Posted by steve on 10/21/05 20:23

| have begun to research the object-oriented features available in PHP as
| I felt I was "falling behind" in my programming skills, as OO is
| supposed to be the future.

oop, in general, is not the future but the past and present. it's been on
the development scene probably longer than you've been alive. as for php,
oop has been incorporated since php 3...though not as fully/easily
implemented as in php 5.

| -Why would I need for an html form (ex: an Add Client Contact form) to
| be an object when there will only be one copy of this form ever
| created, on one page (ex: the Add Client Contact page).

that's great...now port that functionality to another page that needs the
same information from/for a client along with validation. it becomes either
an include nightmare or a maintanenece delima b/c you've copied/pasted the
relevant code to this context...and without any uniformity of function or
explanation. this example is only one small fascet of what a developer may
want to do with a client/contact. go for something more profound.

| -Why would I want each client in a list of clients to be an object,
| when they are just being displayed for the user to view, or click on
| for more detailed information? This is really just a database table
| dump.

your pages sound like they're pretty static...don't let your mind become
stagnate as well. you really can't see *any* circumstance where oop would
not only help minimize the inline html clutter but also consolidate the info
and be able to extend it as needs change...oop gives you a heads-up on
scalability.

| Can anyone shed some light on the true, real benefits of using OO
| design in PHP? I really feel as though I am missing something here.

the biggest benefits are allowing you to separate components...i.e. html
from business logic, etc.. there are places and times where you really don't
need to do anything but dump data to a browser in a pretty matter. however,
the code behind that nice looking output is probably pretty ugly as
functional complexity increases. if you don't need oop, that's fine. but,
there are plenty of examples of how it can be effectively used and how it
can be leveraged very quickly to far exceed what code-behind-form
methodology allows. i'm sure you have a much more creative mind than what
you are letting on now.

hth,

me

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