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List of minimalist frameworks

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Re: List of minimalist frameworks

#25
post #12

Isn't "minimalist framework" a contradiction? It seems like if you were going for minimalism you would not use a framework.

I think in many cases a good minimalist framework will get a core set of functions out of the way (in web for example: routing, autoloading, dependency injection, etc.). Grabbing something small that provides a proven but efficient backbone can let you focus on delivering core value, but then can easily be switched out later as the solution grows.

One would think that you wouldn't want to switch out a framework later. After all, your choice of network is one of the defining factors of how everything will work. Swapping it out means rewriting most, if not all, of your CRUD functionality and then doing a whole lot of regression testing. Doesn't seem very cost or time-effective.

Re: List of minimalist frameworks

#26
Unsurprisingly (I think only a few dozen people know about it), the PHP framework I use isn't there: http://sifo.me It's a framework created by a friend of mine and it's used in quite a few actual businesses (including my own). I can't say I've looked around much in the PHP framework landscape in the last few years, so can't compare, but I'm really happy with it. Simple, flexible and powerful.

Re: List of minimalist frameworks

#27
I know this issue has been brought up many times before, but to some extent the existence of a framework suggests a lack of composability in the language being discussed. This gets discussed a lot in the context of Clojure, where people new to Clojure often ask, "Where are the frameworks?"

The more meta-programming that a language allows, the more its functions will tend to be composable. The more composable it is, the more its libraries can be tied together without the need for an over-arching framework. The framework is there to provide needed cohesion at exactly those points where the language itself does not provide enough meta reflexion to enable fearless mixing of libraries that have little knowledge of each other.

There is also the historical trend toward lighter frameworks: Rails was lighter than Struts, and more recently we've seen a flood of frameworks that are much lighter than Rails.

The Clojure eco-system has gone furthest down this road. Although at first there was a feeling that there should be a web framework for Clojure (and people made wonderful efforts with Noir) eventually the consensus of the community was that it was sufficient to get by with various libraries, some of which (Ring) have become standards.

We see this with a lot of new Ruby frameworks as well: composability over centralized organization. Javascript is going down this road as well.

Languages that offer less in the way of meta-programming (PHP) have been slower to go down this road.

No matter what language you use, the future direction of the trend seems clear enough: less frameworks, less centralized effort toward organization, more emphasis on composability, better ability to mix libraries for maximum effect.

Re: List of minimalist frameworks

#29

Unsurprisingly (I think only a few dozen people know about it), the PHP framework I use isn't there: http://sifo.me It's a framework created by a friend of mine and it's used in quite a few actual businesses (including my own). I can't say I've looked around much in the PHP framework landscape in the last few years, so can't compare, but I'm really happy with it. Simple, flexible and powerful.

First sentence on the homepage: "Sifo is a well-proben [sic] open source framework for PHP professionals."

Re: List of minimalist frameworks

#30

Unsurprisingly (I think only a few dozen people know about it), the PHP framework I use isn't there: http://sifo.me It's a framework created by a friend of mine and it's used in quite a few actual businesses (including my own). I can't say I've looked around much in the PHP framework landscape in the last few years, so can't compare, but I'm really happy with it. Simple, flexible and powerful.

First sentence on the homepage: "Sifo is a well-proben [sic] open source framework for PHP professionals."

Will pass it along, thanks. Neither of us are native English speakers.
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