PHP Commandments

Like mixing jquery (or any js) into PHP... perfectly valid and probably close to what it was actually meant to do, but with a framework (on top of PHP) you might have an asset loader to manage scripts and dependencies or put the script tags into view templates to keep the markup separate from the logic. In a few years if someone has to come in and maintain your code, they might be familiar with it in the context of a framework, versus having to parse everything mixed in together. Something like changing the ORM or changing the template handler becomes much easier because the framework provides that extra level of abstraction.

They also attempt to create organized and universal solutions for general use-cases, so that with minimal effort using the same framework and tools you could make any number of CRUD apps. For a lot of people it's worth the complexity to not have to deal with the overhead of picking and installing libraries or writing an ORM of their own, probably very similar to the "convention over configuration" idiom in RoR. Sometimes the price you pay for this is configurability and speed.

A sweatshop language? Haha, no I take that back, it's not like that..

ArrayHelpers helps me never wonder about where to find an array convenience function. ("array_select_keys() must be in the ArrayHelpers class" vs. "Hmm...where is that function...ugh ok let me run a find on it...oh there it is, right in between create_html_tag() and get_primes()").

ArrayHelpers lets me do lazy loading, so instead of loading everything from encrypt_password() to get_cookie_val() to do a simple task, I only get some useful array functions. Related to that, ArrayHelpers adheres to the interface segregation principle, so my function that I'm using array_select_keys() with doesn't have to know about functions that don't apply to it.

AutoHelpers helps keep my files small and maintainable. You know we've all seen helper.php files that are so monolithic that they have to be broken up with separators like this:

    ////////////////////////////////////////
    //
    //       -- ARRAY FUNCTIONS --
    //           lol oop suxx
    //
    ////////////////////////////////////////

ArrayHelpers lets me avoid obnoxious require() statements.

ArrayHelpers can be used on pretty much every future project ever without modification, so I know it will work out of the box. helpers.php on the other hand? Well, oh crap, some app-specific helpers just happened to weasel their way in there, guess I better delete them. OOPS! Deleted a semi colon by mistake and now my whole app has borked itself.

I mean, what's not to like? A few extra characters?

    $username = array();
    exec('java sanitize.class ' . escapeshellarg($_POST['username']), $username);

Yes. This has nothing to do with flat functions vs. classes. I've seen 'helper' classes get shitted up just as much as function files.

My point is that it doesn't matter. Many projects don't require heavy portability, and in either case, bootstrapping a namespaced shim next to your autoloader isn't a problem.

I'm not arguing that if you have a very extensive functions library, you should separate it out. I totally agree that you should. But saying 'NEVER MAKE A FUNCTIONS FILE NEVER EVER EVER ON PAIN OF DEATH' is silly.