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Aug2

CakePHP and PRADO

I’ve recently found two open-source PHP development frameworks with great potential: CakePHP and PRADO.

CakePHP is inspired by Ruby-on-Rails (RoR). Rather then create a ported version of RoR – a Ruby centered framework – CakePHP was developed to be a comparable system for PHP that makes use of the language’s various strengths. It also helps force PHP developers to organize their code and helps avoid disorganized “spaghetti code.” The project’s website explains CakePHP as

“… a rapid development framework for PHP which uses commonly known design patterns like ActiveRecord, Association Data Mapping, Front Controller and MVC. Our primary goal is to provide a structured framework that enables PHP users at all levels to rapidly develop robust web applications, without any loss to flexibility.”

It is intended to be easy to learn (”it’s cake!”). Developers who use CakePHP are called “bakers.”

While CakePHP takes inspiration from RoR, PRADO takes inspiration from Delphi and Microsoft’s excellent .NET framework. The code in PRADO-based applications looks unique for PHP – and as an ASP.NET developer – I notice many similarities to ASP.NET code. Pradosoft.com describes PRADO as

“… a component-based and event-driven programming framework for developing Web applications in PHP 5.”

I look forward to trying both frameworks and seeing what they can do.

posted in: PHP

This post was published on Wednesday, August 2, 2006 at 3:20 pm

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Comments

1

Sam Turner

August 6, 2006 at 9:33 am

All of these frameworks are great but none of them are a cure-all. Each development framework is limited by the fact it is a framework, and inheritently limited in some way. The trick is to identify the best framework for the problem at hand, if one does not fit the problem, then to the custom code you shall go.

2

The Truth

August 9, 2006 at 1:11 am

Not having experience in .net or asp is such a pain in the “”you know where” to create anything in prado, also its template system kills every designer who would have to add some visual style into it… I have been learning prado for a week and havent got anywhere.. cant really see any bonuses using it.

3

dingzhongshan

August 9, 2006 at 10:52 am

I have been researching frameworks for quite sometime. I found Prado to be an excellent, well built event driven framework. The one thing I really like about it is the active development and examples on their site. It can be somewhat complicated, when you first start out using it. CakePHP is not bad. I discovered qcodo http://www.qcodo.com/ and that took me away from cake and prado. It seems like it has the best of both worlds. I agree it’s not the cure-all, but it comes pretty close. thanks.

4

Ryan Peterson

August 10, 2006 at 11:24 am

The Truth:

I had a very similar initial response to Prado – it seems a bit verbose, but granted I have not taken to much time to explore it. However, it does seem to be well written and designed from a technical standpoint. Although arguable, I found Prado to be more complicated for writing applications then CakePHP – and CakePHP’s community has been very supportive thus far.

dingzhongshan:

Qcodo looks interesting. I’ve noticed it does not follow M-V-C architecture – which is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps I’ll look into Qcodo a bit.

5

slith

August 24, 2006 at 9:12 am

i’ve looked at so many frameworks including CakePHP but documentation made the learning curve a bit steep. so looked for a better solution and i came across Code Igniter. i haven’t looked back since.

6

George Morris

August 27, 2006 at 5:13 pm

The URL for those interested in Code Igniter http://www.codeigniter.com/

7

Ryan Peterson

September 1, 2006 at 9:25 am

slith:

I’ve actually found the documentation for CakePHP – as an open-source project – to be exceptional. CakePHP’s freenode channel has also been outstanding, getting me through tough patches. I’ve been impressed.