Which PHP framework do you like most?

In my opinion, frameworks are normally useful for developers who want to speed up development of a larger project without the hassle of having to write it from scratch. There are far too many frameworks popping up all over the place nowadays and programmers are flocking to them like sheep. If you want to see the atrocities these frameworks are creating, go to the jQuery forum where no-one can actual write any code, but thinks they know a language. jQuery, CakePHP, etc. they have their moments, but for the most part are filled with resource hogging code that does nothing.

They also come with some security concerns because more code means more potential for flaws and errors and thus, holes. Personally, I'd like to see less framework use and more actual hands on programming. Programmers should first be able to demonstrate competency in their language of choice before being given a framework.

 

Or at least, nothing useful or *** that quote often just gets in the way of visitors -- like stupid animated garbage, image slideshows that force the site into an inaccessible fixed width, etc, etc...

That's something I learned three decades ago and have had in my 'catch phrase' bucket for at least a decade: "The less code you use, the less there is to break!"

HTML/CSS/Javascript in particular is far worse than PHP on that -- jquery plus some stupid html/css framework (99% of which defeat the point of using CSS) results in many dev's starting out with over 200k (uncompressed) code before they even plug in content -- then they wonder why they have a broken bloated slow train wreck of a website with massive bounce rates. You toss a fixed width layout crapped together by some PSD jockey on top of that...

In a lot of ways it goes back to something Dan used to say: "You can have your website created fast, cheap, or well coded. Pick only two."

 

The average size of a web page (just 1 page) is now over 1MB, according to HTTP archive. The reason is these frameworks which bloat out code and adopt the "all avenues" approach. I'm sure there are some neat, clean little frameworks about which aren't complete resource hogs, but in general they're a waste of space. Any half-decent PHP coder could knock up some MVC in a couple of hours and have a tight system running, without the holes and flaws of an entire framework.

I wasn't even aware of HTML/CSS frameworks; what purpose do they serve? Are people really so lazy now they need to have HTML and CSS written for them?! Unbelievable! I suppose most designers actually consider themselves to be developers, so it's no surprise they're lazy when it comes to writing code.

 

Isn't that just shameful? Frameworks aren't the only thing to blame though -- letting the art *** photoshop jockeys say what a page looks like before you even have semantic markup of the content, taking all the progress of the past decade and a half and throwing it in the trash thanks to their very pretty but ultimately useless designs are as to blame. Every time we're given new accessibility tools like media queries or CSS3 effects, we get a new wave of 'artists' vomiting up crappy fixed width layouts with px metric fonts on everything and massive images that have no business even being on websites in the first place.

One of the big ones right now is blueprint -- though YUI is also popular and is the trifecta of being a HTML, CSS and Javascript framework. They're all built on what is for all intents and purposes presentational use of classes -- defeating the entire point of HTML and CSS in the first place -- and on the whole, are MORE work to maintain and create than just writing proper HTML saying what things are, and proper CSS to bend that markup to your will...

I'm often shocked at how many PHP developers there are out there who don't know enough HTML to even build a form properly -- still crapping out tables for layout or other asshattery like omitting labels... or even still doing idiocy like <td class="header">... The entire point of PHP is to be a hypertext preprocessor -- to output HTML!!! That's what it's FOR -- if someone doesn't know enough HTML to even build a form with all the proper elements (legend, fieldset, label, etc), a table with the proper elements (thead, tbody, caption, th, scope, col, colgroup) much less how to use heading tags in a proper order/proper nesting or god forbid how to use the cascading part of cascading style sheets, they probably have no **** business writing PHP either.

Just do a view source on Wordpress, Joomla or vBull sometime for proof enough of the ineptitude common to such developers... said folks making more work for themselves and making a needlessly complicated mess out of something simple.

Needless to say that with ineptitude on such a scale commonplace it's no wonder people embrace frameworks that are just as ineptly coded and bloated.

 

Symfony2 here.. Its an awesome framework, highly advanced and very easy to learn & work with.

 

I'm a Codeigniter and CakePHP fan myself.

 

Zend, Codeigniter, CakePHP are best according to me. However, Zend is really great!!

 

Bahaha this thread is hilarious

Throw in a few posts blasting frameworks then a trickle of posts as if the latter didn't exist. Gotta love DP!

 

There's not really any point in arguing again these anti-framework posts. They are so loaded with personal bias that there's no point in even trying to discus what could possibly be a benefit.

Yes frameworks are often bloated because they try to appease everyone. Yes, they can create lazy coders and coders that don't understand the underlying structure and logic behind their system. Yes they can be less secure because if the programmer doesn't understand how to write secure code, there's no reason a framework is going to protect them. It's less secure simply because it's more complex.

