My myphpbusters presentation on the symfony framework, as presented at PHPCon.it in Italia

2. myphp-busters:
symfony framework
PHPCon Italia
19-03-2009

3. Adam Savage

4. Jamie Hyneman

5. Stefan Koopmanschap

6. About me
• Professional Services Consultant at Ibuildings
• Husband, father of 2, slave of 6
• Symfony advocate
• Initiator of SymfonyCamp
• Founder of symfony-framework.nl
• Plugin author/maintainer

7. The myths:
symfony is...
• ... hard to learn
• ... extremely coupled
• ... not really programming, just configuration
• ... restrictive
• ... badly performing
• ... the ultimate tool

8. What I want to prove...
• symfony is not crap
• symfony fits in of pookey’s 10%

9. Pookey’s 10%

10. Pookey’s 10%
<pookey> PHP is a fucking filthy horrible language in
90% of usecases.

11. Pookey’s 10%
<pookey> PHP is a fucking filthy horrible language in
90% of usecases.
<pookey> I will back that up with NOTHING

12. Pookey’s 10%
<pookey> PHP is a fucking filthy horrible language in
90% of usecases.
<pookey> I will back that up with NOTHING
<pookey> but it's FACT

13. cc-by 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/shonk/418180402/
Symfony is hard to learn

14. Steep Learning Curve
• Full-stack
• MVC
• ORM
• YAML

15. Great documentation
• The Definitive Guide to
symfony
• Practical Symfony
• Propel Edition
• Doctrine Edition
• Various other languages

16. Great documentation
• Official books in digital
form
• Forms in Action
• symfony and Doctrine
• The Cookbook
• API documentation
• Tutorials & Screencasts

17. Community
• IRC: #symfony on
freenode
• Forum
• Mailinglists
• Wiki
• Snippets
• Blog posts
• Various local sites

18. Symfony is hard to learn
• Steep learning curve
• Great documentation (online and offline)
• Friendly and supportive community

19. Symfony is hard to learn
The Verdict

20. Symfony is hard to learn
The Verdict

21. cc-by 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/u-suke/138067687/
Symfony is extremely coupled

22. Perhaps in 1.0
• symfony was the glue between components
• ORM integrated in the core
• It was full-stack or nothing

23. by-nc-nd 3.0 http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2008/06/23/the-symfony-1-1-architecture
symfony platform

24. by-nc-nd 3.0 http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2008/06/23/the-symfony-1-1-architecture
platform and framework

25. Symfony is extremely coupled
by-nc-nd 3.0 http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2009/02/18/dailymotion-powered-by-symfony

26. Symfony is extremely coupled
• 1.0 had quite some coupling
• 1.1 introduced decoupling of the core: symfony
platform
• it is now possible to use core symfony classes
without symfony

27. Symfony is extremely coupled
The Verdict

28. Symfony is extremely coupled
The Verdict

29. symfony is not really programming, just
configuration

30. Just configuration is no fun

31. Programming should be fun
• No boring repetitive tasks
• No standard stuff you did 100 times before
• Write cool stuff
• Focus on the cool parts

32. Yes, there is configuration
• To minimize the boring tasks
• To ensure you don’t repeat yourself
• To enable you to concentrate on complex logic

33. So what is configured?
• database credentials
• caching
• access control (authorization and authentication)
• application specific values
• routing
• admin generator

34. So where do I touch code?
• Your custom complex business logic
• Application specific controller code
• View displays
• Custom administration tasks
• Your own libraries

35. symfony is not really programming, just
configuration
The Verdict

36. symfony is not really programming, just
configuration
The Verdict

37. by-nc-sa 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/two-wrongs/205467442/
symfony is restrictive

38. symfony is restrictive
• Default directory structure
• Default set of classes
• Default set of libraries
• ORM included

39. Default directory structure
• Easily change the most
important directory
locations:
• document root
• cache directory
• log directory
• You usually don’t need
to do this!

40. Default set of classes
• Default set offers most
common uses
• Easy to use your own
custom class using
configuration

41. Default set of libraries
• Default libraries
• lime (unit testing)
• prototype
• scriptaculous
• Dozens of plugins
• jquery, dojo, extjs, YUI
• PHPUnit

42. ORM included
• Propel is default
• Doctrine is distributed with symfony
• There is no need for an ORM

43. You can just disable both!

44. Hell, disable the database
• When you don’t use the
database
• Models approach web
services

45. symfony is restrictive
The Verdict

46. symfony is restrictive
The Verdict

47. Symfony is badly performing

48. Symfony doesn’t perform

49. Symfony doesn’t perform

50. Disclaimer:
No benchmarks!

52. by-sa 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattieb/131215442/

53. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Slow
• Hard on the server

54. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Overhead
• just like any framework
• tweak it the right way

55. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Select your caching strategy
• Page caching
• Function caching
• Query caching
• Supercache!

56. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Select your caching strategy
• Page caching
• Function caching
• Query caching
• Supercache!

57. Cache

58. Cache

59. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Turn off what you don’t need
• ORM
• Plugins
• Database
• Logging
• Helpers

60. Symfony doesn’t perform
• Don’t believe me!
• Yahoo! Answers
• Delicious.com
• DailyMotion.com

61. Symfony is badly performing
The Verdict

62. Symfony is badly performing
The Verdict

63. by-nc-nd 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandolux/34418046/
symfony is the ultimate tool

64. Symfony is the ultimate tool

65. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework

66. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC

67. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC
• automation of common tasks

68. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC
• automation of common tasks
• supports agile approach

69. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC
• automation of common tasks
• supports agile approach
• MIT license

70. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC
• automation of common tasks
• supports agile approach
• MIT license
• DRY

71. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• full-stack framework
• based on MVC
• automation of common tasks
• supports agile approach
• MIT license
• DRY
• All the buzzwords

72. Symfony is the ultimate tool

73. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• Learning curve is more steep

74. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• Learning curve is more steep
• Has to fit your project

75. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• Learning curve is more steep
• Has to fit your project
• Has to fit your project team

76. Symfony is the ultimate tool
• Learning curve is more steep
• Has to fit your project
• Has to fit your project team
• There is no single ultimate tool

77. symfony is the ultimate tool
The Verdict

78. symfony is the ultimate tool
The Verdict

79. Reference
• http://www.symfony-project.org/doc/
• http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2008/06/23/
the-symfony-1-1-architecture
• http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2009/02/18/
dailymotion-powered-by-symfony
• http://www.symfony-framework.nl/

80. Questions?
• http://joind.in/233
• http://www.leftontheweb.com/
• http://www.twitter.com/skoop
• http://www.ibuildings.com/
• http://www.slideshare.net/skoop