Zend Framework and Zend Server(PHP)
I've been working with PHP for a few years, and recently started looking into Zend Framework to improve overall organization of code. It makes organizing a large site a lot easier, providing a solid implementation of the MVC pattern. It also provides some very nice classes for common tasks such as INI parsing, data output, encryption, and much more.
Once my ZendFramework-based CMS is finished, I plan to run my websites on IIS with Zend Server rather than with Litespeed. Zend Server seems to offer better performance than other PHP handlers, as well as providing extensive logging and a great control panel.
Overall, I still prefer ASP.NET with MVC 3 due to the support for C# code. However, there isn't nearly as much 3rd party code available for ASP.NET as there is for PHP(such as forums etc). It seems like now isn't the best time to transfer to ASP.NET, but maybe in a few years it'll be worthwhile. For now, Zend seems to offer a very nice alternative with PHP.
Anyone else have any experience using/trying Zend Framework or Zend Server?
Re: Zend Framework and Zend Server(PHP)
A lot of PHP coders choose zend framework. It wouldn't be a bad move to learn how to use it. Zend Studio is to PHP as Dreamweaver is to HTML/CSS. In the business end of the web, Zend Studios is "the way" to develop php. The Zend framework naturally complements the coding environment- and you end up with one of the best and most accepted server-side web-development environments today.
I personally chose alternatives to Zend because we all know what happens when a company such as Microsoft has control of a language and the most popular development environments/frameworks for that language *cough ASP.* I don't want PHP to be replaced by something proprietary such as, "PHP->ZEND" while the Open Source PHP becomes obsolete- but that's just my choice. Zend is obviously a good thing to learn for people working on the web today- it just might lead to something bad tomorrow- which may never happen.
With that said, I've decided to learn Server-Side JavaScript.. Not only is the language better than PHP in my opinion, but I highly doubt it will ever go proprietary- and there's always a reason to know JavaScript.
Re: Zend Framework and Zend Server(PHP)
I've actually been using the Zend platform for quite sometime it's made a lot of things a lot easier to handle especially when it comes to large amounts of coding and when you want to re-use them. In all reality I think Zend could be used a lot more especially their base framework and to hopefully see others use it more.
Re: Zend Framework and Zend Server(PHP)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
s-p-n
A lot of PHP coders choose zend framework. It wouldn't be a bad move to learn how to use it. Zend Studio is to PHP as Dreamweaver is to HTML/CSS. In the business end of the web, Zend Studios is "the way" to develop php. The Zend framework naturally complements the coding environment- and you end up with one of the best and most accepted server-side web-development environments today.
I personally chose alternatives to Zend because we all know what happens when a company such as Microsoft has control of a language and the most popular development environments/frameworks for that language *cough ASP.* I don't want PHP to be replaced by something proprietary such as, "PHP->ZEND" while the Open Source PHP becomes obsolete- but that's just my choice. Zend is obviously a good thing to learn for people working on the web today- it just might lead to something bad tomorrow- which may never happen.
With that said, I've decided to learn Server-Side JavaScript.. Not only is the language better than PHP in my opinion, but I highly doubt it will ever go proprietary- and there's always a reason to know JavaScript.
A few excellent points up there. Most "clients" now a days seek web developers with Zend experience, whether it is Zend Studios, the server, the framework or the whole package. It's a "sought" after qualification that people even go for certification for it.
Unlike most PHP frameworks I have worked with in the past, Zend "library" is one of the most up to date ones out there that takes advantage of all the native OOP concepts available in PHP. It's extremely flexible too (not much difficulty or roadblock in integrating external libraries via auto load) and that's a plus if you do not want the potential of your web application to be "limited" by a framework (which some framework actually causes you to do!). Let's not also forget the fact the framework is heavily tested by a vast number of unit tests, so if you would like to put your full confidence in a PHP framework, I would recommend Zend - the fact it's co-founded by the core PHP contributors should say something. Well, there's lots of things I can say about it but you should give it a try yourself to better understand what I mean :)
On the contrary, there are some slight disadvantages to Zend Framework. One in particular is bulkiness. For smaller scale projects, I don't find Zend really ideal due to the excessive and rather unnecessary helpers that are included. Yes. There is a minimal version, but that may then lead to another dilemma where it doesn't provide "enough" to satisfy your needs. Another problem new developers might stumble across is trying to learn Zend. I'm not sure if you faced a similar problem but when I first started I found it rather difficult to pick up Zend, thus there's quite a steep learning curve. There's a lot to know about this framework really. If I'm not mistaken as well, I think Zend is not packaged with an ORM library (e.g. Doctrine), but that isn't a big of a deal.:closedeyes: - sorry, haven't touched Zend in a while, I drifted. Oh and once I updated my web application's core (based on Zend) after ~5 months of inactivity and the whole behaviour changed breaking most of my web components lol.
When it comes to PHP frameworks it's mostly personal preference. Zend Framework is well-coded and documented (I'm not sure if it's well documented now but before it was pretty crap to be honest) and I have no issues with it. However, for some reason, I tend to prefer other frameworks such as Symfony and Kohana (a fork off CI). Indeed, some of the other frameworks I have used do out-perform Zend in terms of benchmarks. My final advice to you is that you should not limit yourself to Zend only. Perhaps you should consider other frameworks (such as those I have mentioned). In fact, do not limit yourself to Zend Server either, there are more ideal setups out there and you do not need to jump into the Zend bandwagon - e.g. Nginx, Lighttpd, etc.
