BPM frameworks in PHP? - php

Do we have any BPM frameworks developed in PHP?
I did a Google and found some old (2005) entires which talk about starting such a project. But I don't see any solid framework out and running. So, I was just curious.. do we have any?
If not, why haven't the community yet developed one? Zend framework is a leading PHP framework, why haven't they started developing such a component?

Most of the relevant BPMN 2.0 based Open Source Process Engines are written in Java (e.g. Activiti, Camunda, jBPM, Bonita). If you would like to integrate such an Engine into your PHP-Application, you could use the REST-APIs of those Engines. With this approach, you could use proven BPM-Engines within your PHP application. In addition, you have benefits like active communities, stable code etc.
Could this be an adequate alternative for your usecase?

We have developed a new BPM framework from the ground using PHP called Process Companion. It is based on the BPMN 2.0 standard. Get more information at http://www.processcompanion.com

You should check EzerPHP out. Very promising.
code.google.com/p/ezerphp/

https://code.google.com/p/hush-framework/
Here is another choice, very fit. The only problem is it's description is in Chinese.
BTW. I'm a Chinese lol.

Related

Which Platform to choose Ruby on Rails or GWT?

I have a need to create a web2.0 application with the following features:
UI screens
Integrate with a forum framework
Integrate a blogging framework with the application
Real time chat application (Optional)
Integrate with a email server
Based on your previous experiences, please suggest good frameworks, toolkits, etc which can help me build this app quickly in with following criterion
ease of use
features richness
Can people suggest me the advantages/disadvantages of choosing GWT over Ruby on Rails.
Also if you believe any other platform like PHP is better please suggest me on that too.
Thanks
Try jRuby on Rails ... you get the ease of Ruby and Rails ... and all features and libraries of Java.
GWT is quite interesting in a sense that you can use on client-side regardless of the backend technology. So comparing it directly to Ruby on Rails isn't much fair because ROR is a full-stack solution (except javascript libraries for UI work). Still, in your case, if you want to use GWT, you should be clear with the following points:
You'r comfortable with Java
You app is purely web 2.0 (means no more than different pages than can be viewed as different modules)
Forum, mail server integration won't pose any difficulties
You have a bit more time for development
I would suggest that if any of the above points don't work out for you, then you should move to ROR. Now why I built a checklist based on Java? Because you'll find quick development tools like "Spring ROO"(yes, Spring Roo is the smartest code generator) and scalable, integrable, full-stack technologies like "Spring" in Java. And Spring supports the development of everything you've mentioned. And even if you think GWT won't suffice your needs(in terms of short development time) then you can easily go for JQuery and it's Spring glue library to develop UI stuff.
P.S: Spring Roo 1.1.0.M2 and GWT 2.1 have been integrated to reduce development time many folds but it's not production ready yet.
If you are into java: have a look at grails, its based on a bunch of well known java frameworks like spring and hibernate. You can combine Java business logic with easy to write groovy code.

Php frameworks 2010

i am looking for a new php(5) framework it must be lightweight(x<500kb), oop, have orm, active record built in, simple to learn, fast to use, active community and dev.
I need it for small, personal app development.
My php skills are quite low and i have .net background. I have previously used LightVc+cough and codeIgnitor php frameworks.
There are so-many frameworks there and it is quite hard to find the best.
I have checked the other threads here but they are to old to consider sustainable.
Thanks for your time.
I think you dig out the http://www.phpframeworks.com/. It has details about each and every accepted framework.
Code Igniter is very popular and also supports PHP4: http://codeigniter.com/
Unlike .NET and miscellaneous other programming languages, you really don't need a framework to write a PHP application. In fact, I'd advise against it. Learn the language, not a framework.
For someone with low PHP skills I'd say codeigniter although it doesn't have ORM built-in (it has a sort of lightweight active record class), but there are tutorials on how to use Doctrine (a good PHP ORM solution) with it.
However if you want a PHP5 only framework (as in written to take full advantage of PHP5) then I'd suggest looking at Kohana (a PHP5 only fork of codeigniter), Yii or Zend framework.

