After some deep consideration I am leaning towards using a Framework for my next project. I've tried cake, and although I do like it, I find it a little bloated and cumbersome. I spent alot of time reading up on the Zend Framework yesterday - I am considering giving that a try.

Has anyone used it before? And more importantly, does anyway have anything (either good or bad) to say about it?

yucky frameworks :)

I'm staying away from them personally, constricts how i program in my opinon, will just use custom frameworks if i ever use any.

Frameworks are the way forward in my opinion. I'm personally sick of rewriting code that I know is already available and that has been tested thoroughly. After all, how many of us write unit tests, follow strict code conventions, and strive for efficiency while developing our code?

When you use a framework, all this is taken care of for you. Frameworks, well, the Zend Framework, uses best practices too, by that I mean it implements design patterns, tight coupling, and all the other advanced theories and practices - which I am personally still learning, so for me, it's good to see how all these practices work together.

I'm still in the process of deciding whether to dive into the Zend Framework, my work partner is against it, but I feel that's only due to a lack of understanding of these practices and how difficult it is to actually produce and maintain such a large framework.

In fact, I think this is a big problem within programming. A lot of people are just too stubborn and think they can code it better themselves (I too used to be that person). Recently, however, I've realised the errors of my ways.

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I guess i'm one of those people too, i like to have control over my own code, like to do things "my way" etc.

What i would like, is something like the Zend Framework, that only works as an external library, so you can still use your standard core functionality.

I.e, i would prefer to use my own templating system, and module functionality how the urls are done etc.

I'm not well informed of how the zend framework, works but the cakePHP framework takes so much off your hands i just don't like it.

Yeh CakePHP isn't too great. What you want is a "loosely coupled" framework; which is the Zend Framework. Basically, loosely coupled means one class can be used independently of another. So for example, you may want to use the Zend Framework Validation class but nothing else.

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

yea that sounds better to me, im still not too fond of the "learning curve" related to using frameworks but i guess thats only initially.

Yep the "learning curve" is what used to put me off. Still though, it's much easier to spend a day reading up on a framework's class than spending a month writing your own to the same quality.

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

It sounds like you're not really looking for a framework but more leaning towards just wanting a library of classes. Zend will probably suit those needs better than the likes of Cake or CI just because of the sheer number of classes that have been written for Zend Framework already. Then you're looking at using a class from a library the learning curve is much, much shorter and shallower than adopting a whole new framework -- it's essentially just a quick scan over the docs (any library or framework should be well documented) or the class(es) itself for the API.

You mentioned earlier that your work partner is against using Zend. Do they prefer another framework, or starting from scratch for each project? Finally you mentioned trying CakePHP but have you tried any other frameworks; Symfony, CodeIgniter, etc?

I have briefly looked at other frameworks, but not enough to form an opinion on them. My partner prefers to use our existing library of classes, which I now find a bit dated. We've considered upgrading our code, but I think it's too much work personally - I'd love to spend the time writing my own framework (well, adapting our library), but I just don't feel it is practicle, maybe if we did this for a hobby and not a living it might be different.

The reason I'm so adamant on Zend is mainly due to the fact it's Zend, lol. Seems like a silly reason I know, but that aside, it looks to be the best out there in terms of professionalism and code (again though, that's a rather naive assumption considering I've not checked out all the other frameworks).

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

So getting back to Zend, can you create a framework system of your own that wraps around the zend libraries?

This leans more toward Karl as he will know what i mean:
With the framework me and you have used in the past, could you use the page class from that for the templating and then wrap the zend libraries for the mysql etc?

Note: Gonna look into Zend framework tonight :)

Yep you could, although I'm personally moving away from that Page class. I prefer the MVC pattern, I think it's much more flexible and allows for better structuring.

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

Jonathan Snook (a CakePHP user) wrote about implementing Zend (classes) into other frameworks on his blog (Zend Framework: First Impressions) and concluded by saying:

The automation it [CakePHP] offers me is just too powerful to give up. However, I see Zend Framework as being a great companion to it.

yep I did like Cake's automation features. In fact, I did like Cake. However the people I work with didn't, so it's a no go for me :(

It's nice to see that Zend plays nicely with other Frameworks, who knows, maybe I convince the other into doing the same? :)

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

Well, i liked cake i really did, but whenever you discovered a limitation it was a pain in the arse to work around it, that and the fact it takes over certain parts of the programs, i like to use the $szString type variables everywhere cake just seems to promote the "do it cakes way or the high way" which i dislike.

The page class was just an example karl, i like the MVC pattern way of doing things aswell. Maybe if someday we were to wrap the Zend Framework around our own framework using the MVC pattern? Or would that be basically mean we may aswell use the Zend framework.

What i would like, would be to use the functionality from the Zend Framework as library extensions, and then to create a custom framework that works like Cake did using the MVC framework and having automated parts to the design of it. (Urls, set/get variables etc).

So like basically our own version of Cake with the Zend framework used for the behind the scenes workings. (Validation, general usage etc)