There Are Several Frameworks Available for Nearly Every Language

The idea behind a framework is to offer a design you can use across multiple applications. All applications have a number of basic things in common — specifically, some kind of interface with a database, some amount of application logic, something that presents the application to the user. If you've written many PHP applications, you know what this looks like. A framework is designed to provide a structure for these common elements (database interaction, presentation layer, application logic) so you spend less time writing up database interface code or presentation-layer interfaces and more time writing the application itself. The architecture represented by breaking an application up in this fashion is referred to as Model-View-Controller (MVC). Model refers to your data, View to your presentation layer, and Controller refers to the application or business logic.

There are several frameworks available for nearly every language. Selecting the right one for your needs can be somewhat difficult, especially if you haven't used any of them before. While advice and opinions from colleagues and trusty developerWorks authors can be helpful in this area, there is really only one guiding principle that should be followed when selecting any framework: A framework is only as good as the amount of time and effort it saves everyone. A framework is no good if it works well for you but causes a significant increase in support calls. A framework is no good if it is easy to support, but hinders rather than assists your development. A framework is useless if it is elegant, but causes support and development issues.

When selecting a framework for your project, consider everyone involved, from the top down, and when you evaluate the framework, keep the impact to other parties in mind.

When you consider adopting a framework, look at your application closely and ask yourself it if needs a framework. A framework isn't a necessity. Enterprise applications will continue to be written without the use of frameworks. Will a framework help you with the project? Will it save everyone time and effort? Will your application perform better on a framework? Will it provide the stability you are lacking? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you should look to adopt a framework. If the answer to all of these questions is no, a framework will only complicate matters.

Unfortunately, size and scope restraints do not allow for a comprehensive coverage of all available PHP frameworks. However, just to let you know a tad more about PHP frameworks, we give you the best three:
• Zend Framework
• symfony
• CakePHP