Fed Up Of Framework Hype Dcphp

For the DC PHP Conference

Presented by Tony Bibbs

June 2nd, 2008

Fed Up of Framework Hype?

Who is this guy?

Eleven Years of Software Consulting

Five Years in Public Sector

Advocate for the use of open source software in government.

Short stint Engineering GPS Solutions

Managed popular CMS for four years

Organizational Background

Current Landscape:

Straight Consulting

PHP, .NET and Java

MySQL, SQL Server and DB2

30 Developers

7 Project Managers

2 Business Analysts

2 Architects (both presenting here)‏

Evolution of the Software at ITE

In the beginning, there was no software development process.

Project Management wasn't a formal competency.

Testing?!? What's that?

Hostile work environment

Project failure was common

Quick Overview

What ain't gonna happen.

Motivations for Frameworks.

Downside to Frameworks (risks)‏

Practicality of Frameworks

Common framework components.

The framework no-no.

Java's Influence on PHP

PHP community has tried hard to differentiate itself from other platforms.

Anything resembling Java in PHP gets a violent knee-jerk reaction. Frameworks are no exception.

Rails seems to have produced some motivation for more developers to use frameworks (for better and worse).

Do you Need a Framework?

“ Frameworks are designed with the intent of facilitating software development, by allowing designers and programmers to spend more time on meeting software requirements rather than dealing with the more tedious low level details of providing a working system.”

-- Wikipedia

Warning! Warning! Warning!

“ Beware of [frameworks]. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.”

- Joel “on Software” Spolsky

When NOT to Use a Framework

Your organization is SDLC-less

When the final solution will be “small”

When the team is small

You haven't articulated why you need one in the first place (read: No Requirements)‏

You have strict performance requirements*

“ Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.” -- Rick Cook, Fantasy Author Better Motivation

When to Consider Frameworks

Repeatability.

Are you already using one?

Focus is on business solutions, not engineering.

You want to make software a commodity - not an art

You have a decent size team.

You have a lot of medium sized projects.

You have a few large projects.

Improve your estimates.

You want to lower maintenance costs*

Framework Risks

Ramp-up

Community Stability

Code Stability

Inability to Scale

Speed

Code Bloat (i.e. lots of code)‏

All-or-nothing Frameworks

In ability to integrate Server and Client side frameworks

NIH

Common Components

Model-View-Controller (MVC) Implementation

Object Relational Mapper (ORM)‏

Caching Implementation

HTML Templates

AJAX Support

Event Driven Programming

Project Scaffolding

Web Services Support

MVC Considerations

Configureless

Works with any HTML Template library

Built-in Security for stuff like authorization checks, CSRF, XSS.

Lightweight

Extensible.

Recommendations: MVCnPHP (shameless plug), Zend_View, Zend_Controller, Phrame.

ORM Considerations

PDO at the core?

Limit amount of raw SQL issued?

Supports concept of Named Queries?

Can issue raw SQL to a connection.

Supports multiple DBMS

Supports multiple databases.

Common ORM Pitfall: Large numbers of objects

HTML Templates

Framework should support notion of using PHP-only for templates. While serviceable, PHP-only lacks:

Escaping output by default for security reasons.

Limit the embedding of business logic into the template.

And remember, most modern template engines compile the templates into PHP anyway.

#1 Framework No-No

Do not change more than one component of your framework at a time. Incremental improvements allow your team to make the minor adjustments needed. The longer you can use your framework, unchanged, the better.

Framework Recap