Programmers or Framework

Question

Without going into the specifics if our dev team is use to programming in pure PHP/MySQL but after 6 months of working with a framework they are still taking twice as long to do things in the framework is it them or the framework?

I am inclined to think the members of the dev team are lacking in skills as their work in pure PHP/MySQL was taking far too long to begin with. But not everyone programs at the same rate nor quality so assuming that frameworks invariably make the routine and mundane tasks easier to complete the issue must be working on the business logic. Which suggests that its how the team approaches coding in general that might be at odds with the frameworks approach?

Often the praise for a framework come from people who found it made their work easier because it speed up the things they didn't want to focus on. Basically they understood how to take advantage of the framework. Conversely if the framework forces you to work in a more MVC/OOP manner and you don't program that way then its a steep learning curve and your programming production suffers as a result.

Does anyone have any objective advice on this? AS always I want to help our dev team achieve success quicker and with more quality but it seems a framework either might not be needed or I need to get more training for the team or new team members who know frameworks and MVC/OOP.

Thanks for your opinions and advice.

Answer 1

Have you thought to ask the development team why their output is slow? Are they being managed properly? Do their projects have set goals and expectations? Do you ask them to prepare estimates to help gauge if they are hitting milestones?

I find it hard to believe that a team doesn't have a single rock star, perhaps it's a motivation issue?

Answer 2

Some people won't like this, but it is usually a problem with how they are managed - The team doesn't fail, the manager does. Maybe they need more training, more guidance, more flexibility?

I've work on frameworks in the past that are annoying and cause more work in one place but less in another - you'd know this as the team would probably be complaining.

I agree with #joshtronic - speak to the team.

Edit - Have a read on some of Joels management related articles (side column) as they helped me understand and put into context how manage and how I wanted to be managed (but wasn't in the past).