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Posted by lawrence k on 12/23/06 00:54
> As a follow up question, I might ask whether any one knows of designer
> experiences with any of the PHP frameworks. In our shop, the designers
> have had a positive experience with Ruby On Rails. They've had negative
> experiences with a number of PHP software projects, such as Phorum and
> phpBoard and some eccomerce suites.
>
> It is curious that Ruby on the web is synonymous with a single
> framework, whereas in the world of PHP, no framework has managed to
> gain much market share. I wonder why that is? It helps that Ruby on
> Rails was so perfectly done and contains so many best practices (no
> HTML embedded in the code, for instance). I think it is probably also
> helped by being new. Some of the worst things that people associate
> with PHP (the use of HTML tables in templates) is merely a product of
> the age of some of PHP's better known software products (newer
> projects, like WordPress, don't suffer the same flaws).
As I follow up to that, I might add my biggest complaint against Ruby
On Rails: a computer programmer is needed to install it. As I mention
above, an ideal framework, for us, would maximize what designers can do
without programmers. The designers are generally paid less than the
programmers, so economics suggests we need to maximize the scope of our
designers. A framework that empowers designers (by covering or
automating some of the most complicated bits of setting up a framework)
would be very useful to us.
At several design shops where I've worked, the programmers are always
busy, whereas the production assisstants sometimes have time on their
hands. Sometimes the production assisstants are waiting for the
programmers to get done with something, so they can move forward. This
is lost money.
The worst crime against productivity that I've seen is when HTML gets
embedded inside of PHP code. Then programmers are needed to do such
important tasks as change a <STRONG> tag to <EM>. Economically, this is
the same as shoveling money into a fire pit and striking a match.
As my company evaluates PHP frameworks, a big question for us is which
framework maximizes what the designers can do. We would love to hear
from designers who've had experience with some PHP frameworks, or
programmers who know the reactions of designers to some of these
frameworks.
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