I am going to be builiding a site like ebay - with all the features of ebay. Please note my payment method is limited to paypal.
What would be the best PHP framework
to use to build this quickly,
efficiently and with the smallest
learning curve?
I have narrowed down to CodeIgniter as the major contender for this project - but having looked through the docs I couldn't find a library or class that I can use with paypal - is the same for all frameworks- surley not?
Zend framework - I considered this but although its documentation is very good, hardly any video tutorials - other frameworks seem to have lots of these especially with normal developers creating screencasts - where is the Zend community!
CakePHP - Having read the stackoverflow threads, I gathered this is a slow framework, giving developers little control as it seems to be a CMS backbone rather than a framework - agree? It was also said cakePHP and Zend have a steeper learning curve than CodeIgnitor.
I have start my short-listing again and I would appreciate any help with this.
Thanks all
You'll very likely find CodeIgniter to have the lowest learning curve. Regardless of the framework you choose, you'll have to pick up where the framework leaves off, and that is going to mean a significant amount of work on your part (if you truly want to implement all the features of ebay). There seems to be a PayPal lib in the CodeIgniter Wiki. Looks like it would be a great place to start.
Cake is not a CMS backbone, it's a framework like the others. It's just more opinionated, i.e. geared towards CRUD operations (create, read, update, delete, what you typically do in a CMS). If your application is focused on CRUD, Cake will give your development a kickstart; you can get a complete admin interface for your database tables up in, literally, minutes.
Thanks to that it may be a little slower, especially compared to "loose" frameworks like Zend, but in the end it won't matter much. You can do anything with any of these frameworks and any of these frameworks can be optimized to run as fast as possible. Try to get a simple prototype app up and running in all of them and choose the one that seems most comfortable to you.
I'd really recommend Codeigniter for speed. I've made a few things with it and it was great.
If you need some help learning Codeigniter Nettuts has been doing some really good screencasts
In the end, it won't matter. Your code for database and presentation will trump any 'problems' your framework has. The frameworks you listed are awefully similar. You'll be more or less stuck with which you pick, so pick one and learn all you can.
If you're going with codeigniter (note, maybe take a look at Kohana too, the php5 fork of CI), you can always use libs out of Zend if theres something that fits your needs.
Related
I already have v1 of my webapp written in Codeigniter/PHP.
I'm now working on v2, which will have some significant changes to all MVC components.
I'm pretty comfortable with CI and I like it. Very intuitive for a C coder like me.
But I am wondering if it is worth it to rewrite the app in Rails?
Will the productivity gains be worth the cost of learning another framework from scratch?
I want to be practical and not chase something just because it's cooler or more fun.
Here are some productivity criteria:
HTML and CSS generation is fairly labor intensive. Does Rails have anything distinctive to help with this?
I'd like to reuse other people's code for commonly implemented functionality (e.g. interfacing with FB, Twitter, and other social sites). How much more 3rd party code reuse would I get with Rails?
How much more benefit would I get from the Rails community vs. CI community?
Make automated testing easier. I test manually today, which is labor-intensive.
I'd appreciate specific benefits vs. idealistic/religious arguments.
Thanks!
Codeigniter is obviously a framework built on PHP. While there are fundamental differences between PHP and Ruby, all of your criteria can be met with either of the two languages. Migrating to Ruby would seem to be a waste of time considering your requirements. There are plenty of ways to automate HTML/CSS in PHP and there are numerous open source Facebook/Twitter integrations (just check FB and Twitter developer sections). There are also plenty of open source PHP testing options available. Google is your friend! IMO it would be a big waste of time to rewrite your entire application for the sake of your criteria when there are plenty of PHP solutions to your problem.
I think the better comparison here would be CI to Symfony. Symfony 1.4 is a PHP framework pretty much on par with Rails functionality - as far as I can tell through my research, anyway (I'm not a Ruby programmer).
If you were to switch to to Symfony, you would gain a lot of productivity tools. Symfony 1.4 + Doctrine has the ability to generate a lot of your code/interface for you. Symfony/Doctrine likes to keep you away from repetitive tasks such as building models and data validation.
If you want to do your research ahead of time, I suggest reading through Symfony's free e-book Piratical Symfony to give you an idea of how things work in Symfony.
Now, with all that said I feel obliged to mention that the Symfony team is working on Symfony 2.0 which will not be backwards compatible with Symfony 1.4. The expected release date is March of 2011. I expect that maintenance on Symfony 1.4 will continue in the future.
-- Edit --
I also think that sticking with your native language would allow you to develop with the least amount of overhead. Changing to a new language means having to learn it's up's and downs in order to be truly productive.
IE to be at a point where you're not coming back in 6 months to fix a bug that an experienced Ruby developer would have known to avoid.
To me, this is more a question of how big your current web app is. If it took you a couple of weekends and you do not have a tight deadline, I would switch to Ruby/Rails.
However, if it's significantly large and you actually want to come up with R2 in a timely fashion, I would suggest sticking with PHP.
