Almost two years ago I jumped into ASP.NET and C# headfirst. This was my first exposure to OOP. I love it, and I don’t plan on turning back. However, for personal projects and freelancing I prefer to use PHP. PHP was my first “server-side” language (not counting a really small ASP email script I wrote leveraged on my very first freelance development gig). I love it for it’s straight forward nature, low cost, and great support.

Many of the conveniences that ASP.NET offers are not inherently available with PHP. This, and the chest-beating of many RoR developers, has led me on a quest for a useful Framework for PHP.

The Quest Begins

I began by simply googling “php frameworks”. This returned a plethora of comparisons and reviews which I began to peruse. Along the way I learned some new terminology: Model-View-Controller. Four frameworks stood out to me based on feature set, community, support, and cost (free!).

The Frameworks

Prado

I was initially impressed by several things about Prado:

1. Currently on version 3 and has a two year track record
2. It has an active community
3. It’s methodology is very similar to ASP.NET
4. The majority of the Framework is very well documented
5. Native development for PHP 5

Based on these strengths I decided to try Prado first. I found it easy to install and begin building applications. I built a simple login and used their templating system. Overall, I found the entire environment very friendly familiar. However, Prado suffers from some performance hits because of it’s architecture when using complicated dynamic templates. For this reason I decided to continue my quest. However, I would recommend Prado to anyone coming from ASP.NET who is developing small to medium sized applications.

Symfony

Symfony seemed like the next logical progression. It is well documented, highly reviewed, and seems to be very robust and efficient. I spent about an hour tooling around the documentation. I decided to abandon Symfony and move on after reading the installation documentation Please don’t judge me, I just get nervous when I have to do that much jockeying around with the command line.

CakePHP

It looks like I’m probably going to stick with Cake.

1. Easy to install
2. Active, enthusiastic community
3. Good beginner tutorials (unfortunately the remainder of the documentation is still under development and leaves a lot to be desired)

I was up and running and had built my first basic application in under an hour using the easy to follow blog tutorial. However, as I’ve tried to dig deeper I’ve had to dive into google groups, irc, and other sites for help figuring out the subtleties of Cake.

Code Igniter

I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks interesting. If Cake doesn’t work out, it’s next on the list.

Jeff Croft recently revealed LOST-Theories.com, a fan site that is “all about LOST speculation” and I think it’s the coolest thing ever! Users can submit their speculations and theories and rate, comment on, or debunk as appropriate. Many times I’ve seen fan’s exchange theories in message boards or on their blogs; LOST-Theories.com presents the ideal format for speculation exchange. It features a great design, useful content, and simple organization and cross-references. I’m referring all of my friends who are fans of LOST.

Would this ideal work with other mystery/suspense based series? I’m highly tempted to build a spin-off site. It would be focused on my favorite series (not LOST…and to be revealed at a later date) and I would probably code it with the Prado Framework. I’ve already purchased a domain and begun visual design (preview coming soon).