> 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 -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
