Web Developers

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Xion

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Anyone on here do webdev for a living? I do a bit on the side and I'm interested in opinions on php frameworks. Also interested in opinions from former php devs that now do RoR dev. I have my own debian box, currently running apache2 / php5 / mysql so I can install whatever. I had a tough time getting RoR setup so I bailed on it, but I keep reading that it's regarded as superior to any of the php mvc frameworks that were developed to mimic it. Should I keep playing with RoR until I get it, or just use a php framework since I already know php and have a build up and running?

disclaimer: I realize there is no correct answer and I will likely get competing and opposing opinions. That's cool, I'll make up my own mind after hearing what people have to say.
 
Codeigniter isn't a bad framework for PHP. Syntax and methodologies are based on RoR, so if you're familiar with that, you'll be able to pick it up pretty quickly.

Fourstar - you should look at Agile Web Development with Rails. You can find the ebook all over the internet. Just make sure you get the third edition.
 
I developed on RoR for the last two years, developing applications that scaled to over 400k DAUs.

It's a pretty good framework that lets you get a site up with lots of functionality pretty fast. Unfortunately set up on Windows can be a bit of a pain and I don't have much experience there (RoR/web dev on mac is great actually). Have heard good things about instant rails though. As you do get more advanced, though, as with any framework, you start needing to hack the framework itself and do things outside of convention especially when scaling. There is a lot of magic, that I personally prefer to understand, rather than just take as is. But if you are already experienced in other languages you should have a better time with this. Rails deployment itself has advanced very far in the last 12 months, especially with the release of Passenger (mod_rails for apache essentially).

_The_ book to get started is "Agile Development with Rails" as noted above. Another good book is "Ruby for Rails" to get familiar with Ruby as a language and some of the conventions from Ruby itself that are embedded in Rails.

Happy to answer any other questions.
 
I don't use PHP or have any desire to do so. I use python django. I've been quite interested in RoR, but I've never had the chance to try it out.
 
Got Haggis? said:
i don't believe in php frameworks

see: The no-framework PHP MVC framework - Rasmus' Toys Page
Click to expand...
I've read that article before and while it makes sense in principle, I find that I end up needing pretty much all of the features that a framework offers at some point or another in my projects.

Fortunately with Symfony, you can very easily determine what libraries or plugins you want on/off on a per-project/application/module basis, so you can actually scale it down and substantially minimize overhead if you don't actually require all the functionality it offers.
 
I know a lot of people who use CakePHP and like it as a pretty lightweight framework. I've used it and didn't find it to be so bad, although I haven't really done huge projects with it before. I try to abstract my code into MVC as much as possible without a framework, although I lean a bit more on the OO side where applicable than the link Haggis posted.
 
Been using CodeIgniter for about a year and save a few small things, it does everything I need it to do.

They could improve the caching function a little and some other small things, but overall its great.
 
i do webdev for a living

we have one project on a zend framework
one project on a custom framework
and the oldest project in a spaghetti mess that we will probably rewrite later this year

i also have a side project i do in zend

I like and dislike the framework stuff, really just depends on your project requirements and how much time you put up front into making things easy for yourself.
 
oh couple more thoughts:

even if you use a framework, don't let your framework generate your db schema during runtime, pre-generate them.

and to answer your last question: it just depends on your side project. if it's for you and you have time, learn RoR, learning is always good. If you need something sooner rather than later, use what you know. Especially if your income depends on it.
 
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