As to your specific questions, I'm not too familiar with PHP, but I don't think Rails will give you a whole lot more in the HTML/CSS department. Not sure about the next two bullet points. Ruby does have much better automated testing tools, with new stuff coming out all the time.
Here are a couple links about Derek Sivers, who switched from PHP to Rails to PHP and now likes Rails again. It might help your thinking.
http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html
http://railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book#foreword
I'm building this web site for my friend's startup. The site when its complete should be able to handle 10,000 users at a time and should have great security.
I've been developing the site individually till now and everything seems to be pretty feasible, but some of my developer friends suggest that i move to a framework.
What are the pros and cons of moving to a framework?
Also i have developed a pretty big part of the website till now, so can i just move it into a framework environment. I've never worked on any kind of framework before.
Cons of going to a framework:
a learning curve
you may have to approach things differently then you would normally
performance overhead (probably slight)
Pros (of a GOOD framework):
much of the mundane coding is already done
helps you write clear, compartmentalized code
libraries included to help you with security, database communication, etc
easier for other developers to jump into the project
bug fixes from the framework's community
The number one benefit of moving to a framework is that the people who developed the framework already solved (most of) the problems you would face if you would do everything yourself. I think this argument should be enough to answer your question.
If you need help in choosing a framework, stackoverflow has lots of already answered questions in this area. You should take a look at some of the opinions already posted and decide what you need.
Why do you want to invent the wheel over and over again? Building your own system is, in my opinion, only usefull if you want to learn how to build such a system and get familiair with the basics of a CMS. The problem with it is that you have to do all the debugging yourself which will take ages. With a framework, other people already did that work for you, so you can make progress much faster.
There is no thing like a best framework. I have worked with Zend Framework and Kohana 3. Both are really nice frameworks but if it was up to me I would take Kohana. Remember there are many more frameworks and this is not a complete comparison. Just give it a google and choose the one you feel most comfortable with.
Good luck!
I would suggest the Zend Framework as per your requirement.Just look at site view futures,but it some what difficult to learn in start.But if you want customization then Core php is the best.For security you have to know the things some better way like sql injection & design the architecture according to it.For faster development you can also move to ROR.
Have Dream Day
Further to my comments, I find working with other peoples frameworks rather a procrustean endeavour. Because I wrote it, I know my framework inside out and can rattle code off very quickly whereas when I am coding for a popular framework like CodeIgniter, Zend or Symfony it takes me that little bit longer to remember how I'm supposed to do something in the way they want me to.
Of course, a lot of the hurdles, common tasks and security issues will have been encountered and solved for you if you use a framework. However, if you've already written a large part of the website code then refactoring it to leverage a framework could be quite a substantial undertaking unless you've been quite clever with your initial architecture and have things loosely coupled.
I'm about to develop a web app (PHP/MySQL). I prefer to use the MVC style when developing apps, but I've always struggled writing my own MVC framework in the past so I've started playing with CodeIgniter. After a couple of tutorials I better understand how to properly develop with a MVC framework and I'm totally comfortable using CodeIgniter to write my app.
The thing is I'm now wondering if its better to write my own MVC framework for this app or use CodeIgniter? My worries are due to the fact that I'm just getting this app written to serve as a prototype and will hand it off to more experienced developers down the road. I'm worried CodeIgniter has limitations that I'm unaware of yet and could hinder further development for me or the next developer(s). I'd imagine its easier to get around issues/limitations of a custom framework than it is of a 3rd party/ready made/stock framework.
Any insight?
There aren't any real limitations to CodeIgniter as most of the core can be extended. I have been using it for years and not found anything I couldn't use it for.
Kohana is a little more fun if you're into PHP5/OOP stuff but the lack of documentation will make learning it quickly rather difficult, especially if you are being paid to produce this.
Use CI, it will speed you up plenty.
I'd would go with CodeIgniter if you're familiar with it (and not writing your own framework from scratch), the app is a prototype, and it's getting handed off to more experienced developers down the line.
CodeIgniter isn't an obscure framework, it's pretty widely used and well documented. If your developers kick up a fuss, then they're probably aren't as experienced as they would like to think they are.
For a prototype I would say definitely use whatever you're familiar with, instead of making the project much bigger than it needs to be. Writing your own framework is a huge challenge, but it's also a really good learning experience. I've written my own suited to my own needs just so that I could learn the language "in the deep end" (and I keep adding to it whenever I use it... maybe someday, when I decide it's "fully featured", I'll release it into the wider world). But you should only do that if you've got the time, and plenty of room for everything to go wrong.
Well, the question is: can you do better than every other MVC PHP framework out there? Reinventing the wheel only costs more time and the focus off your application changes, because you have 2 seperate things to maintain.
I would stick with a proper MVC framework. We use Symfony exclusively for that use. It's a great framework with a lot of features borrowed from other frameworks and other programming languages. However, the list is endlessly for PHP framework. I recommend reading a bit about other frameworks and pick the one which is the most suitable for your needs. It saves you time in the end.
As a developer, I had to go through the same road.
