Hi "streetbuck", (?) Though I believe Thomas and Richard have done well to answer most of your questions, such as that progress on community-developed components is a function of contributors' levels of interest and availability, I would like to comment on Form Helpers, AJAX helper, MVC and ORM.
On the subject of forms, we have proposals in place right now to help augment the system of Zend_View helpers we currently have in the core framework code. On AJAX, there are already several fine AJAX libraries available, and I am not currently aware of where the Zend Framework is incompatible with any of these existing libraries. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject? On MVC, we have a /vastly/ improved Controller architecture that was recently released with Preview Release 0.2.0 in the incubator. Soon that code will be moved to the core framework library. There is currently work taking place in the area of Views to improve this system, as well. On the subject of ORM, this is a seriously daunting project to undertake in and of itself. We already have in place a Zend_Db component that is fairly useful to many framework consumers, and as Bill takes charge on formulating a long-term plan for framework database access, we will undoubtedly see vast improvements in this area, as well. If you're interested in contributing to any of these areas, I would be happy to direct you to more information on how to get started. I won't label your post as "inflammatory," as I believe you bring a valid perception "from the outside looking in," but I would very much like to see such critiques accompanied by supporting information and suggestions on how to improve the situation. This might be submitting bugs or other concerns into our issue tracking system, or maybe you're interested in assisting in the areas in which you'd like to see improvements? I would be happy to help facilitate your getting started in framework contributions however possible. In that vein, you might take a look at the following wiki page: Zend Framework Contributor - Getting Started http://framework.zend.com/wiki/x/GgE Best regards, Darby streetbuck wrote: > I've been using the Zend Framework for a couple of months now, and I think > it's great. It shows a lot of promise, and I'm excited to see what's to come > in the future. > > Having said that, I have a couple of concerns I wanted to voice: > > 1) Too many top level components. > > Why are components like Zend_TimeSync and Zend_Measure being given top level > categories? Everything else so far seems to be categorized correctly, but > why are those two not under the Zend_Locale namespace? > > Similarly, why is Zend_Gdata not under Zend_Services_Gdata like Yahoo, > Delicious and the others? > > Seems a bit inconsistent. > > 2) A lack of focus > > No offense to the authors that are building these components, but aren't > Form Helpers, an Ajax Helper, etc. more important than a Measure class, or a > TimeSync class that 1/100 developers would use? It seems like we are > building some components and devoting a lot of attention to areas that most > people will not need. > > Looking at the amount of time invested, how many people will need a > Zend_Measure class as opposed to an easy way to build forms, or a simple ORM > component? However, it seems as though the latter components are being > pushed back and attention is being devoted to components with narrow use > cases. > > Again, I mean no offense to the authors of the Measure and TimeSync classes, > and I am sure it is great code. My concern is more with the general > direction of the framework. If you look at successful frameworks like RoR, > or even Symfony nowdays, they build all the things that a developer needs > immediately, (MVC, Forms, etc.) and once those are done, move on to the more > specialized components. > > Just thought I would voice my opinion on this topic. Again, love the > framework, and use it everyday, but was a bit concerned with the general > direction and focus.