Simple CMS (PHP/Python)

I am looking for an easy-to-use CMS that can be used to host a multilingual website with photo galleries and a few forms.
I am open to PHP/Python, excluding WordPress/Joomla/Drupal.
Django CMS 2.0 is a great multilingual CMS.
Views are cached and being a pluggable Django app makes it very extensible.
You would like the plugin approach of the design, is very helpful to integrate existing apps to a project.
http://github.com/digi604/django-cms-2.0/tree/master
Try CMS From Scratch. It's hard to get any simpler or easier.
Also, don't forget http://www.opensourcecms.com/. They host demo versions of most CMSs out there that you can try.
If you're open to Ruby, see Radiant CMS: "Radiant is a no-fluff, open source content management system designed for small teams." Also Mephisto.
For something in Python that isn't Django, you can also try Pylons.
Checkout django-blocks. Has multi-language Menu, Flatpages and even has a simple Shopping Cart!!
Since you tag django, I can suggest you a reusable Django application called django-photologue. IMHO it's worth it to use a CMS capable framework like Django rather than using a ready made CMS because in the future there would be a chance for you to customize your application. Using a ready made CMS I reckon is not as flexible as using a framework like Django.
One of your tags is 'django'.
I don't know if I would call Django simple, but it is easy
to use - once you know how... It has a very steep learning
curve.
Perhaps you are really looking for which framework to learn
and use for web-development for the next many years? I that
case I would recommend Django. Others systems I considered
were (all PHP based):
Joomla
CMSMS (CMS Made Simple)
Drupal
CodeIgniter,
CakePHP
Symfony
Smarty
Concrete5.
I have completed a Django project.
The problem is that the lighter CMS systems out there don't usually offer a lot - which is why WordPress/Joomla/Drupal have made it so big. WordPress actually takes 9 MB to load the index page on a vanilla install.
Have you looked at http://chryp.net?
If you know how to program in Python or PHP then there are MANY CMSes built by the users of frameworks that offer a lot if you don't mind messing with code.

Which PHP frameworks are used by corporations?

There are several questions about PHP frameworks, but I'm curious as to which one(s) are used in the commercial world when developing web applications with PHP. At my first web-based job, they didn't have a framework for the PHP codebase. Is this common when dealing with PHP? If not, what frameworks to companies producing a product (either a site that provides a service of some kind or a web-based product that can be purchased) using PHP tend to use?
Is this common when dealing with PHP?
In my experience, unfortunately it is. This is of course a gross generalization, but people who tend to learn PHP as their first programming language don't learn the essentials of maintainable software development and often don't really know how to write good code. I think this is a failing of the PHP community, where historically most learning resources don't emphasize good practices (probably because the authors didn't know any better!). You can of course write good code with PHP, as long as you understand underlying programming principles.
Companies will often start out with a hap-hazzard code base of PHP scripts that get re-used and gradually extended from project to project (often without source control!). The companies that know what they're doing and take it seriously will evolve this into some kind of in-house framework, or I have often found they'll move onto something without the historical crapness of PHP, like Django or Ruby on Rails.
If you're just starting out, there are several decent MVC frameworks that will form a good base for all your developers to learn and use. In no particular order:
CakePHP
CodeIgniter
Zend Framework
There are of course others as well.
That said, as always it depends on the project. Sometimes a framework either won't make sense or will be overkill, othertimes you're better off using a pre-built product (like a CMS) and building extensions to it.
Most frameworks are strongly focused on the presentation layer. Now, "corporate" is of course a rather vague term, but I assume you mean for more typical IT tasks, such as accounting, CRM etc. For these tasks, the presentation layer is a much smaller part of the entire application. Not only does this make said frameworks less important - it actually disqualifies them somewhat, since you don't want the restrictions on your model layer, that they impose.
I think it gets more and more common to use a framework. A few years back most programmers developed their own framework. But the cost to train a new employee for such a framework gets higher and higher. Therefore many companies are moving now to well known frameworks.
I guess that Zend is currently the most used Framework in the corporate environment. One reason is that it does not give you any restrictions on the model layer.
I can not predict the future but I guess that Flow3 will be used in the future too. It is the new Framework behind Typo3. And many Typo3 developers (web designers) who need to write web applications will probably use Flow3 then.
In last two three places I've worked the company had their own (private, built in-house) framework.
According to a PHP Framework Popularity at Work survey by Sitepoint in 2015 (7554 survey participants) the five most used frameworks are
Laravel (22%)
Symfony2 (14%)
Nette (9%)
CodeIgniter (8%)
Yii 2 (7%)
Furthermore survey results indicate, that
5% use a company internal framework,
3% use no framework at all,
3% use a CMS for everything,
1% use a simple MVC framework.
There seem to be continent specific framework preferences: In America and Asia, Laravel seems to be the framework of choice (except for Russia: Yii 2), whereas in Europe you'll find more Symfony2.
(Be aware that this is just referenced from one source -- see links above.)
The only enterprise-level framework I can think is Zend Framework. CakePHP, Code Igniter and others are only focused on RAD development.
Having experience with CI , yiiframework and calephp (not much, really) my opinion is that CI is not flexible as ohter 2, so I do not recommend it on larger-scale projects.
Anyone who disagree, just can try a demo project with cakephp and Yii and he will see how things are easier with them as crud,form validation etc.
Of course all have their disadvantages :)
recently i talked with a CTO of a company, offering a e-lecture solution and we talked about PHP for a while ... we both agreed, it is not the best language for rock solid solutions, but he pointed out the symfony framework, they used just before moving to java ...
also, flow3 mentioned by raffael is quite powerful ... most interesting thing to me is, it brings AOP into PHP ...
greetz
back2dos
You may want to look at www.flow3.org, it's a pretty comprehensive approach to PHP application frameworking and is rapidly approaching its first mainstream Beta release.
I'm not sure if PHP has gone into the enterprise market in the US yet but when i worked in a corporate office the language what they use is Microsoft .NET.
PHP is yet to enter the corporate world IMO. It is popular with the hacker world and maybe micro and small software/web companies.

