So, PHP is not a framework – it is half of a simplified framework – template language.

I think that Django is an excellent framework, and I have devoted quite a bit of time to replicating in PHP some of the needs that Django fulfills. My point was not whether PHP or Python/Ruby/Perl/Java + framework of choice is the one true Way. My argument is that PHP is itself a framework for writing web-based apps, and using a framework on top of it is an unnecessary abstraction that serves to drastically reduce the power of the language itself by forcing an idiom on the programmer that does not fit the language.

I would further argue that SQL would not benefit from a “query framework” because it *is* the query framework; it is already a language for describing database queries.

While PHP is really simple for simple things, it is “unusable” for complex ones (not that you can not do almost “anything” in PHP, but the way you achieve it makes it unexplainable for newcomers and soon gets unmaintainable, therefore it is virtually unusable).

While using one of the other “web frameworks”, no matter in what language a framework is developed, it will always be a love hate relationship between a language and a framework (i might exclude groovy because it is developed in parallel by the same people who build the framework (grails), so the developers would be biased towards introducing new language features, because of the needs of the framework).

And back to “the problem” when using frameworks … you cannot trust frameworks. Frameworks evolve, and usually frameworks are not backward compatible and they are not maintained, usually, the sole pursue of framework developers is to develop new things and to do “old” things differently, “better”.

This will most likely cause your application to break.

If you trust your PHP skills, i strongly recommend not using any framework at all, but build your own stuff and reuse as much as you can. (i think more than half of PHP developers worldwide are developing in “solo” mode).

In this way you will always “know” your code, it will always look clean for you.
If the language/environment itself changes, you will most likely be able to adapt your old stuff (remember, i assumed you are an experienced developer).

BUT, when you work in a team, with even more than 3 people, things will get fuzzy, unless you adapt a common denominator of style, USE A FRAMEWORK, and don’t always use what seems the easiest … a framework MUST have:

- maintainability (how well maintained the framework is)
- release cycles (how much time does it take from release A to release B of that framework or how often dramatic changes happen with the framework, that will break your existing apps)
- bug fixing (are bugs being fixed between releases)

You would never use a framework that is always in “bleeding edge mode”, unless its developers are real maniacs of code quality and just don’t care about releases and their numbers, which in reality, are just bloody numbers (django comes in mind)

ONLY NOW:

ONLY When the above are decided, and you have filtered about a dozen frameworks, you can start to look for features backed by the language and choose the one that BEST FITS YOUR NEEDS.

I want to say that never choose the framework that “best fits your needs from the first place”. A team, will most like have a predefined “MUST HAVE” list of needs, only after those, one can decide on the “rest” of the needs.

Not so unfortunately. They are general purpose languages. In those languages’ domains, PHP often shows its own shortcomings, like lack of threading.

PHP is not bad, it’s those who program in PHP who mess stuff up. But organize your code and you will see how beautiful it is to develop in PHP.