But they do allow for rapid development. They can be optimized to work very efficiently. They allow for additional developers to quickly pick up on a project without having to learn how the original programmer structured the whole thing. They are certainly not appropriate in every situation. Hand coding may often create a more efficient system, but that doesn't mean that it's a better way to do it in any circumstance. Lastly, many corporations and employers would expect a php programmer to understand MVC and most likely they need to be fluent in at least 1 framework, if not multiple. You can talk about the ineptness of frameworks and programmers that use them, but this would include the majority of all php programmers out there.

 

I dont like to use framework as i like to code in core php but when my clients needs it i like smarty frame work

 

Perhaps this will open your eyes: http://symfony2.openthinklabs.com/home/cepat

This is a benchmark of Symfony2 Alpha last year, which its going on symfony 2.1 now which has made many dramatic increases in performances.

What are benchmarks about? Providing a proven solid framework of components where we're not reinventing the wheel every time. Can most php coders write most these components? Sure they can, but if your running a development team with bringing developers in & out of the shop constantly you would see the benefit of frameworks tremendously. I occasionally on any given day run between 8-30 projects at a time. Some being wordpress & joomla, some being Symfony, some being Magento, and some being plain 'ol php projects.

Some of these projects we get involved in are picking up after another coder. You want to know which ones are the easiest maintained, and the easiest to slide a new developer in? I'll tell you one thing its definitely no the 'plain 'ol php projects'.. While the plain 'ol php projects allow us to come and just hack & slash it away, they have the MOST problems. They also require the MOST code analysis before you even touch a lick of code.

Whats the second worse? I hate to say it, because its also very easy to develop, but yes wordpress. Is it because wordpress is designed bad? No, not really, the methodology used to put together wordpress is great. Again, it has the same problem with coming into plain php projects, mostly its the code analysis part. Many people that hack away at wordpress again have no clue what they're doing and treat it like a regular PHP project and just edit anything & everything where they feel like.

So why do I like frameworks? The biggest reason. Standards! They provide solid coding standards, and generally there is a learning curve you would sit through before your really an asset to me in my development teams, and generally you must known OO concepts working with frameworks(there are a lot of coders that don't, so sometimes framework knowledge rules out those people). Its based on the simple MVC framework, views are where views should be, controllers are where controllers should be. Using routing components you can easily analyze where the routes are, and what files handle the. Ontop of that, whats great about ORMs? Relationships are defined, we know what is what, in Symfony2 we have class's that handle tables (known as Entities).

So the next biggest thing is maintainability, Custom code you dream up every day is not very maintainable. utilizing a solid framework is extremely maintainable and does facilitate rapid development in large projects. You mentions there is 3 ways to have something done? Fast, cheap or well coded? Well, I'd have to say Fast & Well Coded is what frameworks are about. Is it about cheap? Oh I don't think so, I deploy projects costing in the amounts of $5k to $30 that involve frameworks, vs projects we work on that are not are normally ma & pop $500 to $800 projects, or at tops $2k... And the likely hood of them reaching the quality of our projects developed using frameworks? Slim to neil.

Someone also mentioned HTML/CSS frameworks... I'd like to throw in my 2 cents here, YUI & Twitter Bootstraps are again two of the best frameworks out here that make this mark. Is it about laziness? No, its about bringing in a team of 5 to 10 developers together that all have knowledge in these basic html/css framework techniques, not writing bad code, not writing things that confuse others, and fast loading speeds on browsers by using css & js files that are ALREADY cached in most browsers.

 

One more thing.. web markets, smarty is NOT a framework, that is a template engine. Just as twig is the default template engine of the Symfony2 Full stack framework.

 

Generlaly in the world of PHP Programmers, the ones that utilize frameworks have graduated from demonstrating competency in the language. Most the PHP programmers I work with that don't have knowledge in frameworks are beginners to intermediate, while most of the programmers I work with that do have knowledge in frameworks have been coding 5-10 years. While I know this not the case in all situations, it is pretty much the way the cookie crumbles with my teams.

Jquery on the other hand, your right. You will find ALOT of people that know jquery but have absolutely NO knowledge of javascript, and will swear up & down jquery is a programming language!

 

Seen that steaming pile, it's still a fat bloated steaming pile -- but I'm not convinced that MVC has any business being used as a model for a request, process, output flat execution model language... unless you want to make it a dozen times more complex than need be. I've been doing this **** long enough to know a sick fad and buzzword when I see one. Starts to reek of the "let's throw objects at EVERYTHING" attitude; which is just one step removed from the "wrap every element in a table" attitude that turned into the "wrap every element in a DIV" -- now you just sleaze out the allegedly semantic and completely pointless HTML 5 tags in the same way, net change zero.... and before the illiterate re-re's go "that's off topic", it's called a simile!

