When a Web framework isn't convenient to use ?

Question

When a Web framework ( like django, ruby on rails, zend, etc ) isn't convenient to use ?

And so... When a Web programming language ( like PHP, Asp, Python, etc ) is better than a Web Framework ?

Answer 1

You don't need frameworks when you don't plan to use their features.

Answer 2

The difference is, in my opinion, the simpleness of what you are trying to build.

Are you trying to make a difficult, complicated web app, or are you making a simple script that performs a trivial task? In the first case you absolutely need a framework, in the second case.. don't even bother.

Answer 3

When you have to build a very complex site, and the functionality is already exists in a CMS (eg Drupal, it has amazingly lot contrib for everything).

Answer 4

The rule that I have is that if whatever I'm building is only going to be a single page, I'll usually do it in just PHP. Whenever I need more than one page, I go with a framework (Symfony), because that usually means that I'm going to want things like routing and proper dispatching of requests.

This does however depend a lot on the language. In languages like PHP, the time needed to set up a project to use an MVC framework may be a lot more than just solving the problem. Other languages may very well be designed around using an MVC framework, and has a very low setup cost for that.

Answer 5

I like the wikipedia description:

The framework aims to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities performed in Web development. For example, many frameworks provide libraries for database access, templating frameworks and session management...

Basically if you don't need all of the above, you don't need a framework.

Answer 6

I'm at that stage where, because I spent so much time learning a framework recently, even if I do a one page "website", I will still use one, need to get my ROI up :p

Answer 7

A web framework is supposed to provide means to handle certain kind of interaction. If you have site with no interaction or no "adaptation", you don't need either framework or programming language, you simply write HTML files and publish your files.

As you start to add features for the back-end (like publishing more plain pages) or in the front end (like sorting a list when the user clicks "order by") you start getting into frameworks/programming languages.

Basic interaction was handled with CGI - you write an script which responds with a string to a few parameters passed via a form. Then you have database access.

In my experience, if you need simple features AND want your website to be suitable for growth without resorting to rewriting it from scratch, you should start from a web framework like Django. You can do simple things quite easily in Django (granted - it is not trivial) and add very complex behavior with small, incremental steps.