Solar PHP framework

Question

We are currently looking joining an open source PHP farmework project instead of continuing to work on our own PHP MVC code. Likely candidates are Yii and Solar, because they appeal to our own coding style, have tackled issues that we feel need tackling.

I realize there are plenty of PHP frameowrk related questions on SO already. However, I'm having a really hard time finding people that actually use one of these (esp. Solar) in a real world environment.

So, my question: did anyone work a real life project with one of these? How did it work out for you? What were the major issues?

I'm not looking for benchmarks or excitement about the theories behind each of these. It's clear that their creators of both frameworks did a tremendous job. What I want to know is:

• did you use it?
• did you like it?
• pro's and cons based on real world use?

Answer 1

I've worked for a handful of digital and new media design agencies in the North East of England for a couple of years now and have yet to come across an instance of the development team using a framework.

Most web design and development agencies these days favour creating their own framework or CMS; I guess it's a form of validation for them. They don't feel they're worth their salt unless they can develop their own systems and solutions from scratch. Hell, I'm the same and have build my own CMS!

The advantage of using an existing framework is that development time is reduced as commonly-used libraries and helpers are already pre-built and ready to be implemented. However, the use of a framework can easily become a con if the framework used isn't commonly known.

So for instance, if you use an obscure framework like Solar that not many developers are familiar with, any other developers working on your sites are going to have an additional learning curve, which in turn increases development time; the opposite of the desired effect.

Hope this helps you. Commonly-used PHP frameworks out there at the moment include CodeIgniter and CakePHP.

Answer 2

I can't comment on Solar or Yii because I've never used them. When I've given both a cursory look, they did not seem as stable as frameworks I've used before. I've developed with CakePHP for years and have run into the PHP 4 barrier with it, where continuing to develop for PHP 4 does not make sense any longer. Ultimately, it just costs more money.

If you are looking for a framework to build upon, I would recommend looking into the following:

• Zend Framework
• Lithium

All are very modular by nature (including Solar and Yii), with support for integrating excellent tools like the Doctrine ORM. Some assume Doctrine is your ORM of choice. Honestly, it should be.

ZF is decidedly PHP5 only, which I like. I also appreciate the modularity of it. I can create a base "project" and then add individual "apps" to it, each with their own models/views/controllers. You can also use its classes/features individually without the entire framework bootstrapping process. It is backed by Zend, and is very mature -- I'm assuming because so many trained eyes have used and improved it. The consequences of this are fantastic: just browse through the web site, follow the quick start and look at the available components in the reference guide and you'll see what I mean.

Lithium was forked off from CakePHP's Cake3 project, aiming for a framework with support only for PHP 5.3 and PHP 6. It is decidedly PHP 5.3 only, which means it has hitched its wagon to the newest stable PHP with the most features, such as anonymous functions, a native MySQL driver, and much more. Worth looking into if you are able to move your team to a PHP 5.3-only environment, especially if you have people who know the value of more modern programming techniques found in languages like Python or Ruby. It is a young framework, but has much of the same talent behind it that CakePHP has had, so that gives it a huge thumbs up in my book.

Answer 3

I've used Yii a bit now and have found that it's worked quite well for me. The main con against it is that it's still relatively new and most people haven't heard about it.

That said though, if you were to pick it up as your main framework, that would help it become better known and you might even consider helping Qiang with some development work.

Just when you are deciding, make sure you've had a look through the issues list to make sure that you are aware of what the current bugs are, and what the upcoming features/changes will be.

I can't comment at all on Solar.

Answer 4

I use Solar daily for internal applications at work and personal projects at home. It is a top-notch, solid framework that I can highly recommend to anyone. It is in beta3, but stable should be coming along in the next couple of months.

A common criticism is the lack of documentation. I am happy to say that that is changing rapidly. New documentation is being written daily. In fact, two new chapters are already up.

A great way to get involved in Solar, or to get questions answered is to visit the IRC channel #solar-talk on freenode, or join the Solar Talk mailing list.

Visit the Solar website for all the info.

Answer 5

recommend solar, it's a very good php framework, I had used it for a long time.