php frameworks are nonsense. i gave ruby on rails a quick look, the vast amount of files scared me away. can you imagine debugging that nightmare? not your code (which i’m sure ror has some sort of super awesome magical debugger), but flaws in rails that are bound to come up in a large project.

If it turns out you build a popular application for a client and the it has to go to multiple servers as it isnt performing well, is it a good choice?

There are also environmental implications of the widespread adoption of frameworks. Can you imagine the impact if all of the developers using frameworks used half as many servers ?

Frameworks do try to implement some nice standards but it will not keep people from writing spaghetti code (a bad programmer can screw anything up). You will never get a high-level custom application out of a framework.

If a novice needed a simple site and would never program as a profession – I would recommend learning it. It is easier to learn how a framework operates that learning php itself, plus you can do some really cool tricks with it and web 2.0 features as well.

I hope this helps out someone who is researching frameworks and trying to figure out what all the hype is about. I would recommend to check out some of the libs & helpers in there… some are worth adding to your collection.

Ohh yeah for clarity – Pear is nothing like cakephp, codeigniter, zendframework, symphony, etc. It is more like CPAN for perl. you just grab what you need and use it when you need it without being stuck in a box.

One thing that I have said again and again, is that PHP people expect that everything works EXACTLY how they like it a bit too much. I have seen self-important programmers push aside other people’s tools just to build something that “they like” which is far inferior to all the other tools available.

I’m currently playing with PRADO for a pretty big future project, will be posting here as to how that works out.

A Framework is exactly as its called, it provides the facilities to build solution AROUND IT (forgive the shouting, but that point must be stressed).

A set of libraries on the other hand, is a collection of common code (classes or functions) which can be used to tackle different problems without the boundaries of a framework.

In simpler terms – with a Framework. you must build arounts its own confines, with libraries you build around your own.

Both have their uses, I can understand Aarons frustrations with them, many are to restrictive and try be the end-all solutions, this bulks them out and at the end of the day makes them extremely impractical.

But, on the other hand, frameworks help enforce standards to ensure everybody is working to the same level / standards – which is incredibly important, especially if you want to produce high standard and maintainable code.

I don’t think you would find anyone who thinks that PEAR packages themselves create a framework.