Comments on: PHP Prado, Yii, and Building UI Architecture in the Right Place http://www.ryannorris.com/2009/02/07/php-prado-and-the-value-of-ui-architecture/ managing software teams and delivering great results Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:12:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Ryan Norris http://www.ryannorris.com/2009/02/07/php-prado-and-the-value-of-ui-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Ryan Norris Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:34:09 +0000 http://blog.ryannorris.com/?p=9#comment-12 I think on the PHP platform that there are just a lot of options. It's not that I dislike all of them - I just think there's a certain amount of ambiguity about best practice, and that affects technology selection. At the end of the day, I'm pretty interested in finding the best tool for the job. I might not think the tool is particularly portable though (Drupal, for instance helped my company get a site up for a client pretty quickly - but it's not a dev platform I would use for a workflow management application, for example). The last few years I've been pretty immersed in Java and .Net - so I've seen the impact that a base set of standard APIs can have on a platform - as well as some generally accepted ones. Spring is an ad hoc framework, and it's architecture has allowed for numerous packages to extend and decorate it (I spoke to a company about a Wicket/Spring-based platform a few weeks ago). But nothing in PHP really matches the impact that Sun or Apache has had on finding a primary direction for the extension of the Java platform. Maybe one day Zend will be that beast - but even they are just looking to create competing frameworks. I think PHP could benefit from some standard API development that the various frameworks could code to to ensure portability of solutions, and compete on value-adds rather than approaches. I think on the PHP platform that there are just a lot of options. It’s not that I dislike all of them – I just think there’s a certain amount of ambiguity about best practice, and that affects technology selection. At the end of the day, I’m pretty interested in finding the best tool for the job. I might not think the tool is particularly portable though (Drupal, for instance helped my company get a site up for a client pretty quickly – but it’s not a dev platform I would use for a workflow management application, for example).

The last few years I’ve been pretty immersed in Java and .Net – so I’ve seen the impact that a base set of standard APIs can have on a platform – as well as some generally accepted ones. Spring is an ad hoc framework, and it’s architecture has allowed for numerous packages to extend and decorate it (I spoke to a company about a Wicket/Spring-based platform a few weeks ago). But nothing in PHP really matches the impact that Sun or Apache has had on finding a primary direction for the extension of the Java platform. Maybe one day Zend will be that beast – but even they are just looking to create competing frameworks. I think PHP could benefit from some standard API development that the various frameworks could code to to ensure portability of solutions, and compete on value-adds rather than approaches.

]]> By: mrLami http://www.ryannorris.com/2009/02/07/php-prado-and-the-value-of-ui-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-11 mrLami Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:26:51 +0000 http://blog.ryannorris.com/?p=9#comment-11 I'm curious to know what technologies you use. You seem to dislike almost all of them... I’m curious to know what technologies you use. You seem to dislike almost all of them…

]]> By: Ryan http://www.ryannorris.com/2009/02/07/php-prado-and-the-value-of-ui-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-3 Ryan Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:35:20 +0000 http://blog.ryannorris.com/?p=9#comment-3 Thanks for the heads up, Kris. I'm intrigued by the annotation approach you're taking - very interested to see how that performs. I generally like the idea of "convention over configuration," but I do think rails-like frameworks definitely move the bar a lot closer to chaos than something scalable. As I evaluate PHP frameworks for some work I'm doing for Medullan, I'll definitely poll your project to see if it can deliver something that we can rapidly deploy. Thanks for the heads up, Kris. I’m intrigued by the annotation approach you’re taking – very interested to see how that performs. I generally like the idea of “convention over configuration,” but I do think rails-like frameworks definitely move the bar a lot closer to chaos than something scalable. As I evaluate PHP frameworks for some work I’m doing for Medullan, I’ll definitely poll your project to see if it can deliver something that we can rapidly deploy.

]]> By: Kris Jordan http://www.ryannorris.com/2009/02/07/php-prado-and-the-value-of-ui-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Kris Jordan Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:04:49 +0000 http://blog.ryannorris.com/?p=9#comment-2 Ryan - thought I might also point you in the direction of the Recess PHP Framework (http://www.recessframework.org/) It's a young, RESTful PHP framework which draws inspiration from a number of other sources. Currently the UI layer is really simplistic and does not impose much architecturally. We've got some plans for doing a better job on the front-end and will be going in the direction you suggest (moving UI logic to Javascript + REST). It's still early but I think we've got an exciting start. Cheers - Kris Jordan Ryan – thought I might also point you in the direction of the Recess PHP Framework (http://www.recessframework.org/) It’s a young, RESTful PHP framework which draws inspiration from a number of other sources. Currently the UI layer is really simplistic and does not impose much architecturally. We’ve got some plans for doing a better job on the front-end and will be going in the direction you suggest (moving UI logic to Javascript + REST). It’s still early but I think we’ve got an exciting start.

Cheers – Kris Jordan

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