PHP framework (cake/smarty): How to use it and when?

Question

Duplicate of

What is a PHP Framework? and many more

So far, I've been using PHP for small tweaks, mostly with WordPress. What are PHP frameworks? Why do I need them? WHEN do I need them?

Any insight will be helpful. Thanks.

Answer 1

A framework tries to provide all the things that are common to every (or most) projects - html rendering, database access, and so on - in a way that's simple and easy to use.

You would use one to speed development, because you can skip all that stuff, and focus on what's unique to your project. Depending on the one you use, it can also add some security features by automatically escaping data on the way to the database, or to the screen.

I use them in any situation where I don't need something so custom that it's more work to bend the framework to my needs than to create the whole thing from scratch. That's pretty rare.

Answer 2

Frameworks are organized groups of code or libraries, built on top of a language to either

• Make Common Tasks Easy/Simple
• Create a Consistent Way to Develop Applications

Some frameworks are very restrictive (as in it's not easy to do things, unless you do them the 'framework' way), others are looser. I've found Zend's Framework to be a good mix of both, making easy to use single components (for example, you can drop the 'Feed' library into your existing application without needing to rewrite the application the Zend way), or you can use the Zend MVC and Application libraries to for an entire application.

I'd stay away from frameworks that are 'all or nothing'.

From Zend's Framework (restating the above, perhaps more completely):

Zend Framework is an open source framework for developing web applications and services with PHP 5. Zend Framework is implemented using 100% object-oriented code. The component structure of Zend Framework is somewhat unique; each component is designed with few dependencies on other components. This loosely coupled architecture allows developers to use components individually. We often call this a "use-at-will" design.

While they can be used separately, Zend Framework components in the standard library form a powerful and extensible web application framework when combined. Zend Framework offers a robust, high performance MVC implementation, a database abstraction that is simple to use, and a forms component that implements HTML form rendering, validation, and filtering so that developers can consolidate all of these operations using one easy-to-use, object oriented interface. Other components, such as Zend_Auth and Zend_Acl, provide user authentication and authorization against all common credential stores. Still others implement client libraries to simply access to the most popular web services available. Whatever your application needs are, you're likely to find a Zend Framework component that can be used to dramatically reduce development time with a thoroughly tested foundation.