Any PHP MVC framework planning to use 5.3 features?

Question

I would like to get started with PHP, and 5.3 release seems to bring many nice features (namespaces, lambda functions, and many others).

I have found some MVC frameworks, and some of them support only PHP 5:

• PHP Frameworks
• PHP MVC Frameworks
• Model–view–controller on Wikipedia

but can anyone recommend one of those MVC frameworks that plans to actively use PHP 5.3 features, not just being compatible with PHP 5.3?

Update

Results so far:

• Zend Framework 2.0 (in development)
• Lithium (in development, based on CakePHP)
• Symfony (in development)
• FLOW3 (in development, alpha)

Answer 1

Zend Framework 2.0 will support only PHP 5.3 because one of the major points on their roadmap for 2.0 is converting everything in the framework to use namespacing.

Edit: The current version of Zend Framework is compatible with 5.3, but 2.0 will actually be built on top of many of the new features offered by 5.3 such as namespacing.

Answer 2

Code Igniter is compatible with PHP 5.3

Release Notes

Now do you mean "compatible" or "leverages the new features of that version of PHP in a compelling way"?

It's important to realize that no matter how deep into a framework you get, you can always write in raw PHP, so something like a lambda will always be "supported" if the 5.3 version of PHP doesn't explicitly break the framework.

Answer 3

You should check out Lithium.

This project is currently actively developped by 2 main CakePHP developpers.

It's still young (announced and first release a month ago) but it's worth keeping an eye on it.

Answer 4

cakephp is the best for that try it , its simple and every thing get there, what u want

Answer 5

PHPRO framework:

http://phpro.org

Answer 6

It seems that Symfony 2.0 will require PHP 5.3, based on this post: Why will Symfony 2.0 finally use PHP 5.3:

To sum up, we have decided to take the best of both worlds:

• symfony 1.4 (with support until early 2013) will be the best version for existing projects and conservative companies.

• Symfony 2.0 (probably to be released late 2010) will be the best version for new projects and companies willing to either install PHP 5.3, use the Zend Server, or install the "right" Linux distribution.

I hope you will all understand and approve this move. The Symfony core team is really excited about the opportunities it gives us, and we think the Symfony 2.0 release will be a blast. Wish us luck!

Answer 7

FLOW3

FLOW3 is based on the newest technologies of tomorrow like for example namespaces. These technologies aren't available in PHP 5.2, but are implemented in PHP 5.3. It has had it's final release in June 2009, so most operating system distributors do not provide PHP 5.3 packages yet. You can find instructions to install PHP 5.3 for widely used operating systems in the appendixes.

Answer 8

http://www.hydrogenphp.com is very young, but makes heavy use of PHP 5.3 features. Its model-end stuff is killer, and is ridiculously fast if you're running memcached.

Answer 9

One other http://www.recessframework.org/

Answer 10

http://fatfree.sourceforge.net is very light and powerful and is only for 5.3, using its features at large.

Answer 11

I recently launched a framework, Sonic, which requires PHP 5.3 or later.

It uses namespaces, late static binding, closures, etc.

It also has a full implementation of Facebook's Big Pipe built right in:
sonicframework.com/tutorial/turbo

It's very quick and easy to set up:
sonicframework.com/quick-start

Source is available on github:
http://www.github.com/ccampbell/sonic

Answer 12

Check out Alloy Framework - It's a new PHP 5.3+ Hierarchal MVC Framework that works a little differently than most other MVC frameworks.

The main differences to other framework projects are primarily:

1. Modular Organization - single folder for a group of controllers/views/entities that are created for the same structure - "blog" or "events", etc.
2. HMVC (Hierarchal MVC) - Allows module sub-dispatches anywhere within views or controllers - extremely useful for "wiget" type structures within layouts or nested views. Helps promote code re-use for common structures like "comments", "tags", "ratings", etc.
3. More explicitness - view objects are explicitly retuned by the controller method for display instead of implicitly loaded, etc.

Read more on the Architecture page of the manual.

The URL Router is also very nice and borrows a lot of concepts from Merb and Rails.