On Dec 10, 2010, at 12:00 AM, Paul M Foster wrote: > On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 07:41:32PM -0800, Daevid Vincent wrote: >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>>> If you value CPU time over developer time, by all means avoid ORM >>>> frameworks (and *all* frameworks). The point of a common >>> framework is to >>>> trade a small bit of performance for a large amount of >>> developer time. If >>>> you will only use the framework once, the payoff will be >>> much less. The >>>> goal is to choose frameworks that you can leverage again and again. >> > > [snip] > >> >> That's just it. DO NOT make a "framework". Make some helper routines for >> common tasks like sql_query(), sql_insert(), sql_update(), >> sql_select_box(), etc. and stick to the "basics". >> >> Frameworks are a waste of time and energy -- homegrown or off-the-shelf. >> They try to be all things to all people and turn into a "jack of trades, >> master of none". They're bloated and cumbersome and force you to wedge >> square pegs into round holes all the time. > > I have to agree with the "toolkit" idea. > > I just came off of job where they had an existing investment in Drupal, > so we were stuck with it. No offense to any Drupalers out there. It's a > very slick, cleverly thought out framework. But building anything > non-trivial with the framework requires a significant learning curve and > coding investment. And many things you'll want to do, you could do ten > times faster by hand. > > This is the second framework I've done any significant research into. > And my original decision to build a set of "tools" and use them for > various tasks over and over seems the soundest course. The more those > tools interlock, the more they become a framework, and the less flexible > they become. > > The tools, used in a "habitual context" (models go here, views go there, > etc.) makes for a much easier time of it. Not to mention that your > thousands of site visitors won't be loading 150K of code each time just > to view one page. (Yes, I've heard of caching. It's a system which was > built to compensate for coders who waste too much CPU time and memory.) > > Paul I've used good ole' procedural PHP, built a homegrown "framework" and now I use CakePHP, which has ORM. Yes, at first, it was a little confusing to understand. But once you get it, it's really easy to create a database-driven, dynamic application with little effort. Like most things in programming, you have to find what works for you. While it is good to consider that others may have to work with your _flawless_ code some day - so you better make it understandable - many times clients just want what you can give them as soon as possible. What I've found is that by using a framework (such as Cake) I am able to give the client what they want... and quickly. If I ever run into a problem that can't be easily solved by the framework, I resort to my experience with "direct PHP" and just create a manual solution. That's the beauty of PHP. CPU cycles are cheap and caching is there to speed things up, so I don't completely understand those who complain about these things... Happy coding, ~Philip