Personally, I chose CodeIgniter as primary tool of my development, mainly because of community support and straightforward MVC. However, CodeIgniter was built by EllisLab, and they are not community driven. If you are looking for something that has more dynamic, community driven, open source MVC framework, I would suggest using Kohana.
Kohana has a good community, and they have some notable contributors. Check it out here
If you are thinking of choosing from different types of frameworks, I would suggest make a list of things you want out of a framework, and do your search based on that.
I'm embarking on a very big exercise to build a CMS in php. It's actually my attempt to learn PHP in a fun (and hardcore) way coming from a Java background. Java is all object oriented so oop is in my blood, but I'm finding that OOP hasn't made it yet to PHP. Most PHP is still being written today the old way without the new concepts.
I'm trying to find an example PHP CMS that's written as object oriented. I hear Xoops is. Any others you know of? or any OOP libraries in general that you know of that could help me in a CMS project.
I would suggest symfony framework as it is well documented and functional framework that helped building many web applications.
http://www.symfony-project.org/
PHP5 is pretty OOP. Look for CMSes and frameworks that only work on PHP5. For example, Kohana
Concrete5 is a pretty complex OOP based CMS. Might be a harsh start but I've learned a lot by working with it.
again, +1 for symfony, but this is a large project and getting to know symfony will consume most of your time, yet if you want to dive in, its documentation is really great.
since you are trying to build your own CMS, get started with easy to grasp frameworks and build upon them. Don't waste your time on everything that has been already done. I recommend you Codeigniter MVC Framework http://codeigniter.com and for CMS, PyroCMS http://pyrocms.com which is built upon codeigniter is cool. Codeigniter is really easy to get along, and documentation is very neat and clean.
Further, if you like to start with a simple php framework, here's what Tyrehall has done, http://github.com/tylerhall/simple-php-framework . This project can act as a base for your CMS
No one seems to have mentioned Kohana the PHP 5 only framework.
Kohana has a pretty active and very helpful community to back it up (#kohana on freenode in particular).
edit: Upon closer inspection I see someone has already mentioned Kohana.
what you will notice is that what is more important to most cms (and framework) developers is MVC pattern implementation. Most MVC implementations in php do in fact use oop practices (some stricter than others)
+1 for symfony, and another I'd like to recommend is Kohana (built on CodeIgniter)
Also have a look at their forums, as both already have a cms or 10 built using these frameworks.
Using these frameworks brings you about 60% there, as a lot of the rudimentary tasks are taken care of.
edit
also remebered this one: fatfree framework it's quite lightweight: http://fatfree.sourceforge.net/
Have a look at Phundament 3.
Phundament 3 is an application foundation built upon a set if independent Yii modules and extensions such as user, rights, yiiext, gtc, ckeditor, jquery-file-upload, p3widgets and p3media.
The combination of p3widgets and p3media provides basic content management system (CMS) features, like dynamic widget creation and file management.
Combined in ckeditor, p3media acts as a ckfinder plugin which gives you the full power of HTML and media files for content creation via p3widgets.
It comes with a very minimalistic setup which integrates perfectly into an Yii web application skeletion and installs with one single command.
as some folks suggested here, you should start with Codeigniter because it's really easy to dive in. Its documentation is very well structured and easy to read. But I think Codeigniter seems to be very old now.
What I really recommend to you is Laravel. There's another Framework you should look into, that's FuelPHP. But for me, Laravel has absolutely changed to way I'm writing my PHP code. It is the best framework I've ever seen in my life. It's so elegant that you will instantly fall in love with.
If Laravel suits you, I recommend you to follow this online course by Jeffrey Way # Tutsplus.com. You will love it!
Good luck :)
Have you seen CakePHP?
http://cakephp.org/
Its a MVC framework for PHP. Its pretty robust and can be used in a fully object oriented manner.
Recently I have started studying cakePHP and I love the way it's organized. But I don't seem many useful tutorials for it as codeIgniter. Am I missing anything? Shall I switch?
PS I'm a computer engineering student and have only little time to study web dev. so i need to save time.
Regarding your question here are the points in favor of Codeigniter
very quick to get started with (that means not too much switching time)
does not bind you with naming conventions and directory structures (in cakephp, you can configure it to your satisfaction, but again you should know where to configure)
will give you a basic idea of MVC design pattern and how to make use of it to create a web application. You can build on this knowledge by using other frameworks to get to know how to make better use of it.
as far as beginners are concerned, documentation and community support of Codeigniter is very helpful
Hope this helps.
The decision is up to you.
The key thing is to stick with a framework so you learn enough to be productive. They're all pretty much the same but jumping between them will confuse you and delay your learning curve.
One of the benefits of codeigniter is it's documentation.
Depending on how much you used cakephp, you may need to realize that frameworks other than codeigniter often have more libraries and auto-generating funcionality (is that the right word?). Not to say that there's a shortage of commonly used libraries.
But honestly codeigniter's learning curve is so low you (If you already understand a little php) should be able to dive right in and see what you think. I honestly can't remember life before codeigniter (vanilla php).