a good reason to keep YWBNI in mind with these things.

Naikon

The "best" framework in the context of web tech is entirely subjective. Pick the one that matches your needs the closest.

ve

Zend seems to be the business alright (if you can work with it). +1 on the differences between a CMS and a framework. I appreciate that both Drupal and Joomla have internally evolved beyond a traditional CMS (if such a thing exists anymore), but the next stop after a CMS isn't a framework, they're not even on the same track.

I don't mean to hijack this thread but has anyone found any decent tutorials on the Zend framework. The framework.zend.com tutorials are absolutely rubbish. Well all there seems to be there is a very basic step by step tutorial giving you very little and then a reference guide. I'm looking for something in the middle. I can't for the life of me get my head around the internals of the framework (where to make calls from, etc) to get it to do anything significant. It seems to be a bit all over the shop.

Also how the hell can I use PDO or Zend_DB to do anything remotely complex in terms of SQL queries. I was drawn to Zend_DB because it allowed me to transactions and rollback's etc, but unless you are doing direct object to table mappings there doesn't seem to be any tutorials on the matter. It's like everyone is writing the very same basic "Here's how to create a blog" type tutorial.

Any takers?

daymobrew

Some other opinions at Nettuts+