For those that have used both frameworks, what one do you feel is a better overall framework? I tried ZF2 in beta and it seemed overly complicated to symfony but I don't know if its gotten better since then.

Opinions shared in the comments of the post include things like:

• "So if you are learning for job prospects, go Zend. I love Symfony 2 though, its a joy to work with."
• "It doesn't matter. Each has a strength and a weakness, and neither will go away. Pick one and use it, you'll be fine."
• "I don't think there is such thing as a best framework as you should use the best tool for the job. I don't think MVC is the solution to all problems."
• "Both are quite bloated but they have to be considering their target markets."

On the whole, the views are of the "best tool for the job" mentality - a good sign for the community and these two frameworks.

It's time; queue the "Going the Distance" theme from Rocky. In the red ring: Envato developer extraordinaire, Ryan Allen, who built the original FlashDen with his cold bare hands. In the blue corner: Michael Wales, a well known member in the PHP and CodeIgniter communities. The battle? PHP vs. Ruby. Fight!

The two contenders in this "fight" were asked the same questions and answers from both sides are shared to help balance things out. The questions were things like:

• Do you feel that your language is more suited to beginners or advanced users?
• Many PHP developers move on to Ruby after a few years. Have you found this to be the case, and, if so, why do you think it's so common?
• Are there instances when you might choose to use Ruby for one project, and PHP for another?
• What specifically does your language have that the other does not -- if anything?
• How does Ruby or PHP's community compare to the other?

Be sure to check out the comments - there's lots of good thoughts from the communities on both sides there too.

Gregg Pollack and Jason Seifer from RailsEnvy.com do some Ruby on Rails commercials in the same style of the Mac vs PC ads. Videos produced by Jason Hawkins of MakeFilmWork.com.

Other videos include Ruby on Rails vs .NET, Ruby on Rails vs Django and, of course, Ruby on Rails vs ColdFusion.

__autoload() is a magic function introduced in PHP 5 that provides a mechanism for on-demand loading of classes. After its inclusion in PHP, many argued that using such a feature is too magical or not a good design practice. Putting the religious debates over the appropriateness of __autoload() aside, its implementation does have one significant drawback: it is a function declared in the global scope. Once a function is declared, it cannot be redeclared. This means __autoload() can't be used effectively in shared libraries, since any other code could have already declared it.

Similar lazy-load functionality can be achieved on the class level by using __get().

He gives a short code example where the __get() call mimics the functionality of __autoload(), but the resulting object created is public, not global...]]> Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:47:54 -0600 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/7460 http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/7460 In a new post today, Jonathan Snook takes a look at two of the more popular PHP frameworks (CodeIgniter and CakePHP), comparing and contrasting what it's like to work with each.

I almost fear putting this kind of post together as it's bound to pull the fanatics (in the negative sense of the word) out of the woodworks. Right off the bat, let me just say that I've tried to be as fair and honest in this assessment and I've tried to keep it just to the facts while interjecting what my preferences are.

I'm pitting these two frameworks against each other but there really isn't a clear winner. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and ultimately falls to what your preference for certain features might be.

He starts with the "why?" of it all before even getting into the code examples. When he does, it's all about models, views, the out-of-the-box features, auto-loading, and documentation. As he mentioned before he started, though, there's not a "winner" in this comparison. His personal choice, though, is CakePHP for simplicity's sake.

Web site developers are familiar with a concept that a site consists of pages but Zend Framework proposes Controller/Action idea. Undoubtedly, Controller/Action is cool but how is it relevant to real world tasks? In other words, how is Controller/Action connected to the standard form flow?

His diagram shows the typical flow of an application and, below it, a sample PHP page that would handle the form results for such a layout. His question is what the Controller/Action method has over this typical format, and whether or not it just serves to make things more complex.

Being a new Zender I've spent some time in the recent past looking at people's opinions about PHP now that it directly affects the work I do. In my research I have found a lot of interesting "opinions" about PHP vs. this that and the other thing, usually in the form of lists. "4 reasons why Java will outlast PHP", for example.

He lists five different things (like lacking features, slowness, and no serious applications written in it) and debunks each of them with facts, eliminating the FUD that has gathered around the topic.

The goal of this article is to provide some perspective on reasons why one might choose one over the other.

Unfortunately, it doen't really do anything of the sort. The article only serves to describe the two options - features, history, tools needed to use then - without ever giving any real reasons or situations where you might want to use one over the other. Their only real opinion on comparing the two is the "cost of the initial investment" or "comfort with using Open Source software".

Is anyone else out there as tired of these articles as I am?

Apparently there was some kind of PHP vs. Javascript fight, to see which language sucked the most. The results? Amazingly Banal, if not downright wrong.

Topics in each round of the fight included:

• Syntax
• Standard Libraries
• Meta Programming
• Error Handling
• Garbage Collection

In summary: a killer app in PHP will always sway me. But my recent hands-on experience with test-driven development has really underscored how essential it is to have good Agile development tool support.

He starts with PHP5, listing out the pros (performance, large community) and the cons (easy to write bad code, huge number of frameworks). Next up is Java - giving it the same treatment - the pros (rigorous typing, leads 'enterprise' tools) and the cons (behind the curve on tests, develpment timeframe slower).

There are several other he lists for each of of pros/cons mentioned above, so check out the full list in his post.