That's a very good question since they fail to provide example code as run for any of them. Kinda renders the comparison meaningless -- much less just wtf is a "hello world" application? If you need a application just to <?php require_once(theme.php); theme_header('Page title','home'); echo '<p>Hello World</p>'; theme_footer(); ?> You're a ****up... wasting massive code on absolutely nothing useful.

Bad code is bad code, framework or no. Too many PHP dev's don't know enough HTML or PHP to even open their mouths on the subject. Frameworks in my experience just make it worse. YMMV.

Well, at least we're on the same page there...

Or not... That steaming pile of manure IS just hacked together any old way, is it any wonder people do the same when making changes to it. Between the 100% inept shoving of classes and markup down skinners throat - to the point people throw even more PHP at it to get rid of the manure, the multiple entry points, does NOTHING to even try to isolate scope, code written as if functions and methods are evil, even the half assed stupidity of storing the information that should have the most security around it - the SQL username, password and hostname - in DEFINES -- it is from a under the hood perspective one of the biggest herpaderp's I've ever looked at the code for.

Let's face it, there's a reason it earned the 2008 pwnie for M4ss Pwnage.

1) remember, turdpress is for people who don't know PHP - the code deployed on it REALLY reflects that. It's a bit like apple computers being for people who don't know anything about computers. You have to pause and do a double-take.

2) You basically have to hack at it to neuter all the BS idiocy.

That really comes down to the skill of the developer. A LOT of people are sleazing out *** in frameworks without even understanding how the framework works, much less how what they are doing should be done... the net result, for me at least, is far, FAR from easy to maintain... usually because it's taken something simple and turned it into a convolted mess.

Programming 101 -- the less code you use the less there is to break; that includes your frameworks.

... and when those fat bloated idiotic frameworks by definition mean bad code? Defeat the ENTIRE POINT of using HTML with CSS in the first place? By definition they all use presentational classes in such a absurd manner, you might as well go back to writing HTML 3.2 without CSS -- the code is of the same quality and sure as shine-ola has no separation of presentation from content.

Which is why pages built with that asshattery has little to no chance in HELL of having a proper responsive layout, leverage caching models in a meaningful manner, or even manage to have anything less than a 10:1 code to content ratio... They are the hallmark of ineptitude in development when it comes to websites.

I have NEVER seen a page built using YUI or Twitter bootstraps that was worth a flying purple fish in terms of accessibility, useability or maintainability!

With an attitude like that, I pity your clients... and their massive bounce rates.

 

You do know what year it is right?

You sound like one of the programmers one of my clients got dupped by that broke the maintainability of their wordpress system in which it wouldn't upgrade that I had to come to come in to fix to have things done right... Thanks for sending clients my way.

I'm going to assume you have no idea what all sites actually use YUI & twitter.. Lets name a few.. Big ones.. Amazon, Linkedin, jet blue, WHMCS... Well point is, when your ready to step up to the plate and play with the big boys then you might understand. Your still dealing in very small jobs, or perhaps your doing everything your self. Work with a real project team, try to meet deadlines, deal with loss of developers midway through, instead of constantly backtracking your project every time a change in the team happens.... Perhaps then you'd understand where the value comes in.

 

Which is why when they made that change Amazon became a useless inaccessible pile I won't even visit anymore as a user, and I'm not alone. Those sites you listed within the past couple years have turned from useful websites into inaccessible slow piles of trash... most of which reek of "WCAG, what's that?!?"

View Amazon on a 27" IPS now -- try using it on a 1024x600 netbook... Hey look, some ***tard went and declared the entire site in px metric fonts and didn't bother testing anything more than 1280x768! Thanks for pissing all over what was once a site I actually found useful.

Take a look at the absolutely inept code it now vomits up -- static CSS inlined in the markup? Static scripting inlined in the markup? Several HUNDRED K of javascript on a site that was more useful without it? ZERO scripting off graceful degradation? 238 FRACKING K of HTML to deliver 6.9k of plaintext and three dozen content images?

CHRISTMAS ON A CRACKER they'd be better off with tables for layout given that idiotic disaster!

Again, ineptitude on such a massive scale is just mind-blowin, and much of that can be blamed on the sleazy shortcut frameworks it's built on turning something simple, into a needlessly complex train wreck.

... and the real laugh is I bet the under-skilled sleazeballs who sold them on the change had the giant brass monkey balls to tell them it uses less bandwidth, less server and loads faster. BULLSHIT!

