Hi guys, I hope I can get some insights from your own experience as PHP developers and tell me please which of these PHP Frameworks is the easiest, fun to learn and use: CodeIgniter, FuelPHP or Laravel? And if there are any other frameworks please share Thank you!!
If you're a good programmer they're all easy to learn. But if you're a good programmer they're all unnecessary.
I'm still a learner, but I assume that using a framework will save the programmer a lot of time, not encouraging to using them as an alternative for learning process though.
I disagree. Frameworks can be essential in the development of large applications. In my opinion, CodeIgniter is the best of the three.
NONE OF THE ABOVE. See Rukbat's comment for more on that.... Frameworks are in the best of times a crutch, in the worst of times a sleazy shortcut that prevents you from understanding how anything actually works, adds unnecessary bloat (PARTICULARLY in interpreted languages) and as such leaves you at the mercy of others, and completely unqualified to make sane or rational decisions about your code. ... and I say that about most all web frameworks be they PHP, ASP, HTML, CSS or Javascript. More often than not the end results are little more than laundry lists of how NOT to build websites!
Professionally speaking, I think it is not essential but necessary (unless its a straight page with no need for additional functionality). If you are learning PHP, I recommend that you also start using MVC. It is the most used software architecture pattern for many, if not all, companies.
As stated above, I must agree with Rubkat, I cannot say frameworks are not usefull since you can create some contact form or whatever with 3 lines of code .. but, I can't see any reason for not doing them by yourself using a pattern like Model-Viewer-Controller. If you'd come over some error, it'd be a whole lot easier for you to solve it, since it's your pattern structure. Personally, I prefer doing anything from scratch, tho', I've created a "library" meanwhile working on various projects, improved them and now I'm using them on every project as a base. It's not a framework, but it's a better go since it's my code and it's bug free.
So basically neither of these frameworks or any framework can substitute the learning process of PHP, DO IT YOURSELF !! right?
007speed, right. Frameworks spare you of the time needed to make some basic things, but, they don't substitute the logic you're needing to make a script.
Codeigniter (CI) is the most popular in this list, so I prefer this framework - it has better documentation and wider community.
Actually you're to first to spell Codeigniter correct on this forum. Mostly you will hear all kind of stupid versions like Codeignitor instead of Codeigniter. So, from your list go for Codeigniter. It's the best to learn even if it's your first MVC framework to learn. Easy and does its job. Being popular its also easy to get help.
Yes I know its laravel but that's not noticeable I didn't even see. But when you say Codeignitor its not allowed. Its Codeigniter world.
Laravel is the best framework from a pure development POV as it offers a lot more to a confident developer than FUEL and CI do. I currently develop in FuelPHP at my day job and I hate it, the docs are bad the ORM and DB seem to have similar functions but not exactly the same and there are few other things that bug me about it. But... CI was the first framework and I will always love it, I suggest anyone wanting to get into development to try CI first as it teachs you a lot about MVC and it doesn't have as steep a learning curve as Fuel and Laravel. I am writing a few codeigniter tutorials if you want to have a look: http://www.codinglikeasir.com/codeigniter-getting-started/ http://www.codinglikeasir.com/codeigniter-started-part-2/ Official Tutorial http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/tutorial/index.html
I agree with HorrorMovies. I to use Laravel for my development and a high-quality developer I speak with in my community also uses Laravel. We keep shooting each other messages of all the positives. I love CodeIgniter since it's the first framework I've ever used, but there is so many great advantages to Laravel. =) And it actually keeps up to standards with PHP 5.3