CodeIgniter

    jason @arlo_j yeah, it doesn't generate your html templates, so you have full control over styles. We built a site for the architect firm morphosis on symfony: http://morphopedia.com

    As for the backend, it's easy to style and integrate ajax, and it feels very modern.

    Added 2009-11-13 11:02:49. In reply to arlo_j
    Reply
    staydecent Recess Framework also has code generation. And I believe Doctrine(an ORM) as well. Doctrine, you need command-line access tho(I think). I would believe Development time would increase with code generation, and maybe even performance: Code generated by a Framework should be optimized for that framework(but maybe not for the DB).

    The possible downside is maintenance. You'd either be regenerating or managing the generated code manually. So that should be accounted for. I think if you have a really good form class, creating the back-end interfaces wouldn't be so time-consuming, not as fast as generated code, but this way you have total control, and maintainability should be higher.

    My problem, is the frameworks that come with code-generators have too much overhead, and in my tests don't bootstrap nearly as fast as CodeIgniter.

    Added 2009-11-12 15:19:27.
    Reply
    arlo_j Just watched the tutorial video on Symfony; looks really easy to generate a CMS- but the visuals look straight out of 1994. Is it written clearly enough for good styling?
    Added 2009-11-12 14:15:50.
    Reply
    jason CI is a good way to learn the MVC design patterns, but you'll outgrow it really fast. If you want to make a content management system for your site, you'd have to do it all manually with CI, or hack up some CI plug-in. I suggest diving into symfony, which has an awesome cms generator that's based off your model.
    Added 2009-11-11 20:44:54.
    Reply
    arlo_j I have a bit of experience with CI writing a CMS for a project. I usually do Actionscript so the way PHP works is a bit to get my head around. So far so good; I haven't had to hack any libraries yet.

    I do like the MVC structure, especially with web projects when databases are involved. The background dealings of variables/arrays/etc in CI are really handy. The form validation especially!

    Added 2009-11-10 14:00:51.
    Reply
    staydecent Noticed @suprb and some others mention they use CodeIgniter(CI) for developing.
    CI is fast, that's its merit. But the ORM(ActiveRecord) is pretty lame as SQL is understandable and chaining methods to avoid that doesn't make sense to me.

    The big question for me is, how do you find the included libraries? so for @suprb, do you use the included libraries/classes very much for dropular, this site and whatever else? And to anyone else?
    I have in almost all cases, had to extend, refactor, or hack up the libraries to do what I want.

    If for nothing else, feel free to share your general experience with CI too...

    Added 2009-11-09 14:37:13.
    Reply