Thread

I expected a bit more from that. There where 3 presentations between ZF, Symfony and CI on how they achieve a similar task.
The guy from ZF (Rob Allen) couldn’t answer any question properly because he didn’t knew that much of the framework yet… but he’s writing a book about ZF (*grin). The presentation about symfony (Ian.P.Christian) was like a marathon and confused me even more about the framework then I already was. I must say the speaker did know what he was talking about. And last, a presentation about CI (Toby Beresford), clean and simple, straightforward just like the framework itself. He was the only one ho made a working demo.

So conclusion, ZF was ok, but lacks on in depth explanation and demonstration on some of there strong advantages as a framework.
Symfony didn’t sound like music and was a bit confusing (Lots of things to do to get it working)
CI was the only straightforward one with not much blablabla.

I’ve paid a lot to get there (Belgium), and expected a bit more than things I could easily find on the net.

Anyone else who was there that thinks similar about that?

Is there YouTube / Slideshare links for any of the presentations there (particularly the one you are referring to now)?

I didn’t go but reading your experience isn’t the problem the frameworks themselves but the speakers. Symfony is one of the most difficult frameworks because they go very far in changing the way to use php. I’ve been reading the manual this week and i’ve found a few things that were very interesting (the compress AR where methods thread is based on Table 8-1 - SQL and Criteria Object Syntax)

The Zend framework is with its take as much or as little as you need approach a bit difficult to start with but once you get the hang of it you are going to like it.

Too bad the speakers could get that message across.

@power user: The topics will be pod casted, when I have the link I’ll post it here.
@xwero: I agree, they all have their own unique qualities (talking about the frameworks… and the speakers of course 😊 )

The Zend framework is with its take as much or as little as you need approach a bit difficult to start with but once you get the hang of it you are going to like it.

I played with Zend a few months back and I really liked it, last week I tried to give it a shot again and couldn’t even get things going… I can’t remember why. I’ll give it a shot again tonight and prob. PM you xwero - see if you can help me through the hiccup. All in all - it seems like a great framework though.

The topics will be pod casted, when I have the link I’ll post it here.

I would love that.

Hi!

I’m the guy that did the symfony talk.  Sorry I rushed my presentation, and that i didn’t do a good job in introducing you to the framework.  I of course had a working version of the application, but didn’t see a huge value in all 3 of us showing an identical frontend.  I think compared to CI, symfony is a lot bigger, and more complicated.  But, the basics don’t seem to be much more complicated to me, but that’s a matter of opinion.

If you have any symfony questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me a mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thanks for dropping in pookey, we appreciate it greatly.  Do you have a link to any further materials you’d like to share?

My presentation is online at:

http://pookey.co.uk/blog/archives/42-phplondon08-My-symfony-talk.html

I did consider turning the demo app idea into a screen cast, but I’m not sure on the value of doing so.  I’d be very interested in hearing back from the community about what they would like to see when it comes to getting an introduction to symfony. 

I’ll just quickly point out here, that I’m not here to start a flamewar, or try to win you all over to symfony - I prefer symfony, doesn’t mean you have to 😉

I believe we’re about to purchase some screen casting software at work which means I could do some screen casts, if I found the time and motivation.  Anyway, feel free to throw some feedback at me, on here, my website, or personal abuse direct to my email address

@pookey : One question i would like to ask about symfony, is it possible to upload the framework and create a few simple pages without using the command line?

Don’t worry about flame wars we are a decent bunch 😊

Good question…. if this CLI stuff is a serious down point on symfony, then I guess it needs to be addressed.

There is a plugin:

http://trac.symfony-project.com/wiki/sfControlPanelPlugin

However - I’ve never used it.  As a linux user, I’m one of these geeks that prefers the CLI, so I’ve never really thought about it being a downside.  Maybe something I should do is document how to get it working without CLI access at all - or at least try to dig out some docs of someone who’s already done it

I like CLI generators for limited uses but i’m so used to visual confirmation when creating a file, and to create a whole application without visual oversight is a threshold for me. And i’m also to lazy to remember where i placed all my application files 😊

Is there YouTube / Slideshare links for any of the presentations there (particularly the one you are referring to now)?

Here’s mine:
CI presentation at PHP London

Cheers

Toby

I’ve paid a lot to get there (Belgium), and expected a bit more than things I could easily find on the net.

Welcome to the world of conferences 😊

I’ve yet to find one where I learned much - a couple have had interesting speakers but these were on the periphery of the subject area, or outside web design.

The Zend framework is with its take as much or as little as you need approach a bit difficult to start with but once you get the hang of it you are going to like it.

I played with Zend a few months back and I really liked it, last week I tried to give it a shot again and couldn’t even get things going… I can’t remember why. I’ll give it a shot again tonight and prob. PM you xwero - see if you can help me through the hiccup. All in all - it seems like a great framework though.

The topics will be pod casted, when I have the link I’ll post it here.

I would love that.

I’ve been working with ZF lately and the 1.5 release is around the corner.  1.5RC1 is available and it is awesome.  Getting up and running isn’t that difficult (you should def. be strong OOP), but you have to read the docs.  There are tons and tons of docs, so you should pick and choose those areas that will be of most use to you.  I would start with the Zend_Controller section which includes a very basic quick start and a breakdown of the application flow.  It will explain front controller (+plugins), action controller (+helpers), request, response, router, and dispatcher.  There is a lot of meat in this section and you should probably reference the source as you read.  It’s worth it though, as having a detailed understanding of what’s happening under the hood really allows you to extend and customize.  From there I’d have a quick glance at Zend_Layout and then move to Zend_Db which is the package you will most likely use for models (Zend_Db_Table_Abstract).  Others you may want to check out are Zend_Config, Zend_Debug (helps debug dev so may want to look at it first), Zend_Validate, Zend_Filter_Input (which is what I use for validation in my models), Zend_Form, and on and on.  It is a pretty massive class library, and it is well coded, amazingly well documented, and powerful as all hell.  Also, it’s Zend.