---
layout: post
title: ! 'Zend Framework: friend or foe?'
tags:
- Development
status: publish
type: post
published: true
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  _edit_last: '1'
---
<img class="alignleft" title="Zend Framework logo" src="http://dev.juokaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/logo-zend-framework.jpg" alt="" width="169" height="114" />Yesterday I started working for <a href="http://www.goweb.pt">Goweb</a>, a portuguese web development agency. I'm working as a <a href="http://framework.zend.com">Zend Framework</a> developer and I must say I'm very surprised for what I'm learning from the experience so far. It has its unique philosophy – if I can call it like that – and way of coding.

It's not just another MVC framework. It's a set of PHP classes (one of them actually enables MVC and makes it work stand-alone) that allows you to focus a little more on your application logic rather than spending time on fixing technical bugs.

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<h3>Is it any good compared to other frameworks?</h3>
Considering I have Ruby on Rails and CodeIgniter background, I should point out that all three are different, although Rails and CI have similar approaches to what they try to reach. Zend FW aims to be more generic and reach as much as it can pursue. Since it doesn't have an exact folder structure and conventions take very little into consideration, it's kinda farfecthed to say it's better or worse than the other two.
<h3>What I DO know is…</h3>
<ul>
	<li>Rails' conventions and ease of implementation are gold to me. You can just think of an application architecture and just start building it!</li>
	<li>Its ActiveRecord is <strong>major</strong>.</li>
	<li>CodeIgniter's naming convention and learning curve is simpler than Zend's.</li>
	<li>Zend's flexibility lets you do whatever you want (as long as you don't see any advantage on ORM).</li>
	<li>Zend's form design pattern is concise and pretty solid.</li>
	<li>Zend lets you use any template systems you want (Rails and CI are not that flexible I believe).</li>
	<li>Zend has direct Web services, PDF, email and authentication/ACL support, amongst others.</li>
</ul>
As you are probably guessing, <em>I'm definitely biased towards Rails</em>. It's just easier for me to get things done. Simple, clean and fast. However, my job is to embrace Zend FW and to explore its potential. I would love to hear from you guys. <strong>What do you think about the framework?</strong>