php CMS system built with a framework - php framework AND php CMS

I have to develop a CMS for a friend of mine, nothing commercial...
I'd like to take this opportunity to learn a php framework, to see if it would be suitable for future (and more complex) developments, or at least to steal some nice ideas...
SO I'd like to easily implement a content management system and at the same time have a look at a modern php framework (one of the rails inspired ones, or at least implementing MVC, which I think covers them all...)
I've heard of http://www.digitaluscms.com/, built with zend framework, and http://radiantcms.org/, but that is ruby on rails (I'd prefer php for ease of deployment and hosting...)
If you want a CMS built with a real Framework, I've heard (just today, actually) of Diem, which is built upon symfony (and uses some components of Zend Framework).
Maybe Sympal, also based on symfony, could interest you too.
If you want to learn, and work with symfony, one of those two might be the perfect match for you.
Still, as those two are not as popular as Drupal (or Joomla, or whatever other well-known CMS you can think about), I would probably not use them for any "real" site -- at least, not before studying them for a while.
For a framework, I would recommend Code Igniter wholeheartedly. It's MVC based, super-lightweight and it reminds you of Rails a lot. You can check out a screencast of a hello world application here: http://codeigniter.com/tutorials/
In regards to a CMS that could be http://expressionengine.com/, it's a popular CMS built on top of Code Igniter. I don't really like it as a CMS, but you were asking about a good platform to build on, so that would probably be a great bet.
The most common PHP frameworks are Symfony and CakePHP - I don't know CakePHP so much, but personally Symfony is too big and bloated for my taste, although very powerful.
The most common used CMSes are of course: WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. There are endless other systems available, but most of them don't really have a great platform to build on.
Good luck!
Others have mentioned various pre-built CMS applications. If you want to build your own in an existing PHP framework, check out CakePHP or symfony.
http://cakephp.org/
http://www.symfony-project.org/
But really, you should just learn Django, because it's so awesome.
A free CMS built on CodeIgniter is PyroCMS. The demo is currently down but installer is so freaking simply you could have it running in a few minutes.
Modular, multi-lang, UTF-8 throughought and pretty easy to skin.
Unlike other CMS' I have seen built on frameworks, PyroCMS doesn't touch the core framework at all, which means future upgrades of CodeIgniter will be easy.
you should take a look at silverstripe - besides the fact hat you really should read about what a framework nowadays can deliver, so some basic knowledge about Rails and Django is absolutely essential to put yourself in a position of beeing able to decide yourself what is good for you and what is not.
One most important thing ignored is RESTful-ness - many CMS or Frameworks still not support it or at least do it very complicated. Yuo need to read about REST to understand, why you want a framework or / and CMS that suppirts REST.
Talking about Joomla here is, of course, a joke.
Use Joomla. It probably won't teach you much but you will get a very nice system. Professional level even. Joomla has a MVC framework but most of what you do will be configuration. But really who wants to do a cms any more anyway? So many of them out there.
All kidding aside, Joomla is written in php, scales nicely and has a nice admin interface for the client/end user. It is also used all over the place.
If you really want to learn a usable framework try to write the cms in zend or codeigniter. those are beautiful frameworks.
If you really want to experiment a popular PHP framework while developing a simple CMS, look for a real CMF.
The only one I know at this time is Symfony2 CMF. It's a set of Symfony bundles providing popular CMS features like the Node concept, blocks, menus, dynamic routing (for routing to newly created nodes), etc.
Using a CMF instead of a CMS prevents you to configure your application only using a big administrative back-end and make you to understand the framework behaviors. As a consequence, you will be able to use the framework (Symfony in my example) even for a non CMS related project !
Using a CMS like Wordpress or Drupal (which is built on top of Symfony) will hide you the framework.
P.S: Actually, Symfony CMF is only compatible with Symfony 2. But beta versions of the bundles are already available for Symfony 3. Anyway, there is a LTS version of Symfony 2 whose bug fixes support ends in 2018 and security support in 2019 !

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