Seriously, developers who don't know what's wrong with code like this:

        <a id='nav-wishlist' href='/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=wish_list' class='nav_a nav-button-outer nav-menu-inactive' alt='Wish List'>
          <span class='nav-button-mid nav-sprite'>
            <span class='nav-button-inner nav-sprite'>
              <span class='nav-button-title nav-button-line1'>Wish</span>
              <span class='nav-button-title nav-button-line2'>List</span>
            </span>
          </span>
          <span class='nav-down-arrow nav-sprite'></span>
        </a>

Code (markup):

need to back the **** away from the keyboard and take up something a bit less detail oriented like macramé! Of course, the further in you get, the more idiotic the code.

<div id="nav_subcats_13" class="nav_browse_subcat" data-nav-promo-id="clothing-shoes-jewelry">
  <ul class="nav_browse_ul nav_browse_cat_ul">
    <li class="nav_pop_li nav_browse_cat_head">Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry</li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/clothing-accessories-men-women-kids/b/ref=sa_menu_apr13?ie=UTF8&node=1036592" class="nav_a">Clothing</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/shoes-men-women-kids-baby/b/ref=sa_menu_shoe13?ie=UTF8&node=672123011" class="nav_a">Shoes</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/Handbags-Accessories-Clothing/b/ref=sa_menu_bags13?ie=UTF8&node=15743631" class="nav_a">Handbags</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/Handbags-Designer-Sunglasses-iPod-Case/b/ref=sa_menu_cla13?ie=UTF8&node=1036700" class="nav_a">Accessories</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/Luggage-Bags-Travel-Accessories-Clothing/b/ref=sa_menu_luggage13?ie=UTF8&node=15743161" class="nav_a">Luggage</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/jewelry-watches-engagement-rings-diamonds/b/ref=sa_menu_jewelry13?ie=UTF8&node=3367581" class="nav_a">Jewelry</a></li>
<li class="nav_pop_li "><a href="/Watches-Mens-Womens-Kids-Accessories/b/ref=sa_menu_watches13?ie=UTF8&node=377110011" class="nav_a">Watches</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

Code (markup):

HERPAFREAKINGDERP!!!

These massive companies are basically coasting on their reputations at this point, and they don't even know it... It's starting to remind me of Symantec's coasting for a decade and a half on the Norton's name -- since 1997 was probably the last time they were actually relevant or did any good.

It's basically suit predation -- same thing as nube predation except it's done upon executives who think they can get sound technical advice from the pages of Forbes, which is much akin to getting financial advice from the pages of Popular Electronics. It's why I consider companies who sleaze out stuff like this for other companies to be, well... predators... in the same sense as a child predator. It's literally that level of sleaze.

It's actually such sleaze that contributed to my retirement; I just couldn't be that big of a scumball anymore.

 

The markup in those quotes are amazing. I think the developer was trying to invent something new, taking the C out of CSS

Completely agree with you on Amazon. Even on my widescreen monitor I've had a few "what the... is happening?" moments.

You need better developers. Being well versed in OOD/OOP, like you said, my code is as flexible as a piece of string

Do people really need someone else's code to help them prevent SQL attacks or verify input data or manage a DB? Blimey.

Oh and using large websites as proof that frameworks are more useful is a rookie mistake. Millions of smokers can't be wrong, right?

One of the golden rules in software engineering: the actual programming should be approx. 20% of development time. Plan, plan and plan again. Frameworks seem to be substitutes for this, and poor ones at that. The reason why I refuse to be part of these frameworks is because it makes it so much easier for people who shouldn't be programming for money to essentially defraud clients.

At the end of a day, real programmers will write their own libraries or a bare-bones framework if they require the benefits. Willingness to take the learning journey of such a task is what separates programmers from the script-kiddies. Too many people forget how academic languages are and see it as a way to make a quick buck.

I like how this man put it:

This is an excellent article on the subject: You don't need a framework if you have a good developer

 

Codeigniter is nice but support for Ajax is not there .I prefer Yii framework which is very easy to learn .In Yii Restful services are not available but SOAP has to be used for web services.

 

I im programming in Symfony 2 since 6 months. In my opinion this is the best php framework ( i was programming in Prado 3, Symfony 1.4, using Zend and Kohana ). Very good social support, composer, DI, listeners and great structure are strong sides of this framework. I don't think thats it is easy to learn, but if somebody has an experience in other framework, then should work well with it.
I extremely recommend Symfony 2 to learn and use.

 

CodeIginiter. It's more flexible for me and I can easily develop functions because of it's built-in helpers and libraries.