The Zend Framework has always been my favorite PHP framework. The thing I love about this framework is that its components are loosely coupled. That is to say that its components have well-defined, and well-thought out dependencies. If you don’t like certain components, you don’t have to use them. Other frameworks boast this kind of modularity, but honestly I haven’t seen any that really back it up. For our last two or three PHP projects, we gave CakePHP a try. At first I was really happy with cake because of how quickly I was able to wire frame an application, but the more I use it the more I realize that the components in cake are far too coupled and there is just too damn much “auto-magic” going on in cake. I really prefer explicit to implicit code.
The reason we decided to leave Zend and go to CakePHP was because it lacked two main components that made it very difficult to wire frame applications quickly and easily. Those components are a layout system, and a form manager. I am happy to announce that Zend has tackled both of these problems in this release, and has actually done a decent job on them. Neither of them are 100% yet (at least not in my opinion), but both are very usable and helpful at the very least. Go grab a copy of the new release and give it a go. I think you’ll be quite happy with it!
For a full list of the new features, check out the official release page on zend developer zone.0
UPDATE! - Zend Developer Zone has published a webinar on Zend_View and Zend_Layout by Ralph Schindler. Go check it out!
Wil Sinclair Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am
What would you like to see in layouts and forms to bring us up to 100%?
Your comments about Cake are interesting. Certainly Cake is a great project, but we see things a bit differently on several points. One is that we believe the first hour of your experience with a framework is important, but it is not representative of the long-term relationship you’re likely to have with your framework of choice. Of course the two aren’t mutually exclusive, so we’re working on our first-hour experience as well. But we made the decision not to prioritize it in the evolution of the framework. This was a difficult decision indeed, since Rails and other frameworks have set very high expectations for the first hour.
I’m happy to hear you like the features we’ve added (and how we added them).
,Wil
Luke Visinoni Says:
March 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’m going to have to get back to you on the features for layout and forms. I have only just begun playing around with them. Give me a week or so and I’ll give you an update. This is another reason I love this framework… folks like you