4 ms·

Paraglide and Paragon looks pretty terrible. Honestly, I don't see it as a great PHP5.3 framework. In fact, it looks pretty terrible. Lithium would be a better

Paraglide and Paragon looks pretty terrible. Honestly, I don't see it as a great PHP5.3 framework. In fact, it looks pretty terrible. Lithium would be a better choice, if you think that you can't do OOP in PHP5 without 5.3, or you think that all other frameworks suck for this/that reason: http://lithify.me/ http://lithify.me/ Personally I use CakePHP for side-projects, and it suits me just fine. But honestly, PHP development isn't that bad, even with a 3 year old version of certain frameworks...

sidupadhyay 16y ago
Lithium is a really great option. It forces you into a good set of rules to develop your app rapidly while not sacrificing quality. It integrates really well with both MongoDB and CouchDB out of the box and provides a solid set of testing and analysis tools. As frameworks go, it can do as much or as little as you want it to. The CTO of Totsy gave a talk describing their no-nonsense usage of Lithium and MongoDB http://www.10gen.com/video/mongoboston2010/totsy http://www.10gen.com/video/mongoboston2010/totsy
breck 16y ago
Paraglide and Paragon look decent to me. PHP makes the need for a framework minimal. Cake is neat but overkill in a lot of ways unless you happen to be one of the developers of Cake and know it inside and out. Same goes with Kohana, CodeIgniter, etc. If you know PHP well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal MVC framework. PHP has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient ORM is a bit tricky. You're not going to have the widespread adoption of your framework that Rails enjoys. This is because Rails increases the utility of Ruby for webapps by a factor of 10x while your PHP framework improves PHP for web apps about 2x. BUT, if you are using PHP you might as well write your own internal framework because it's a fun programming exercise and will take you only a little longer than mastering someone else's. I went down the same path(created my own minimal php framework called uno a while back), though if I'm doing MVC apps nowadays it's almost always using Rails. Rails has the advantage of loads of great devs that know it. Also, once I learnt Rails well I grew to depend on certain features that I just didn't want to emulate in Uno.
- josegonzalez 16y ago
  I am actually one of those people that knows CakePHP inside and out (see http://github.com/josegonzalez http://github.com/josegonzalez). Regardless, a framework is a way to jump-start someone in developing for a given language. Honestly, I've taught at least 5 developers PHP in about half the time it would normally take using a framework than without. The same applies to any other language. It's easy to write your own framework, but I can almost guarantee you that it will have more bugs than any of the larger, open source frameworks out there. They may have their chinks, but those get largely fixed and tend to benefit the most people. Using a well-known, and well-tested, framework means you have access to a greater pool of developers, and they don't have to learn the idiosyncracies of something you've written because you could. And while I am in the process of writing my own framework (see https://github.com/josegonzalez/git-php https://github.com/josegonzalez/git-php), I still prefer using someone else's framework. It's nice to be shown other ways of doing things. "If you know LANGUAGE well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal ARCHITECTURE framework. LANGUAGE has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient IMPORTANT_DETAIL is a bit tricky."
  - breck 16y ago
    > but I can almost guarantee you that it will have more bugs than any of the larger, open source frameworks out there. I think you can definitely guarantee it :). Before stopping dev work on Uno I ran into plenty of bugs that I didn't anticipate that would have been quickly weeded out by a bigger community. Many times I realized, "oh, this is why all the frameworks do it that way", only after doing things a way I thought was "simpler". > "If you know LANGUAGE well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal ARCHITECTURE framework. LANGUAGE has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient IMPORTANT_DETAIL is a bit tricky." Good point. I do think PHP is a bit unique though in the respect that many people argue that PHP itself is a framework/architecure for web apps. But I largely agree with everything you've said.
    - josegonzalez 16y ago
      PHP is a complicated templating language ;)
pbreit 16y ago
That seems a little harsh without any specifics.
- josegonzalez 16y ago
  No docblocks. No readme. No tests. No separation of concerns (everything I saw was in a single Paraglide class). Personally, not something I'd like to give to a developer to work with. Might seem harsh, but I'm very opinionated. I look forward to the developer documenting the project itself. It's not necessarily bad PHP - no terrible practices other than putting everything under the sun in a single class - but to say its a great framework with all of these glaring faults is a little much.

