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. _______________________________________________ New York PHP Users Group Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk http://www.nyphp.org/Show-Participation
