MVC Framework Standards Committee
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:18 am
Okay, at this point, we've all realized that there's more than one way to do a framework, and it seems every 2 months we see a new PHP framework arrive on the scene. Actually, even though this has quite a lot of disadvantages, it seems the frameworks are learning from each other, and therefore has quite a lot of advantages as well.
On jobs and projects, whereas before I might have seen that they require only Zend Framework experience, I'm now seeing jobs and projects require at least an understanding of MVC, being more flexible as to not specify a framework. Or, they'll state they want knowledge of either Zend Framework, CakePHP, Symfony, or CodeIgniter, and right now I don't often see much else, but that may change.
So what I'd like to suggest is that we form a standards committee on PHP-based MVC Frameworks. Who more than us on DevNet -- the most popular PHP forum on the Internet -- could be in a position to do this? No one, in my opinion. The job of the standards committee is to specify a set of standards that are small at first so as not to hinder innovation in areas still rapidly changing, but yet latch on to great ideas and encourage new frameworks to use those great ideas.
For instance, here's a suggested standard:
Domain Task URLs (where applicable)
The PHP MVC framework must support at a minimum Domain Task URLs with ease if the framework is used for the web. Domain Task URLs look like:
http://mysite.com/my-domain-object/my-task/arg1/arg2/...
and this would translate to something very close to a physical file path of:
controllers/MyDomainObject/MyTask.php
and pass a variable amount of args to an array already loaded through a bootloader to the MyTask file. One merely needs to create a folder path and file and the URL routing from the front controller will automatically work. Other URLs should be possible, but the standard only specifies this common one.
On jobs and projects, whereas before I might have seen that they require only Zend Framework experience, I'm now seeing jobs and projects require at least an understanding of MVC, being more flexible as to not specify a framework. Or, they'll state they want knowledge of either Zend Framework, CakePHP, Symfony, or CodeIgniter, and right now I don't often see much else, but that may change.
So what I'd like to suggest is that we form a standards committee on PHP-based MVC Frameworks. Who more than us on DevNet -- the most popular PHP forum on the Internet -- could be in a position to do this? No one, in my opinion. The job of the standards committee is to specify a set of standards that are small at first so as not to hinder innovation in areas still rapidly changing, but yet latch on to great ideas and encourage new frameworks to use those great ideas.
For instance, here's a suggested standard:
Domain Task URLs (where applicable)
The PHP MVC framework must support at a minimum Domain Task URLs with ease if the framework is used for the web. Domain Task URLs look like:
http://mysite.com/my-domain-object/my-task/arg1/arg2/...
and this would translate to something very close to a physical file path of:
controllers/MyDomainObject/MyTask.php
and pass a variable amount of args to an array already loaded through a bootloader to the MyTask file. One merely needs to create a folder path and file and the URL routing from the front controller will automatically work. Other URLs should be possible, but the standard only specifies this common one.