sidupadhyay 16y ago

Lithium is a really great option. It forces you into a good set of rules to develop your app rapidly while not sacrificing quality. It integrates really well with both MongoDB and CouchDB out of the box and provides a solid set of testing and analysis tools. As frameworks go, it can do as much or as little as you want it to. The CTO of Totsy gave a talk describing their no-nonsense usage of Lithium and MongoDB http://www.10gen.com/video/mongoboston2010/totsy http://www.10gen.com/video/mongoboston2010/totsy

breck 16y ago

Paraglide and Paragon look decent to me. PHP makes the need for a framework minimal. Cake is neat but overkill in a lot of ways unless you happen to be one of the developers of Cake and know it inside and out. Same goes with Kohana, CodeIgniter, etc. If you know PHP well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal MVC framework. PHP has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient ORM is a bit tricky. You're not going to have the widespread adoption of your framework that Rails enjoys. This is because Rails increases the utility of Ruby for webapps by a factor of 10x while your PHP framework improves PHP for web apps about 2x. BUT, if you are using PHP you might as well write your own internal framework because it's a fun programming exercise and will take you only a little longer than mastering someone else's. I went down the same path(created my own minimal php framework called uno a while back), though if I'm doing MVC apps nowadays it's almost always using Rails. Rails has the advantage of loads of great devs that know it. Also, once I learnt Rails well I grew to depend on certain features that I just didn't want to emulate in Uno.

josegonzalez 16y ago
I am actually one of those people that knows CakePHP inside and out (see http://github.com/josegonzalez http://github.com/josegonzalez). Regardless, a framework is a way to jump-start someone in developing for a given language. Honestly, I've taught at least 5 developers PHP in about half the time it would normally take using a framework than without. The same applies to any other language. It's easy to write your own framework, but I can almost guarantee you that it will have more bugs than any of the larger, open source frameworks out there. They may have their chinks, but those get largely fixed and tend to benefit the most people. Using a well-known, and well-tested, framework means you have access to a greater pool of developers, and they don't have to learn the idiosyncracies of something you've written because you could. And while I am in the process of writing my own framework (see https://github.com/josegonzalez/git-php https://github.com/josegonzalez/git-php), I still prefer using someone else's framework. It's nice to be shown other ways of doing things. "If you know LANGUAGE well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal ARCHITECTURE framework. LANGUAGE has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient IMPORTANT_DETAIL is a bit tricky."
- breck 16y ago
  > but I can almost guarantee you that it will have more bugs than any of the larger, open source frameworks out there. I think you can definitely guarantee it :). Before stopping dev work on Uno I ran into plenty of bugs that I didn't anticipate that would have been quickly weeded out by a bigger community. Many times I realized, "oh, this is why all the frameworks do it that way", only after doing things a way I thought was "simpler". > "If you know LANGUAGE well, it's almost as efficient--possibly moreso--to program your own minimal ARCHITECTURE framework. LANGUAGE has so much of what you need done for you that only an efficient IMPORTANT_DETAIL is a bit tricky." Good point. I do think PHP is a bit unique though in the respect that many people argue that PHP itself is a framework/architecure for web apps. But I largely agree with everything you've said.
  - josegonzalez 16y ago
    PHP is a complicated templating language ;)

pbreit 16y ago

That seems a little harsh without any specifics.

josegonzalez 16y ago
No docblocks. No readme. No tests. No separation of concerns (everything I saw was in a single Paraglide class). Personally, not something I'd like to give to a developer to work with. Might seem harsh, but I'm very opinionated. I look forward to the developer documenting the project itself. It's not necessarily bad PHP - no terrible practices other than putting everything under the sun in a single class - but to say its a great framework with all of these glaring faults is a little much.