I found it a little bit complex to use. Does it really bring a lot of value to offset the complexity?
Yes, but it is just one aspect. There are many advantages and disadvantages I guess. Want to have some insights on them.
i just started using Yii, and i like it. But this is my first framework experience. I cant compare with others, but i can compare with procedural programming Yii is well organized, need minimum configuration for start a new project, has a good detailed documentation. Has a lot of extensions. My favorite, has a good code generating tool And fast than others (i just read some blogs which compares frameworks) not:i know, forum rules says "if your english is poor, dont post!", but i think you understand me.
Pro: It's a framework! Con: It's a framework! I can speak from experience on this subject. Frameworks are designed to allow the programmer to stick to a strict coding structure and RAPIDly develop and deploy applications. And if you know the framework inside and out, and you are willing to adapt to someone elses guidelines, and the overhead means beans to you then you will fall in love with a framework. Now for reality...the learning curve is steep. In fact, it can be steeper than learning a whole new programming language. Once you learn the framework you will spend a LOT of time adapting to it and sacrificing the way YOU would normally do something for someone elses. If you are learning a Framework for the first time expect your first couple projects to be poorly written and take 10-15 times the amount of time. Expect your simplest projects to use even MORE code than a more direct approach despite the "write less do more" slogan. Most Frameworks are SLOW. Painfully slow. Some Frameworks will require 50+ lengthy includes before even getting to YOUR code. After going back and fourth between various Frameworks and NOT using one I have decided to abandon Frameworks all together. I got sick and tired of the lack of support and poor documentation that would hold me back. I also got sick and tired of limiting my imagination because I had to adhere to someone elses coding conventions. The overhead was huge and I simply couldn't justify the use of an expensive complex Framework to do what I've done quite easily. I recommend learning a couple programming patterns and coming up with your own approach. Have a library collection and build your own "skeleton" for your applications. Life will be easier and you will only be limited by your own ability...not someone else.
What @NetStar said, +1000 get... and that goes not just for php frameworks, as everything he said is many, MANY times worse when talking HTML/CSS/Javascript. For the most part, frameworks in interpreted or parsed languages are fat bloated idiotic bull that's a waste of everyone's time. This was true 30 years ago when I was working in Cobol, Clipper, it's true today. In fact it's in many ways worse today because thanks to the Internet it's far easier to get a framework and it's documentation -- leading beginners to never learn how to use the underlying language and on the whole just sleaze together code any old way. Just look at the garbage people vomit up in Joomla or Wordpress or even using codeignitor, typically with some idiotic halfwit crap like blueprint or YUI being pissed all over by jQuery and/or Mootools. Developer ineptitude at it's worst, and bloated slow inaccessible and often unusable garbage as the result.
Lets also not forget that most people who use these bloated Frameworks also use bloated Database ORMs (Doctrine) and bloated Template Engine (Smarty). If your using PHP you don't need to use a Template Engine. As for ORMs, the whole purpose it to create reusable objects without touching SQL code yet it still requires you to KNOW SQL. It's useless and it DOESN'T make things easier for you. You can make your own functions in PHP classes directly working with SQL and it will be cleaner without the layers and layers of bloat. I remember being committed to learn ZF1 then ZF2 comes along and it's completely different. Now whatever I made for ZF1 will become unsupported Legacy code. Just great.... I created my own class to replicate the features I use in a Framework (basically MVC, Single Entry w/Router, and Configuration) and the end result was less than 10 includes and about 10 KB total. Most commercial Frameworks are 10 MB+ when extracted.
Don't even get me STARTED... Anyone using that halfwit moronic bull should be ashamed of themselves as, for ***** sake, PHP IS a templating system... ALL BY ITSELF!!! God forbid skinners be expected to make a function like template_header() and then pass values to it... because that's SO much more complicated than Smarty or any of it's kin... Or the idiotic crap of letting people edit the template in the software; that couldn't possibly open up security holes the size of the pacific ocean and make it harder to work with... The people who vomit up this garbage, sometimes I just want to line them up against a wall...