I have had a busy week, hence the reason posting is down. In what little spare time I have had, I have begun playing with Zend Framework.

If you are familiar with Ruby-On-Rails, then Zend Framework will seem vaguely familiar. The release of a production version of Zend Framework on July 2, 2007 got me interested in taking it seriously. So I downloaded a copy, attended the introduction webinar and started coding.

If you are like me, reading endless hours of class documentation is only helpful once you understand the basics of the product so I started searching for some overview tutorials. This is where the infancy of the effort begins to hit you. Yes, there are a number of tutorials and overviews, but you will varying degrees of success with them because the released version and the documented versions may not coincide. Aside from the webinar, I found two tutorials the most helpful: Zend_Controller Quick Start and Getting Started with the Zend Framework. Neither of these tutorials worked for me as written. I am still playing with it to determine if it is my specific install or their version of Zend Framework and mine are slightly different. But with a little modification of the instructions you can be up and running quickly.

If you have had a taste of Ruby-On-Rails you will find that the Zend Framework is like an infant sibling. I see the potential from the Zend Framework when it grows up, but right now its like a child with no expectations of it. By that I mean, they suggest a directory structure, but don’t expect one. They expect an MVC paradigm, but it will function just as well without it.

Another thing you will find missing is tools to make routine tasks easier, like a generate script to generate and stub out your controllers or views. It’s this lack of polish that makes me wonder if it is ready of prime time. And don’t get me started on object oriented PHP which lacks the real elegance of Ruby.

All-in-all I am please with what they have done so far and eagerly await the polish that is sure to come. If you are like me and switching your entire company from PHP to Ruby-On_Rails is a task that seems virtually insurmountable the Zend Framework is a very good alternative.

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