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Discussion on: Todo-MVP: Or 'Why You Shouldn't Use A Web Framework' - The Revenge

 
gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes • Edited

I'd just like to say @joeyhub and @theelectricdave that these are some quality comments that I've really enjoyed reading. Thanks!

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gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes

Especially

Frameworks give you more to do, they reduce standardisation, they significantly degrade performance, they reduce maintainability, they reduce collaboration, they reduce testability, they reduce buildability, they reduce readability, they reduce debugability, they reduce reliability, they increase bugs, they increase the amount of code you need to write, they reduce developer quality, they inhibit learning, they reduce deployability, scale poorly, cognitive load increases, upgradability is inhibited by frameworks, reusability drops, compatibility drops, security is reduced by frameworks, they reduce interoperability, they increase the time it takes to do things, they increase complexity, they reduce configurability, they reduce organisation, etc.

I mean, this is brilliantly put.

I saw Ward Cunningham tweet this:

I feel the same way about frameworks and DSLs - they're designed to negate my generic programming skills and mentality.

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theelectricdave profile image
David S.

You're welcome. I'm glad someone gets it. I've been afraid to even speak my mind on this topic because there is so much freaking resistance to not following php-fig dogma and object oriented fetishism.. It was reading joey's comments and noticing that he didn't get mauled that made me join.

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theelectricdave profile image
David S.

It's a bad but common assumption that frameworks are well written and that the coder can't do better. It's also a bad assumption that frameworks can either contain or enhance a bad developer. A huge complex Gordian knot of a framework is only going to give a bad developer more rope.

This is the thing that sticks to me the most. Having had developed my own framework, i have a yardstick to measure other frameworks by, and they pretty much all fail to stack up to some of the pretty basic function libraries i've put together, in terms of how difficult the syntax is to type, how fast they perform, etc.

( the only framework i found respect for in this regard is the fat free framework )

I always come back wondering who finds these solutions acceptable.
A simple database call in laravel or symfony is about 3 times more complex than i'd like.

Perhaps these frameworks provide acceptable solutions for people who do not know better and are just average programmers. In this case, it might be better for them to be using someone else's solution.

With the code camps churning out hundreds of new programmers per day, i think the framework popularity will only continue over time. This may result in another phase of poorly written, unmaintainable php code - except this time, you also get to figure out what automagic is happening when you try to debug that mess after the original programmer hit a wall and walked away from / failed to complete the project..