PHP the Wrong Way

I kind of get what he is saying but he is saying it very badly I believe Jeffrey Way the same things a lot better.

Yes you don't need a framework all the time you don't need to do OOP all the time or follow design patterns all the time but the cases in which you don't need to do that are edge cases that very few programmers run into.

Also if you think PHP is a framework then it must be the worst framework ever designed. Libraries exist precisely because they were required to smooth out the inconsistencies and insanities of the underlying language tools.

A framework is just a collection of libraries wove together with some sane default ways of doing things. Some even allow you take them apart and customize them but they give you a good starting point.

If the way the framework does things is not good for your requirements you can try another and only if you are absolutely certain none of them do the job should you roll your own because once you do the barrier to entry for someone new to the code base will be that much higher.

The only thing I do agree with is that security should be a consideration in the development process but here we get back to the fact that a tried and tested framework has already dealt with the most common security issues and as long as you don't do something stupid in your own code you should be OK.

PHP is really great. I'm not sure why so many people hate it so violently. It's useful and runs like 1/4th of the web.

You make a fair point. I've seen this happen before and after a while, projects that have essentially turned into a poor framework, plus the application, can become somewhat of a pain to maintain.

PHP has come a long way in the past few years and the amount of open source packages has become huge, especially since the adoption of composer. I think with that in mind, it is now easier to build and maintain PHP applications without a framework as such, but just with the components you specifically need. Like yourself, I haven't actively been working with PHP for a while either. But it's been interesting to watch what's been happening with it and it's community.

That was where I stopped as well. I moved from PHP to Django about 9 (wow) years ago because I was reinventing my own ORM and very poor reusable web component set but didn't see something like RoR in the PHP world (there were some early ones but they weren't that appealing at the time). To say PHP is equivalent to Django, RoR or any of the very nice PHP equivalents is . . . I don't get it and thought maybe this was parody of parody.

I agree that OOP and frameworks aren't necessary in principle. I vehemently disagree with the notion that they aren't needed in practice for PHP.

I further contend that a PHP programmer advocating against the use of frameworks who doesn't show a clear understanding of what they actually are is not to be trusted. I even go out on a limb to claim that this is representative of the ills of the PHP community at large. That last part, I willingly concede, is debatable and ultimately beside the point :)

To return to the crux of the argument -- that frameworks are not necessary in principle -- I would like to add that this assumes a well-designed standard library. I don't use frameworks with Go, but I sure as hell use them with PHP because the latter is an absolute minefield.

That someone advocating pragmatism would miss this point is astounding. My jaw has dropped and shattered to the floor. How can you rail against principled approaches to software design (a strange position to take, independently of the current debate) only to get hung up on the theoretical feasibility of writing PHP without a framework?!

It's further bewildering that the author would advocate a pragmatic approach to building software, yet neglect that frameworks offer a pragmatic solution to the security concerns that plague PHP. It's almost as if he doesn't understand the terms he's using!